Rome

The work was commissioned for the art space Volume! in Rome where it was shown in September 2003. Volume! provides a space which can be left rough or transformed by the artist to suit their work. Garaicoa describes the space as ‘very old and beautiful architecture’. He chose to use the rough feel of the building, embedding the light boxes in the walls so that only the images were visible. Garaicoa often uses the small scale of his objects to create intimacy in his theatrical settings. As visitors entered the installation the first elements they discovered were the small back-lit photographs of the ruined cinemas, being drawn by the light to the space which housed the model. Floor lights similar to those found in a cinema, spilled through the bottom edges of the old cavity walls, creating dramatic lighting around the model which was placed in a red carpeted room. Garaicoa has said that these devices made the entrance to the installation more theatrical. This theatrical style of presentation has been described by the curator Tanya Barson as a ‘mis-en-scène approach to art’.