Regisole
Monumental spatial installation · 2015
- ArtistDavid Spriggs
- Date2015
- Dimensions479 × 184 × 579 cm
188.5 × 72.5 × 228 in - MaterialsPainted layered transparencies and metal framework
- LocationArsenal Contemporary Montréal
An armoured police officer on horseback materialises in thermal colour, reviving the equestrian monument as an image of contemporary state power.
Regisole takes its title from the lost late antique equestrian monument known as the Sun King. Spriggs replaces the imperial ruler with a contemporary officer, preserving the horse, the commanding scale, and the outstretched adlocutio gesture through which Roman authority was publicly performed.
The figure is rendered through a spectrum associated with thermal imaging, moving from deep red to dark blue. Colour becomes both seductive and diagnostic. It evokes heat while recalling the technical vision of police and military surveillance.
Video Documentation: Regisole
Monument and apparatus
The equestrian monument traditionally gives authority a permanent and idealised body. Regisole reverses that promise. Its officer appears monumental from the front but disperses into separate planes as the viewer moves, exposing power as an image constructed through position and belief.
The work joins two systems of vision: the ceremonial language of the public monument and the instrumental gaze of thermal surveillance. The former makes power visible so that it can be recognised; the latter sees bodies as data. Their convergence produces an apparition that is commanding, unstable, and technologically mediated.
Regisole was first presented at Arsenal Contemporary Montréal in 2015.