What is the potential of a city like Porto Alegre? Ambitious monuments have been created, commemorating or intended to commemorate men, heroes, and events, that to us as descendants are a real challenge. But a challenge in what? The metal plates that once indicated what and who the monument was about, are for the most part now missing. Has memory disappeared along with them?
Are achievements such as the participatory household project that was devised here or the World Social Forum that began in 2001, both of which have deeply inscribed themselves in the memory of the entire world, better forgotten in the gaúcho capital?
In a temporary intervention lasting roughly half a year, the vacant spaces, where descriptive text plates have disappeared from the plinths, were filled with substitute images: monotypes printed on paper and cast in resin. They cover up the stones’ injuries and refer at the same time to the great tradition of the gaúchos.
Within the context of a concurrent solo exhibition on Ottjörg A.C. in the federal state museum, Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul (MARGS), in which, among other things, prints from the foundation piles of the Imperial Palace in Berlin were exhibited, questions arise concerning memory, memorial culture, and the deeds of heroes.