MANIFESTO

I. THE MONUMENT

Who deserves to be remembered — and who decides?

Monuments do not merely preserve significance. They also create it.

BRUTALISSANCE creates monuments for people who never existed, granting them the dignity and visibility traditionally associated with historical figures.

Placed in public space, these invented individuals acquire a presence beyond their portraits. Their monumental appearance suggests historical significance without guaranteeing recognition.

II. THE HUMAN

Who are we, beyond what others see?

Every face invites judgment. Every life contains more than a face can reveal.

Each fictional narrative adds another dimension to the portrait, introducing choices and contradictions that appearance alone cannot disclose.

The portrait stands on its own. The narrative stands on its own. Together, they transform how each is perceived.

The person is fictional. The human condition is real.

III. THE LANGUAGE

Renaissance portraiture served many purposes, but commissioned portraits frequently expressed wealth, status and the desire to be remembered.

BRUTALISSANCE adopts this visual language for individuals who never existed.

The images emerge through artistic direction, generative processes, digital intervention and deliberate revision. Artificial intelligence is among the tools employed in their creation. The artistic decisions, narratives and final forms remain under the artist’s direction.

The portraits acquire their monumental presence through scale, architecture and placement in public space.

Brutalist architecture confronts the individual portrait with exposed concrete, monumental structures and spaces often shaped by collective or institutional purposes.

The apparent permanence of the architecture stands against the temporary presence of the portrait.

The architecture remains. The portrait may disappear. The person was never there.

IV. THE PRESENCE

A monument suggests permanence. BRUTALISSANCE challenges that suggestion through three forms of public intervention.

PROJECTION — DISAPPEARANCE

Light grants a figure temporary monumental presence. When the projection ends, the figure vanishes.

PASTE-UP — DECAY

Paper exposes the portrait to weather, damage and gradual transformation.

MURAL — ENDURANCE

Paint becomes part of the architecture, resisting disappearance without escaping it.

Each location is chosen for its relationship to the work. Architecture and surroundings contribute to its meaning.

The archive documents these encounters and their transformations.

Documentation preserves traces of the encounter, but cannot reproduce its presence.

V. THE AUTHORITY

Every monument is an act of selection.

The artist invents the person, constructs their history and grants them monumental presence, exercising the very authority the work questions.

BRUTALISSANCE questions our trust in the authority of monumental representation.

Where does representation become influence? Where does influence become manipulation?

The artist deliberately creates the conditions in which appearance may be mistaken for historical significance.

The figures may appear historical, but their fictional nature is openly acknowledged in the archive. No historical evidence is fabricated, and no institutional endorsement is claimed.

The artist controls the representation, but not its interpretation.

The illusion of authority is part of the work. The fabrication of historical truth is not.

VI. THE QUESTION

Can the act of creating a monument make us believe there was a reason for it?

There is an order to these works that remains undisclosed.

Who are we, beyond what others see?

Who deserves to be remembered — and who decides?

BRUTALISSANCE uses the authority of monuments to question the authority of monuments.

Including its own.