Distributed Monument 46
From Watershed Moment, Lyndhurst, U.S.A.
Dust transferred onto a latex cast and stretched on canvas
2020
29x 29 inches
Distributed Monuments is a body of work made of dust transferred from monuments onto latex casts and enclosed in lightboxes or canvas.
Meant to be moved out of context, Distributed Monuments return the dust to the world from where it once came. Like the dust they contain, Distributed Monuments are bound to their uncertain place of destination.
The idea for Distributed Monuments came to life while Otero-Pailos was performing site-specific interventions on historical monuments, as part of his ongoing, decade-long investigative series of works called The Ethics of Dust. Early Distributed Monuments were made as tests in preparation for larger casts created for The Ethics of Dust. But while The Ethics of Dust gave primacy to the in-situ monument over the dust, Otero-Pailos soon realized that Distributed Monuments placed emphasis on the ex-situ mobility of dust over the monument, thus inviting us to think about the lifecycle of dust differently.
