Small Fires

Tonico Lemos Auad's ephemeral installations oscillate between the mundane and the magical. In making Small Fires, the artist scratched away the labels on more than eighty tin cans, leaving behind a single image, such as a lemon, a rooster, or floral motifs that float on a monochromatic silver backdrop. The objects read simultaneously as nonprecious—a group of empty cans, ordinary pieces of refuse—and as unique works, with their commercial markings reduced to one enigmatic icon. Arranged as a group, they form a strange and provisional skyline in miniature.