Lagomarsino, Runo

Born 1977, Argentina
Lives in Malmö, Sweden and New York

IN THE GALLERY

Casi Quasi Cinema, 2006

On the temporary worktable sits a model movie theater. Looming over it, projecting a text against the miniature movie screen, is a slide projector. The text reads,

“How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sounds familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film.”

No film ensues, the slide does not surrender to a successor slide—the little cinema features this one lonely frame. Distributed by the Directorate for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict at the Pentagon in 2003, the text stems from a flier advertising a screening of the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers. The film was shown within weeks of President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech proclaiming the end of “major hostilities” in Iraq. Casi Quasi Cinema’s aesthetics are not coincidental: popular culture and the mass media form the terrain for the “battle of ideas” and the branding of democracy. That The Battle of Algiers is an important staple in alternative film circles implies that “high” culture may have a role to play after all.

If You Don’t Know What the South Is, It’s Simply Because You Are From the North, 2008

New work, commissioned by Parsons for "OURS"

Lagomarsino’s site-specific piece is a phrase divided in two parts, installed in the bridged gap that exposes the white box gallery’s ceiling and walls as theatrical gestures by revealing the rough infrastructure of the building behind. The text reads, IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THE SOUTH IS [left wall] ITS SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU ARE FROM THE NORTH [right wall].

Taking as point of departure the assumption that communal spaces such as nations work simultaneously as forms of inclusion but also of exclusion, Lagomarsino works in the space between universalism and the post-colonial realities defining the present day. This in-between space is home to classifications and discriminations, but also to potentiality and other forms of discourse of democracy and participation. In the exhibition, that in-between space quite literally frames all other works.

CHARRETTES

Friday, November 7
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery
Charrette with Runo Lagomarsino and Parsons class: 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Presentation: 6:30 – 8:00 p.m.
Both events open to the public

The aim of this charrette is to explore the dynamics of identifying and naming art production through the opposition of “the North” with “the South.” Participants are invited to create not works of art, but a fictional artist as means to achieve a position to speak from. In particular, the charrette explores the position of an artist to be both actor and symbol in discourses on nationhood, “race,” belonging, and politics. The intersection of these discourses with art production will serve as an analytical lens through which to consider the nature and extent of social change regarding old and new forms of exclusion, and the ways in which these are created, represented, and potentially countered.

In the evening, at 6:30 p.m., the discussion between artist, teacher and students will be followed by an introduction to The Artist created in the charrette.

This charrette is hosted by Parsons faculty member Anthony Aziz.