Watered down modernity. Iconoclastic fluids in Alexander Apóstol’s archival mediations

Abstract

Since 2000, Alexander Apóstol has used photography, video and digital interventions to interrogate the legacy of modernist architecture in Venezuela. This interview examines the strategic leitmotif of water in two key works —Fontainebleau and El Helicoide (see above)— to consider its anarchival deployment as an iconoclastic or cannibalistic force, whose monumental fluidity and inexorable temporality signal a critical “watering down” of the scenographies of modernization promoted by the military governments of the mid-twentieth century. The dialogue unpacks the specific concept of anarchival destruction while also serving as a platform for broader considerations of how the archive is mobilised as a mechanism for stimulating memory and commemoration of the 1950s in Venezuela.