"ADN Galeria presents Light & Fire, the first solo show by mounir fatmi in Spain. The exhibition brings together a series of works that explore the basis of history and society expressed through the written word and in various forms of language: religious, political, ideological and literary. The title’s ambiguity positions us ahead of these two elements paradox: light and fire. Since Platon's cave myth, these elements are the source of our civilization but have also become the cause of its destruction.
The exhibition begins with the impressive installation Without History (2007), consisting of 29 jumping poles strategically spread all over the entrance floor and in which there are inscribed quotations from the book The Art of War, by the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. fatmi often appeals to these objects in diverse installations and sculptures, which are translated as obstacles, stating that, above all, the obstacle is like an art work: fragile, unstable, vulnerable and always threatened by possible collapse.
Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, Albert Camus, Michel Foucault are the builders names of modern and post-modern thinking that appear in The Monuments (2008-2009). Their names inscribed on these construction helmets, spotless, suggest us the idea of construction linked to the concept of the artist as producer and the idea of hard but fragile work; not only do we find this parallelism, but also the suggestion of something that is "under construction", in other words, something that is in perpetual construction, reconstruction or deconstruction. And this brings us to the thinking essence, the feeling of curiosity, to rethink, to constantly question the human condition. This installation reminds us that we are allowed to think, express, speak, listen to and read.
mounir fatmi encourages the visitors to question the history and violence involved in his writing and research. The works presented at ADN Galeria evoke recurring subjects for the artist, such as the border, the object desecration, the role of language and the writing. There is no doubt that beyond his subversive works is both the desire to understand the world in which we live and release it from any indoctrination form. "
