Renato Nicolodi
A MONUMENT FOR MEMORY
he builds the project. In his project for
Fafade 2012 he cooperated with art acad
emy students from the south of the Neth
erlands and Flanders. Together with them
he wants to transform the site of the pro
ject, but only for a limited period of time.
The collection of the building materials,
the construction, and the eventual demol-
ishment, are as important to Kawamata
as is the actual product. This approach is
in line with how the structure comes to
being. It is not completely developed on
the drawing table; instead it grows accord
ing to a day-by-day changing reality. This
breaks with architectonic conventions.
Kawamata's architecture connects the
outside and inside, past and present, and
man and his changing environment in a
fluent way.
His installations are an ongoing pro
cess which brings together a social inter
action, the special character of a place,
and memory, in a temporary image made
specifically for that one site. If it is your
intention to intervene in the human envi
ronment for such a short length of time,
it is obvious to use wood, which is by
nature in a constant state of flux.
If we want to know were we are going, we
have to know were we come from. It is
memory that shows us the way between
then and later, and Renato Nicolodi's
artistry is all about that way. On the man
telpiece in his living room he has placed
faded pictures and in memoriam cards in
a seemingly random fashion. It is a devo
tional altar. One of the pictures shows a
marksman at a funfair shooting-gallery,
just about to 'shoot' the biggest prize of
his life. He is in the company of his wife
and son, and people waiting for their
turn. It is a common photo taken at the
fair, and is a longstanding tradition in
the Nicolodi family; from grandfather to
father to son. Such a collection reveals
what is often hidden, namely the passing
of time, the things that disappear and
those remembered. At the same time
we observe the continuity of things that
escape temporality and will forever be the
same.
Nicolodi designs architectonic forms
that are an image of memory and want
to reflect on human existence. He started
by making concrete casts of bunker walls.
