La Plaza del Chafleo
Film, 15’09’’, 2019

From January 1 to 31, 2021.

This films is a proposal of an imaginary public square that would be named after the verb “to chaffle” which is, as well, an imaginary verb, a neologism. The idea is to propose as monument for this square a new verb that would take sense slowly depending the way people use the place ; for example if people come to kiss, “to chaffle” would mean “kissing”, if people come to make protest, “to chaffle” would mean “to protest”. The film then starts speculating about what could possible be “to chaffle”, and through this it generates different questions about how we use symbolically and physically the public space.

The film makes some jumps in time and space. It’s partly shoot in a studio in a sort or reconstituted garden where many actions with parts of bodies and built objects, sculptures and furniture take places. It also goes to a public square in Douala Cameroon and comments how the word “Cameroon” lost its sense in between different colonisation periods. There are also interventions made in public spaces in Buenos Aires, such as filling back with 15000 litters of water an empty public fountain named Poetry Fountain, left abandoned by the government wight years ago. In other point the film shows a documentation of a children protest that was organized first as a workshop.

The elasticity of the film makes of it a tool that is used here not only to generate questions and thoughts, but also interventions, collaboratives experiences with groups and workshops.

Iván Argote
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1983
Lives and works in Paris, France

He studied Graphic Design and Film at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, specializing in photography and new media. He completed an MFA at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (ENSBA).

Iván Argote is an artist and director. Through his sculptures, installations, videos, and interventions, he questions our intimate relationship with others, institutions, power, and belief systems. He develops strategies based on tenderness, affection, and humor, through which he suggests critical approaches to dominant historical narratives and seeks to decentralize them. In his monument interventions, large-scale installations, and performances, Iván Argote proposes new symbolic uses of public space.

He has received the CIFO Cisneros Fontanals Foundation Award (2015), the Audi Talents Award (2013), and the Sam Art Projects Award (2011). He was also nominated for the Future Generation Art Prize at the PinchukArtCentre (2017).

His work is part of many prestigious collections worldwide, including the Guggenheim Museum (New York, USA), Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), ASU Art Museum (Phoenix, USA), Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (Miami, USA), Banco de la República Art Collection (Bogotá, Colombia), Kadist (San Francisco, USA), and MACBA (Barcelona, Spain), among others.

His films and videos have been screened at the International Film Festival (Rotterdam, Netherlands), MACRO (Rome, Italy), FID (Marseille, France), ICA (London, UK), LAXART (Los Angeles, USA), and South London Gallery (London, UK).