Tradition in Julio Cano Lasso: tradition as a survival

Abstract

This research identifies Tradition as the theme central to the architecture and thinking of Julio Cano Lasso; that is to say, the means of transmission and persistence of the past in the present. It examines the role of tradition in Cano’s body of work and pinpoints a critical duality. On the one hand, tradition is represented as a continuous flow, which maintains constant structural characteristics, discards the superfluous, and carries forward only the most valuable ideas. This view of tradition manifests in the study and use of typologies; that give rise to what we have called Typological Method. On the other hand, tradition is inserted in the fractured temporality of personal memory, thereby destroying the notion that history is a continuity. This article takes care to examine this second conceptual line. Moving away from evolutionism and teleological pretensions, we focus on what is revealed in Cano’s work through the use of reference. We argue that the formation of referential constellations is the means by which latent elements of tradition, “survivals,” anachronize history. This can occur through montage and juxtaposition. The Referential Method breaks historical continuity; it is iconographic, fragmentary, and cumulative, based on associations and analogies within a constellation of icons. The Referential Method is presented as a means of instrumentalizing the personal memory of Julio Cano Lasso.