Please join us for the launch of Smashing Monuments by Sebastián Díaz Morales. The afternoon will include a discussion between film maker, writer and researcher, Luciano Piazza and the artist, followed by the opening of the exhibition and an opportunity to watch the film.
2-3pm: In conversation: Sebastián Díaz Morales and Luciano Piazza
3-4pm: Opportunity to watch Smashing Monuments and enjoy refreshments.
Smashing Monuments explores the relationships we have with urban monuments. Created by artist and filmmaker Sebastián Díaz Morales for documenta fifteen, the film follows five members of the Indonesian art collective ruangrupa as they walk the streets of Jakarta, pausing to engage in one-sided conversations with the monuments that populate their city.
Sebastián and Luciano will discuss how urban developments, along with the passage of time, impact our everyday relationships with the monuments around us. Both Sebastián and Luciano have worked with ruangrupa in the past, so will each bring their individual insights into the collective’s creative practice, and shed light on some of the deeper contexts behind the film. Additionally, Luciano has spent time living in Edinburgh, so will bring local insight to the discussion.
Luciano will also contribute a new short essay to accompany the exhibition.
Free tickets for the in conversation event can be reserved here.
Sebastián Díaz Morales
Sebastián Díaz Morales' work has been exhibited widely at venues such as the Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou; Stedelijk Museum and De Appel, Amsterdam; Le Fresnoy, Roubaix; CAC, Vilnius; Art in General, New York City; Ludwig Museum, Budapest; Biennale Sao Pablo; Biennale of Sydney; Miro Foundation, Barcelona; MUDAM, Luxemburg; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; the Biennale di Venezia and documenta fifteen.
His works can be found at the collections of the Centre Pompidou; Tate Modern; Fundación Jumex, Mexico; Sandretto Foundation, Torino; Lemaître's collection; Constantini collection, Buenos Aires; Pinault Foundation, Paris; Sammlung-Goetz, Munich; and the Fundacion de Arte Moderna, Museo Berardo, Lisbon between others.
In 2009 he was awarded with a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Luciano Piazza
Luciano Piazza (he/him) is an Argentine-born artist, researcher and educator who works at the intersection of filmmaking, curation and writing.
Luciano studied Cultural Studies at the University of Buenos Aires, Creative Writing at New York University and Film and Video at CalArts. His practice-led research explores the distribution of the sensible, the spectacle of the mundane, and how technologies and narratives from the Global North are adapted and appropriated by the Global South.
In his film essays, Luciano experiments with found footage, analogue and digital media. He was the co-editor and co-curator (with Jesse Lerner) of Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America, published by the University of California Press, Los Angeles Filmforum’s contribution to Getty’s Pacific Standard Time LA/LA.