Ladron Galeria, Mexico City

April 4 - March 4, 2017

 

 

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Damnatio memoriae, or condemnation of memory, was a punishment conceived by the Ancient Romans, to dishonor a convicted criminal. Erased from existence, the punishment called for the destruction
of any aggrandizing attributes, including monuments, statues, documents, portraits, and coinage of said convict. In the act of erasure, the criminal’s hope for a lasting legacy is expunged from the face of the earth.

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As long as it disappears is an exhibition about memory in time and time in memory; and thus, the forgetfulness that frames our historical condition. In the act of damnatio memoria, each artwork will renounce its own existence in a different way — some of them leaving a trace behind, some of them disappearing completely — in order to ponder the abuses of memory, oblivion and the ways history may be translated, archived and commemorated.

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The process of renunciation, the creation of actions, the construction of language, the accumulation of capital, and the relationship
with the virtual world — the intermediate gaps between these narratives, along with time, generate disparate links between memory and history that dominate modes of production, dissemination, historicization and, by extension, the ability to envisage the future.

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The exhibition is structured as a vanishing act where each artwork disappears throughout its time at Ladrón Galeria. The experimental format aims to reflect on memory, how it is registered, archived, stored and revived, and how memory becomes history. Each work will leave a trace in time, as it is in oblivion that history is constructed. The exhibition, rather than ensuring its permanence, seeks to remember something lost, for the construction of narratives will only continue as long as they disappear.