This building, an 1940's concrete water tank, is a very good example of banal urban object with no pretence, it is technical and useful. It is the kind of structure we stopped looking at because it is not labelled as worthy, it's just a water tower. But what a water tower and what a setting for it.
The installation intends to make us look again, not at an artwork on the side of a building but enjoy and appreciate this emblematic and impressive structure.
By covering the legs of the water tower in mirrors, the big mass of concrete seems to hover, creating a disturbing and uncomfortable vision of the building, this technical construction doesn't appear to fulfil its structural function anymore.
For a period of time the depósito elevado became an event. Previously just part of our everyday peripheral observation, it acquired a new existence through memory and imagination once the event has passed.
«Life itself has summoned into being this poetic deity which thousands will pass blindly by, but which suddenly become palpable and terribly haunting for those who have at last caught a confused glimpse of it.»
Louis Aragon, Paris Peasant.
Commissioned by Madrid Abierto 05, first edition of the public art programme of Madrid Art fair.
Madrid Abierto
Fundacion Canal
British Arts Council
