LUGAR : MANHATTAN

The object that stars in this project was found in the Soho neighborhood of Manhattan. It was a gray and very rainy day, there were almost no people on the street. The guide was lying on the last flight of stairs of one of those typical 4-story buildings with the fire escapes on the outside.

Wide open, wet from the rain, it had an endearing effect on me. I knew I would never be of any use to anyone anymore and automatically many words came to my mind at that moment. Words that I will list and to which I would later attach meaning.

I had the impulse to save it. To preserve it and pay attention to it. To take care of it and capture it as it was found. A sensitive provocation to continue exploring its interior until discovering its hidden parts. It was a unique object, deteriorated and forgotten. A simple wet telephone directory thrown in the street. However, from an artist's point of view, that phone book was much more and, as such, I allowed myself, out of pure satisfaction, to do something with it, to intervene. It was the beginning of a close relationship to make something inanimate immortal, to restore the fortune to what has had an unfortunate life. Because no one has noticed to contemplate its beauty even if it has become something forgotten.

This project invites us to reflect on the attachment we have to people and things as opposed to oblivion. Of beauty as an abstract notion that fights against the transience of time. Of the artist's action to immortalize what is already dead in order to make it immortal.