Unmonument | Luz Massacre

Unmonument (Monumento Nenhum) and Luz Massacre (Chacina da Luz) are two artworks by Giselle Beiguelman. Both discuss the loss of memory of public space and the city of São Paulo relationship with its historical and cultural heritage. Built with fragments of columns, pedestals, and statues fragments, the installations reproduce the pieces' situation, as found in the storage of monuments of the Department of Historical Heritage of the city of Sao Paulo (Departamento do Patrimônio Histórico, DPH). Carried out simultaneously, in 2019, at Beco do Pinto (Pinto's Alley), and at the Solar da Marquesa de Santos (Manor of the Marquise of Santos), they are a kind of "ready-made of oblivion." Despite their differences, both artistic works invert the role of art in the field of public policies on memory. Instead of being its object, the art here thinks about these policies, suggesting a debate about the social production of the aesthetics of memory and forgetfulness in the public space. In this sense, they refer to what Jorge Otero-Pailos defines as experimental preservation: a commitment to the social negotiation of memory and not the conservation of the goods themselves. A practice that points to the present instead of restoring mythical pasts, deeply marked by colonialism's inheritances.