another day Ok
Miguel Monroy
Blueprints for a renewed relationship between the Americas
This series of blueprints imagine projects of renovation, renaming and restoration. The selected objects including boats, buildings, and public spaces symbolize the history of the important relationship between the United States and Latin America. These pieces acknowledge the violent history towards democratic governments that have been removed by U.S.-instigated military coups in order to install dictatorial regimes and avoid the establishment of communism in such countries. This violence has brought instability and genocide, affecting the region to this day.
Blueprint for the renovation of the Cuban Revolution Party Headquarters, The Camilo Cienfuegos Tower. (Formerly The Hoover Tower)
2018
Cyanotype
24X36
Blueprint for the renovation of the
USS President Salvador Allende Peace Mission Carrier.
2020
Cyanotype
36X24
Henry Kissinger Plaque at Mathildestraße at the downtown of Fürth, Germany his birthplace.
Henry Kissinger 
Blueprint for the addition of a new plaque to the existing Henry Kissinger Plaque in the city of Fürth, Germany
2020
Cyanotype
36x24
Translation from the german from the added plaque.
In 1973 Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize for the armistice in the Vietnam War. He refused to return the price, although the war started again later.
He instigated systematic genocides in various Latin American countries by establishing fascist dictatorships derived from the Condor plan.Translation to German: Carolina Alba
Karla Centeno questions to Miguel Monroy about his work on another day Ok.
KC. You seem to play with absurdism a lot in your work. ¿Why?
MM. I am deeply interested in the absurd as a theme and as a way of work. I think absurdism provokes situations where we can watch what happens in our daily life with a fresh perspective. It is like a joke, its ending is funny because it is unexpected and bends the logic we use on our quotidian life.
KC. Your work deals with deception. It deals with trickery. What about these concepts attract you?
MM. Some years ago, for an older project, I learned how to do magic tricks. Even though I am not able to do any magic tricks today, some of that knowledge has permeated recent works where I use tricks or half-truth situations. I am also attracted to the apocryphal quotes in the writings of Jorge Luis Borges or with Stanislav Lem's Perfect Vaccum where they quote nonexistent references.
KC. You travel a lot. Does location inform your art? If yes, how?
MM. The work I am presenting here deals specifically with the relationship between the USA and Latin America. Since coming to the USA, I was amazed at how different it was to experience the American culture compared to what I was expecting it to be. Usually in Latin American countries, or at least in Mexico, we used to constantly look up to the USA and Europe in terms of culture and innovative thinking. This work is an attempt to see back to Latin American countries and try to acknowledge the history of this relationship.
KC. To me, your work evokes a certain spirit that I find in the best of Latin American art and its use of social commentary. Does this resonate with you and do you consider your work informed by that tradition?
MM. Yes, I am a fan of the work of Cildo Meireles, Alfredo Jaar, Teresa Margolles, and other Latin American artists whose works deal with their social realities. Those are my references, and I want them to be my dialog counterparts, therefore I am flattered to be included in that history.
KC. What attracted you to using cyanotype for this body of work?
MM. The cyanotype technique was one of the first cheap methods for image reproduction. The blueprint word came from cyanotypes. In the Heliographic copies, in this case I am using the original blueprints reproduction method for imagining another reality and also bringing attention to some issues about the colonialism between the USA and the rest of the continent.