Introduction
The Danish-Argentinean artist couple Thyra Hilden & Pio
Diaz destabilize European cultural history by setting
building and monuments on fire.
The duo set the monuments of western cultural history on
fire in their joint and ongoing video project “City on
Fire.” With their seductive and spectacular artistic
gesture, they reveal the fragile and transitory nature of
these man-made constructions, and thereby destabilize
prevailing order. The old monuments serve as weighty
expressions for western culture and identity, and have to a
certain extent functioned as templates for later
constructions in cultural history. As such they constitute
a physical foundation for western self-understanding, which
the two artists unpack and recast in their edgy work.
City on Fire first came into being in 2005 when artists
Thyra Hilden and Pio Diaz created their first installations
in Rome. From the outset, it was the artists´ intention to
re-create the installation at other venues of great
symbolic significance in the Western world. Still, the
symbolic value of Rome as the first site was particularly
important to Hilden and Diaz.
Aesthetic manifest
The subtitle of the project is ‘Burning the Roots of
Western Culture’ and even if City on Fire is not a
political instrument – rather it is an aesthetic manifest –
the very substance of the work holds the desire to
highlight the roots of Western culture and the destruction
connected with it. A destruction that we still witness
today.
City on Fire is a ‘site specific’ monumental art
installation. In line with the well-known works of Christo
and Jeanne-Claude, it reflects on subjects that are
essential to our culture and understanding of the same. And
it draws on various aspects of our common cultural
awareness and inheritance.
Reflection
The installation has been created specifically in such a
way that it involves its audience in a very powerful
emotional sense. All movements, actions and sounds in and
around the building in question remain un-changed,
unaffected, creating a strong contrast with the
installation’s visual drama. This contrast will create a
surreal dialogue between fire/installation/audience, which
will encourage and provoke reflection. The fictive fire
ignites the burning question: Shall I walk through fire? A
question that reminds us that all people, even in their own
pronounced and quiet privacy, have fires to cross. We also
ask ourselves if we actually see the fire burning? And
consequently if we see the fires burning in the world that
surrounds us, or if war and destruction have become merely
volatile images, that burn away on the retina as soon as we
turn off the television or the computer? The great question
posed by the fictive fire is if humans are truly strong,
heroic creatures, capable of creating and recreating all
that other forces destroy? Or if we ourselves represent
destruction – and therefore are unable to rebuild?
The artistic strength of the project lies in this double
nature: it is an aesthetic work of art that is not by
itself a political manifest. But because of the aesthetic
work of art’s inherent qualities it forces its audience to
take a stand in the face of the essential questions that
arise from the composition of the work, stands of a
personal and political character. Shedding new light on
‘old’ surroundings the project inspires us to think about
the world we live in.
Visions
CoF wants to create a project that allows art to reach
beyond itself and into reality to leave a mark in
(art)history. This is achieved by letting the installations
take place in public space rather than inside a museum
allowing the aesthetic expression to reflect the great
questions and agonies of reality. The vision of CoF is to
use the aesthetic expression to create a focus on our
destructive actions towards others, rather than the
destructive actions done against us – the latter are more
often than not the ones that a highlighted the most in
politics and in the news.
It is the pronounced wish of the artists to make an art
work that will inspire its audience to reflect on the world
we live in: what it is like and how it has become that way.