The performative action NN is based on the "Decree Night and Fog" or "Decree Nacht und Nebel" of Hitler, or also "Decree NN", in reference to its particular way of operating and in the application of practices of forced disappearance of people , foundation of the sinister Operation Condor carried out by the dictators of the Southern Cone, charging more than 50 thousand victims in Latin America, one of its main protagonists being the Chilean tyrant Augusto Pinochet.
My work in general is based on pointing out the mechanisms of power and, in this particular action, wanted to symbolically bury in the driest and loneliest place on earth, which is in fact the perfect cemetery for the precariousness of life in the desert, the military insignia that speak of honor and courage, but that are simply symbols of death and pain.
The medals and their bars are awarded for courses in the improvement of killing and war operations. It is strange for me that death and suffering are symbolized through color in these decorations, so as an artist I decided to represent them to destroy them as an act of memory and forgetfulness. It was an act of atonement through art over death. However, something strange happened, because when painting the badges I found a harmony, delicate and beautiful, in the sequence of colors that has given me a new path for my pictorial work. It was a metamorphosis of the initial sense of action toward a more universal purpose and illumination of existence over the realm of darkness and darkness.
The artist works with light (the colors come from it) and his task is to preserve it, to keep the burning flame of life on the sinister territory of death. It was to snatch the most precious symbol of the victor, of the tyrant, represented in each bar of decoration, of arrogance over the life of others; and, on the flag of the participating countries, destroy it and condemn it to oblivion with its burial.
The NN performance was also a test of resistance to power, of defiance of its cruelty, of historical revenge for those thousands of victims who were tortured and disappeared, and above all by that multitude of voices of silence asking to manifest themselves in the face of ignominy and destruction. Personally, it was also a test of resistance to the adverse conditions of the geographical, political and social terrain; as well as a test of detachment and loyalty to the purpose of the action, since it consisted of destroying the work of hundreds of hours, after the working day and taking time away from the night and rest.
When I heard the testimonies of the survivors and their families in the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile, I had the absolute certainty of doing what was due, despite the incorrect political nature of the action in the country that welcomed me.
Luis Fernando Arango
(Colombia)
ES