Call Parade was an open-air public art exhibition in which one hundred of São Paulo’s public telephone booths, the Orelhões, were reinterpreted by artists and installed across the city. Alan Chu was among the ten artists invited by the curators.
Lunar Calendar refers to the Chinese origins of Chu Ming Silveira, the architect who created the Orelhão and the author’s mother, through the calendar traditionally used in China.
The booth is painted entirely in matte black, and the shadow it cast at noon on May 19, 2012 is painted on the ground beneath it, so the piece works as a sundial and, by extension, as a calendar.
Rather than using the Orelhão as a support for an artistic application, the idea was to look at the object itself, already a work of art and a successful example of industrial design. Rendered completely in black, its form becomes more evident and pure. It is also a playful gesture: the object is cancelled out and set against its own “shadow.”