SANTIAGO SIERRA: FARDO DE 1000 X 400 X 250
– Fardo de 1000 x 400 x 250 cm by Santiago Sierra, at the ART&IDEA gallery, Mexico City, 1997
Mexico City, April 17 – May 9, 1997
Fardo de 1000 x 400 x 250 cm (1000 x 400 x 250 cm bundle), Santiago Sierra’s first solo show in a gallery space, consisted of a shapeless cluster of cardboard packaging, plastic bags, canvases from wrecked trucks and different types of inorganic garbage strapped to the façade of the nineteenth-century building housing Art&Idea.
Like the eclectic commercial street below, Fardo lacked planning and developed according to necessity. A jungle of ropes inside the gallery secured the bundle to the façade, running across rooms and fastened to every possible improvised mooring (knobs, columns, nails on the walls). Notwithstanding the careful embrace of edifice and artwork, Fardo might have given the impression that the building is under repair or that something was being moved in or out – that is, until neighbors realized otherwise and protests forced the piece to come down.
Photos © Wolfgang Thaler