In 2019, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) turns 70 years old. Although it was initially little more than a political organization of like-minded Western countries, after the escalation of tensions linked to the Cold War, NATO became a supranational military organization -under the direction of U.S. commanders- capable of organizing a defensive system against the threat of the Eastern Bloc.
Alán Carrasco’s diptych presents, under the ironic motto of the military organization itself (“Free spirit to decide” in Latin), two replicas of the military templates with which NATO’s war campaigns were designed. In a graphic language reminiscent of school supplies, the military organization displayed in just two plastic rulers all the anagrams and shapes needed to codify its operations.
In a symbolic twist, the artist oversizes and transfers the design of both rules to a carbon steel support -a material of military reference, on which the passage of time will leave its mark-, reminding us that, behind their innocent appearance, these rules hide 70 years of military interventions around the globe.
