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déformé
déformé (2013) is the first self-destructive installation of the -formé series. Seven large-scale portraits of the magistrates of Colombia's Supreme Court of Justice who signed the 2012 arrest order against the artist's father stand in a twelve-square-metre parallelogram: the dimensions of the cell where his father was held. Each portrait is a mosaic of 4,800 images, pinned by hand: video frames of the family's home destroyed during the 2001 attack, photographs of that same cell, and photographs of the family home at the time of the arrest. Over the course of the exhibition, a machine methodically destroys each portrait.
Portraits of the series
"Placed in our hands by mistake, the deconstruction of reality should be the work of the absolute, for the destruction of spatiality means the end of the individual. Projectiles of fire, paper and words are machine-gunned by groups that hold weapons, laws and the media. This series will present those who, by firing these projectiles, remind us of our insignificant nature. Our destroyed reality will compose their faces, to remind them that we are all equal, that they too will one day become dust." (Paolo Almario, 2013)
"[...] To metaphorically transpose this state of confinement, a blinding light switches on when a visitor steps inside the parallelogram. A harsh light, like the lighting of interrogation rooms, the light of judgment. And the visitor finds themselves at the centre, crushed by these expressionless gazes, as if in a double position: that of the judge, and of the one upon whom the verdict will fall." (Véronique Villeneuve, Paolo Almario: Engagement, 2017)
"[...] Autobiographical, Paolo Almario's installation presents us his reality. Bluntly. Mercilessly. [...] It is the dull noise of a machine that will pronounce its verdict. Each portrait [...] awaits its end without knowing it. The machine, perhaps the artist's arm, astonishing in its speed and power, will conscientiously destroy each portrait over 10 hours [...]" (Charlotte Moreau De la Fuente, déformé: An Angry Man, 2015)
History caught up with the portraits. Two of the seven magistrates, José Leonidas Bustos and Gustavo Malo, were later convicted in the "cartel de la toga" judicial corruption scandal. In 2018, the same seven faces returned, rebuilt in jam labels, in Marmelade: The Supreme. For the artist, déformé was the first verdict: everything that followed only confirmed it.
