The group show Contra a Parede involves works that relate directly with the walls of the exhibition space. In these installations, paintings, videos, photographs and performances, the walls of the exhibition space interfere directly in the construction and temporality of the artworks, questioning the idea of the neutrality of the white cube inherited from modernism.
This is what occurs in Desvio de Poder 1 [Diversion of Power 1] by André Komatsu, installed in Vermelho’s hall 1. in the installation, Komatsu inverts the idea of the completed artwork and presents a wall of concrete blocks constructed on top of a large spot of white paint. A similar procedure appears in Novo [New], a work that is part of Marilá Dardot’s Nova Pintura [New Painting] series, where Dardot appropriates words and phrases used in store window displays and applies them on transparent surfaces, revealing not only the surface of the wall but also the stretcher bars that hold the work.
An installation created by Carmela Gross in 1997, Feche a Porta [Close the Door] is composed of six steel chairs. Gross takes these large-scale, hinged, stark objects lacking any sort of finishing, removes them from the floor and installs them directly on the wall, thus altering their normal function.
Hundreds of raindrops made of cement and glue invade the exhibition space in the installation Toró by Lia Chaia. Installed on the wall and on the floor of the white cube, Toró reveals the interior of the architectural structures, suggesting the clashing between the concrete of the urban metropolis and nature.
For his part, Nicolás Robbio presents the installation Sem Título [Untitled] that suggest a prohibited space. This installation, similar to a wooden sawhorse demarcates a region of fragility and constant risk. Mil [Thousand], by Daniel Senise, stacks up paper blocks resembling clay bricks but made with the paper taken from art exhibition catalogs and invitations to vernissages.
In the installation Mal Dito, Maurício Ianês creates a play on words inscribed directly onto the wall. A similar procedure appears in the work Equivalências [Equivalences] by Cadu. The installation is activated by a movement sensor that draws an arc on the wall. Every day the position of the tip is changed, generating a new drawing every day.
Contra a Parede counts also with works by Chiara Banfi, Cia de Foto, Dora Longo Bahia, Fabio Morais, Guilherme Peters, João Loureiro, João Nitsche, Marcelo Cidade and Marco Paulo Rolla.
The CA-BRA residency project featured works by young artists from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Brazil, created during a residency process in Belo Horizonte.
Created by CEIA – Centro de Experimentação e Informação de Arte, in partnership with Espira La Espora, an initiative of Nicaraguan artists, and with Fundação Clóvis Salgado, the CA-BRA residency is part of the Conversas project developed by CEIA throughout 2011, in Belo Horizonte. The project also includes a residency for local artists, a cycle of six free lectures and the release of a publication. According to CEIA coordinators Marco Paulo Rolla and Marcos Hill, one of the main objectives of the project is to prepare the ground for a larger event that will take place in 2012, entitled “Permeability between the different artistic languages today”. The event aims to “promote possible dialogues between different media expressions and stimulate exchanges between artists”.
Participating in the CA-BRA project are artists Denise Aguilar Huezo (El Salvador), Jullissa Moncada and Alejandro Flores (Nicaragua), Javier Calvo and Fabrizio Arrieta (Costa Rica), Carolina Caliento, Guilherme Peters, Fernando Pirata (SP, Brazil), Marcos Davi, Inácio Ribeiro Mariani, Raquel Versieux and Sara Lambranho (Belo Horizonte, Brazil). For approximately twenty days, the 12 artists worked in a collective studio in Belo Horizonte, creating from their individual experiences and conversations with Dora Longo Bahia (SP – Brazil), Marco Paulo Rolla (MG – Brazil) and Marcos Hill (MG – Brazil).
About CEIA
Founded in 2001 by artist Marco Paulo Rolla and art historian Marcos Hill, CEIA – Center for Experimentation and Art Information aims to stimulate activities related to the creation and dissemination of contemporary art, promoting various exchanges that bring together in Belo Horizonte artists from various parts of Brazil and the world.
Quase aqui features a set of paintings and collages, all created in 2011, which blend new findings with the logic of the artist’s already traditional architectural landscapes, in which he incorporates elements extracted from the tangible space that surrounds him.
This is what takes place in the new series of paintings Quase aqui [Qlmost here], in which Senise appropriates the tops of workbenches used in his studio, using them as a support for the work. over the marks and vestiges of years of work, Senise applies white oil paint, creating a homogeneous and uniform field that points to a moment of reflection about the procedures that characterize his work.
In three new collages, Senise combines organic elements with his architectural landscapes that distort the logical construction of the perspective. A similar but more radical procedure reappears in the set of nine paintings in which the artist breaks away from the architectural structure of internal spaces, creating a vanishing point for the secluded and uninhabited environments that he normally depicts in his works.
Completing the exhibition is a new collage created with pages of the encyclopedia História Universal. In it, Senise constructs modular spaces based on the pages of the encyclopedia, removing their images and keeping only a part of the technical descriptions, in a process similar to the one he used in the Skira series, recently presented at the 29 Bienal International de São Paulo (2010).
História Universal is a collage created with pages from the encyclopedia História Universal. Senise constructs modular spaces based on the pages of the encyclopedia, removing their images and keeping only a part of the technical descriptions, in a process similar to the one he used in the Skira series, recently presented at São Paulo’s 29 Bienal International de São Paulo (2010).
História Universal is a collage created with pages from the encyclopedia História Universal. Senise constructs modular spaces based on the pages of the encyclopedia, removing their images and keeping only a part of the technical descriptions, in a process similar to the one he used in the Skira series, recently presented at São Paulo’s 29 Bienal International de São Paulo (2010).
In his new collages, Senise combines organic elements with his architectural landscapes that distort the logical construction of the perspective.
A similar but more radical procedure reappears in the set of nine paintings in which the artist breaks away from the architectural structure of internal spaces, creating a vanishing point for the secluded and uninhabited environments that he normally depicts in his works.
In his new collages, Senise combines organic elements with his architectural landscapes that distort the logical construction of the perspective.
A similar but more radical procedure reappears in the set of nine paintings in which the artist breaks away from the architectural structure of internal spaces, creating a vanishing point for the secluded and uninhabited environments that he normally depicts in his works.
In the Quase aqui [Almost here], Senise appropriates the tops of workbenches used in his studio, using them as a support for the work. over the marks and vesti-ges of years of work, Senise applies white oil paint, creating a homogeneous and uniform field that points to a moment of reflection about the procedures that characterize his work.
In the Quase aqui [Almost here], Senise appropriates the tops of workbenches used in his studio, using them as a support for the work. over the marks and vesti-ges of years of work, Senise applies white oil paint, creating a homogeneous and uniform field that points to a moment of reflection about the procedures that characterize his work.
In his new collages, Senise combines organic elements with his architectural landscapes that distort the logical construction of the perspective.
A similar but more radical procedure reappears in the set of nine paintings in which the artist breaks away from the architectural structure of internal spaces, creating a vanishing point for the secluded and uninhabited environments that he normally depicts in his works.
In his new collages, Senise combines organic elements with his architectural landscapes that distort the logical construction of the perspective.
A similar but more radical procedure reappears in the set of nine paintings in which the artist breaks away from the architectural structure of internal spaces, creating a vanishing point for the secluded and uninhabited environments that he normally depicts in his works.
In his new collages, Senise combines organic elements with his architectural landscapes that distort the logical construction of the perspective.
A similar but more radical procedure reappears in the set of nine paintings in which the artist breaks away from the architectural structure of internal spaces, creating a vanishing point for the secluded and uninhabited environments that he normally depicts in his works.
In his new collages, Senise combines organic elements with his architectural landscapes that distort the logical construction of the perspective.
A similar but more radical procedure reappears in the set of nine paintings in which the artist breaks away from the architectural structure of internal spaces, creating a vanishing point for the secluded and uninhabited environments that he normally depicts in his works.
In his new collages, Senise combines organic elements with his architectural landscapes that distort the logical construction of the perspective. A similar but more radical procedure reappears in the set of nine paintings in which the artist breaks away from the architectural structure of internal spaces, creating a vanishing point for the secluded and uninhabited environments that he normally depicts in his works.
In his new collages, Senise combines organic elements with his architectural landscapes that distort the logical construction of the perspective. A similar but more radical procedure reappears in the set of nine paintings in which the artist breaks away from the architectural structure of internal spaces, creating a vanishing point for the secluded and uninhabited environments that he normally depicts in his works.
In the Quase aqui [Almost here], Senise appropriates the tops of workbenches used in his studio, using them as a support for the work. over the marks and vestiges of years of work, Senise applies white oil paint, creating a homogeneous and uniform field that points to a moment of reflection about the procedures that characterize his work.
In the Quase aqui [Almost here], Senise appropriates the tops of workbenches used in his studio, using them as a support for the work. over the marks and vestiges of years of work, Senise applies white oil paint, creating a homogeneous and uniform field that points to a moment of reflection about the procedures that characterize his work.
Work presented in Marco Paulo Rolla’s solo exhibition at Bahia’s Museum of Modern Art (2010) Casamento Sagrado suggests issues related to androgyny and alchemy magic. Optimistic, because it understands men as an evolved being with a superior soul, the series, on the other hand, emphasizes the inconstancy and fragility of men using multiple materials and images, establishing a dialogue that ironizes societies moral dogmas.
Mil Palavras features more than 30 new works by Leya Mira Brander which, as is usual in the artist’s oeuvre, create narratives based on their combinations. In one of her first prints – a periodic table of chemical elements – Brander already pointed to this procedure, which has become recurrent in her work, namely, the combination of elements (individual prints), each with unique elements, grouped linearly on the wall or in showcases (27th Bienal de São Paulo, 2008) in such a way as to create narratives that reveal Brander’s imaginary universe and make her a sort of storyteller.
In Mil Palavras, however, Brander combines depth and perspective with bidimensional prints, cutting and overlaying a number of them to construct sculptures that arise in the form of boxes, books, or simply objects and drawings suspended in the air. Color is another new element that the artist has added to this newest series, by way of the gold leaf that Brander uses to highlight parts of the drawings and to provide a rhythm to her stories. The appropriation of images from the history of art, a tool that brander has used in previous works, reappears as well in Mil Palavras, in drawings that refer to the works of Degas, Di Cirico, Bosh, Edward Maybridge and Egon Schiele.
The solo show Desviantes presents the first four works of the new series by Ana Maria Tavares entitled Hieróglifos Sociais [Social Hieroglyphs]. The result of a research carried out by the artist since 1997, this series proposes a critical reflection on the legacy of Brazilian modernism, based on a rereading of the architecture of the Oca Building (Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo, 1951), by Oscar Niemeyer (1907), creating a deviant universe that suggests the resumption of the rational order that pervaded the construction of modernism’s concepts.
Constructed in aluminum, stainless steel, teflon and digital drawings, the four metallic panels that occupy Vermelho’s hall 1 form horizontal cuts of landscapes buried in the ground, alluding to modern architecture, which modeled a new understanding of the world that arose based on political and social prerogatives of its time. When submitted to digital manipulations involving multiple perspectival shifts – visual devices created in the process of altering the Oca building’s original design – this architecture becomes deviant and gives rise to an abyssal perspective of the world. The pieces are structured as modular sliding panels, one over the next, in a rhythm that allows for the construction of new landscapes that are added to the nearly kaleidoscopic perspectival shifting of the surrounding space projected on the polished surfaces of black or silver stainless steel. While the images expand within the fixed panels, they are also imprisoned in a sensual game of veiling and unveiling, where the landscape becomes a hostage of the work and, at the same time, its salvation.
With titles taken from Rio de Janeiro adult motels, such as Calypso, Comodoro, Palazzo and Royal – thus pointing to a condition pertaining to a parallel, deviant universe – the work is constructed based on subtle paradoxes where the modernist reasoning is cross-influenced by mundane things, by the deviation of the prevailing order and the possible pleasure that results from these procedures.
Bordando Design was an exhibition, followed by an auction, which brought together, for the benefit of ACTC – Casa do Coração (Association for Assistance to Children and Adolescents with Heart Conditions), a representative group of contemporary Brazilian designers. ACTC, an organization with 15 years of existence, provides multidisciplinary care to children with heart disease, referred by Instituto do Coração-InCor (HC-FMUSP) and by Beneficência Portuguesa, as well as their families. Its objectives are to provide lodging, food, social, psychological and pedagogical support, developing an action that aims to transform the problem situation into growth and learning.
Participating artists: Antonio Bernardo & Maria Teresa de Sousa Agra, Baba Vacaro & Maria Teresa de Sousa Agra, Carlos Motta & Maria Teresa de Sousa Agra, Claudia Moreira Salles & Juliany Pinheiro Lima de Jesus e Maria Teresa de Sousa Agra, Estudio Manus (Caio de Medeiros e Daniela Scorza) & Juliany Pinheiro Lima de Jesus, Irmãos Campana & Maria Teresa de Sousa Agra, Isay Weinfeld & Ana Claudia Bento dos Santos, Jacqueline Terpins & Juliany Pinheiro Lima de Jesus, Jun Sakamoto & Ana Claudia Bento dos Santos, Kimi Nii & Adalice Ramos Rodrigues, Ana Cláudia Bento dos Santos, André Palheta Ribeiro, Cláudia Aparecida Rocha Chaves, Cleonice da Silva, Edilene Fátima Trindade, Elenilza Francisca de Oliveira, Elisa Sueli Barbosa Candido, Ervelinda Gumz Klug, Fernanda Neves Cantuária, Glaucy Carreiro Guimarães, Juliany Pinheiro lima de Jesus, Maria Olímpia dos Santos, Maria Oneide Nunes de Souza, Marineide Teixeira Magalhães, Marineth Brasil Barros, Noemia da Silva, Salete Watanabe da Silva, Verônica de Lucena Escobar, Zaína Maria Souza Rego, Maria Alaíde Ribeiro Pison, Marcelo Rosenbaum & Ana Claudia Bento dos Santos, Nido Campolongo, Izabelina Cuevas Acosta & Noêmia da Silva, Rodrigo Almeida com Juliany Pinheiro Lima de Jesus, Ana Cláudia Bento dos Santos & Marineide Teixeira Magalhães, Sérgio Rodrigues, Verônica de Lucena Escobar & Juliany Pinheiro Lima de Jesus.
Solo exhibition by artist Marcelo Zocchio.
Jorge Barrão, Luiz Zerbini and Sergio Mekler of the artists’ collective Chelpa Ferro are returning to Galeria Vermelho with the installation Spacemen/Cavemen created in early 2011 for the exhibition ECO, in Recife. As in earlier works, in Spacemen/Cavemen Chelpa Ferro manipulates discarded machines and objects no longer in use, re-signifying them, adding to and nullifying their functions. Resignified, these objects of brief existence within consumer society gain a second chance at life when confronted with new technologies constituting landscapes of sound and light. Spacemen/Cavemen combines wires, power cords, ropes, loudspeakers and lights in two modules of sound and light that communicate in random ways and which reorganized the space and the displacement of the observer within it.
The third solo show of Portuguese artist Manuela Marques, the exhibition presented photographs by the artist that suggest moments of intimacy and introspection which are nevertheless devoid of human presence. In parallel with the exhibition at Galeria Vermelho, Marques participated in the group show BES Photo Prize, at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Organized in partnership with the Museu Colecção Berardo, Lisbon, the BES Photo Prize is one of the most representative Portuguese awards for contemporary art.
Sorry, this entry is only available in Português.
O Terceiro Mundo de Marilá Dardot é sinônimo de liberdade. Trata-se de um terceiro que não é fruto da dialética clássica; um terceiro que não é mera síntese, mas sim instauração de uma diferença. A artista usa, de propósito, a expressão “Terceiro Mundo” sabendo das tensões que ela convoca: seu uso, durante a Guerra Fria, para designar países que seriam economicamente ‘subdesenvolvidos’ e geopoliticamente não alinhados. Com o fim da polarização, estes termos caíram em desuso, substituídos por ‘países desenvolvidos’, ‘países em desenvolvimento’, ou ainda ‘emergentes’ e ‘países subdesenvolvidos’. Todas essas expressões trazem consigo um pensamento hegemônico que não interessa à Dardot. Ao contrário dessa lógica hierárquica, há aqui uma escolha por pensar o número 1 como o de um singular, o 2 como o embate entre duas experiências (indivíduos, olhares, mundos, culturas) e o 3 como o acontecimento que surge desse encontro.
Assim, o embate entre dois elementos não é uma competição, tampouco serve para comparação, mas sim um encontro, ou desencontro, que gera um terceiro – o diverso do já dado, a resultante de confluências, cruzamentos, associações. Dardot se apropria de trabalhos de outros artistas e escritores (Cildo Meireles, Fabio Morais, Cinthia Marcelle, Sara Ramo, Ítalo Calvino, Julio Cortázar, entre outros) e, a partir deles, deflagra uma nova criação. Nesse ato, dilui a noção de obra acabada e afirma aquela do trabalho em processo, conjunto, em pedaços, fruto justamente dos encontros, e não de uma autoria fechada, autônoma.
A mesma Dardot certa vez afirmou: “eu nunca consegui perceber nenhum de meus trabalhos como ‘obra de arte’, só os dos outros. Os meus, eu vejo como canteiro de obras mesmo, construção”. Assim, a exposição Introdução ao Terceiro Mundo não deixa de ser uma síntese desse modo de pensar a própria prática de trabalho enunciada pela artista.
Na mostra, a instauração desse terceiro mundo começa com a delimitação de um território – foi construída uma nova sala dentro da sala de exposições tradicional. Dentro dela encontra-se uma espécie de pequeno museu. Inúmeras vitrines com reproduções de ´obras de arte’, seguidas de verbetes, criam um novo olhar, adicionam um outro sentido, ou somente embaralham o significado primeiro diante daquilo que foi apropriado pela artista.
Esse pequeno museu se organiza por categorias: água, tempo, paisagem, arquitetura, mapa, etc. Tal como uma enciclopédia. O tempo, por exemplo, aparece reinventado por meio do diálogo com obras de três artistas, Lais Myrrha, Rivane Neuenschwander e ela mesma, Marilá Dardot. A literatura, disciplina fundamental na vida e no trabalho da artista, funde-se com a dos chamados ´artistas visuais’. Uma passagem sobre a criação de um novo tipo de relógio presente no livro Histórias de cronópios e de famas, de Julio Cortázar, é o ponto de partida para pequenos textos, redigidos pela própria Dardot, e ali se mesclam as letras de Cortázar, as da artista, a imagem do trabalho, e o sentido impregnado no pensamento de cada um.
Vejamos o caso em que a artista usa o seu trabalho A meia-noite é também o meio-dia (2004) como mote deflagrador. Vê-se a imagem da obra, um relógio instalado numa casa de campo, e a partir dela temos o trabalho Introdução ao Terceiro Mundo (Relógio 4). O que vemos é uma imagem da obra em um contexto específico e, abaixo, uma imagem da obra em um contexto específico e, abaixo, um verbete sobre a mesma que mescla as palavras de Dardot e Cortázar, doando mais uma possível interpretação para a manifestação que deflagrou o processo. Diz o verbete:
“RELÓGIOS Uma fama tinha um relógio de parede e dava-lhe corda todas as semanas COM GRANDE CUIDADO. Passou um cronópio e ao vê-lo pôs-se a rir, foi pra casa e inventou o relógio para tempos mais lentos, ideal para bibliotecas e casas de campo. O relógio demora longas 24 horas para dar uma volta completa, coincidindo com o horário oficial apenas ao meio-dia, de maneira que basta o cronópio usá-lo para aproveitar melhor o tempo, terminar aquele livro ou estender o feriado no sítio.”
As interações aí são algumas e podem nos ajudar a pensar não só os procedimentos empregados nessa exposição, mas na estrutura da poética da artista como um todo. A meia-noite é também o meio-dia se constitui em um relógio dupla face como estes encontrados em estações de trem ou instituições. Ou seja, lugares onde o tempo cronológico, aquele da lógica produtiva, mercantil, concorrencial, marca do capitalismo, está sempre dando as regras e ditando nossos passos, diariamente, rumo a uma corrida desenfreada cujo Norte, muitas vezes, desconhecemos.
Sua aparência é a de mais um relógio como outro qualquer, mas o seu mecanismo de funcionamento foi alterado. Aqui, para cada segundo passado em um relógio ‘normal’, levam-se dois segundos para que os ponteiros caminhem o mesmo trajeto. Ou seja, o tempo é desacelerado. Ao escolher uma imagem do trabalho instalado na casa de campo de sua colecionadora, Dardot evoca esse tempo distinto do tempo da cidade, dos centros urbanos céleres.
Se pensamos o Terceiro Mundo como um lugar imaginário, tal como as cidades inventadas por Ítalo Calvino em seu Cidades invisíveis, podemos crer que existem ali diversas formas de se relacionar com o tempo: um tempo suspenso, às vezes um tempo elástico, às vezes aquele desacelerado. Todas as obras eleitas pela artista para compor esse terceiro mundo respiram a mesma sutileza política que habita os seus próprios trabalhos. A artista erige, em toda sua trajetória, uma constante crítica ao modo de vida imposto pelo tempo do capital, sem por isso ser literal ou panfletária.
m outro trecho desse grande mapa que forma a experiência do Terceiro Mundo ecoa esse pensamento do tempo. Quando nos é apresentado o que seria a Viagem nesse outro lugar, o que temos é um desenho que um percurso cuja ênfase está dada no caminho, nos pequenos detalhes, percurso que não traz nem início, nem fim, sendo a própria travessia o momento mais importante. No verbete que o acompanha talvez tenhamos uma síntese preciosa não só sobre a temporalidade, mas de um modo mais geral – utópico? – de se vivenciar o mundo em que vivemos. Afinal, não sejamos ingênuos, esse Terceiro Mundo não deixa de ser um reflexo de inquietações diante do mundo “real”, sendo assim um outro lugar, criado, inventado.
Lemos o seguinte trecho:
“VIAGEM Para os autonautas do Terceiro Mundo, a estrada deixa de ser um percurso para tornar-se o destino da viagem; seu propósito de velocidade transforma-se em lentidão deliberada. A bordo de um carro-casa, esses viajantes transformam em expedição o que seria mero trajeto de poucas horas, experimentando um mês fora do tempo. Sem sair da autopista, exploram suas margens; observam e vivem cada quilômetro. Buscam o outro caminho, que, no entanto, é o mesmo. (JC, CD, MD)”.
Nele está contida não só uma sinalização para um tempo mais lento, mas também uma abertura para aquilo que, na pressa recorrente, na ânsia por alcançar um ponto de chegada (que nunca se apresenta de fato), perdemos de vista. Saber que o que importa é a travessia, nem o início, nem o fim, se dar o tempo de viver o presente. Ato que parece óbvio, mas se constitui em um dos maiores desafios postos ao homem. Estamos, quase sempre, no passado ou no futuro. Fazer da estrada o destino da viagem é valorar cada dia, um dia como outro qualquer, em algo precioso. Significa, no limite, dizer não para a lógica que nos faz correr diariamente rumo a um ponto de chegada que é, no mais das vezes, signo de alienação. Note que os autonautas, personagens do verbete Viagem, buscam um outro caminho, mas que, no entanto, é o mesmo. Ou seja, não se trata de sair dessa vida que nos é dada, mas realizar esse mesmo percurso de maneira distinta. Não se trata de dizer não, mas um sim que inclui uma sutil e decisiva inflexão.
O modo de ser dos trabalhos que compõem esse outro lugar criado pela artista pede que cada um se disponha a um olhar mais demorado e paciente. Dardot chama o público para uma posição ativa diante de cada uma de suas associações, deixando lacunas que devem ser preenchidas de acordo com o manancial que cada um traz consigo. E, quem sabe, a partir dali deflagrar novas e insuspeitadas relações.
Toda a proposição de Introdução ao Terceiro Mundo recorda um belo aforismo:
“Para todo escritor é sempre uma surpresa o fato de que o livro tenha uma vida própria, quando se desprende dele; é como se parte de um inseto se destacasse e tomasse um caminho próprio. Talvez ele se esqueça do livro quase totalmente, talvez ele se eleve acima das opiniões que nele registrou, talvez até não o compreenda mais, e tendo perdido as asas que voava ao concebê-lo: enquanto isso o livro busca os seus leitores, inflama vidas, alegra, assusta, engendra novas obras, torna-se a alma de projetos e ações – em suma: vive como um ser dotado de espírito e alma, contudo não é humano. A sorte maior será do autor que, na velhice, puder dizer que tudo o que nele eram pensamentos e sentimentos fecundantes, animadores, edificantes, esclarecedores, continua a viver em seus escritos, e que ele próprio já não representa senão a cinza, enquanto o fogo se salvou e em toda parte é levado adiante. Se considerarmos que toda ação de um homem, não apenas um livro, de alguma maneira vai ocasionar outras ações, decisões e pensamentos, que tudo o que ocorre se liga indissoluvelmente ao que vai ocorrer, perceberemos a verdadeira imortalidade, que é a do movimento: o que uma vez se moveu está encerrado e eternizado na cadeia total do que existe, como um inseto no âmbar.”
Terceiro Mundo de Dardot é uma metáfora da possibilidade de transformação, de uma reinvenção diante de categorias já dadas, tantas vezes impostas. Um outro mundo deflagrado a partir do contato com manifestações e outros artistas, ou seja, a sinalização de que esse contato pode engendrar novas obras, inflamar vidas, mudar o curso de um olhar. Recordo-me aqui de um depoimento da própria artista que reflete4 essa potência encontrada em seu trabalho:
“Pessoalmente, acho que alguma vontade de mudança é o que moveu, move e sempre moverá o artista em qualquer época, acho que a arte nasce e se alimenta justamente do incômodo. Pensar na arte agora é pensar também em como ela reflete o espírito de uma época, e vivemos, acho, em uma época de imenso individualismo e de descrença nas grandes mudanças em escala coletiva. E acho que esta é uma situação também muito incômoda (…). Tento com meu trabalho reagir aos meus incômodos, e percebo algumas tentativas de retomar aquele espírito coletivo – talvez com mais sutilezas e com menos certezas, tenho mais dúvidas, mais perguntas que afirmações, proponho pequenas subversões e heterotopias. Enfim, continuamos tentando mudar o mundo. Mesmo que seja um pouquinho só.”
Marilá Dardot nos lembra que a chance de construirmos um terceiro mundo hoje, ou seja, uma diferença, tem início no incômodo diante do mundo tal como nos é dado. Como resposta, nem o idealismo, as mudanças heróicas e utópicas, tampouco a complacência de fundo cínico, mas sim as heterotopias, espécies de utopias possíveis. Ao entrarmos no seu Terceiro Mundo, somos lembrados de que não só o artista pode ser sujeito de uma mudança, mas essa possibilidade está endereçada a cada um de nós no encontro com a arte, que nos transforma e, por consequência, opera uma mudança em nossa relação com o que está à nossa volta. Mesmo que numa escala delicada e sutil, mais próxima do tempo presente, ela pode, sim, ocorrer. Nos cabe a abertura para o encontro, motor fundamental da construção de todo o Terceiro Mundo.
Este texto foi produzido para a exposição “Introdução ao Terceiro Mundo”, de Marilá Dardot, na Sala A Contemporânea do CCBB Rio de Janeiro, de 02 de maio a 12 de junho de 2011.
Papel Sensível presents part of the research developed by Cristiano Lenhardt in the field of printing and engraving that also incorporates the use of paper folding as a procedure and method. When the folded paper is printed in the lithographic press, geometric shapes and lines are formed as a result of the folds.
Manhã no Ano do Coelho, Cadu’s first solo show at Vermelho, featured a set of six artworks created from 2010 onward. With the exception of Ixodidae, an installation that was part of the exhibition Convivências held by Fundação Iberê Camargo (Rio Grande do Sul), in 2010, this was the first time that these works were publicly shown.
Born in 1977, Cadu has created an oeuvre that deals with radical processes and systems that in various cases involve his own body and his daily routines. In Doze Meses [Twelve Months] (2005), for example, the artist manipulated his monthly power consumption in order to create an arc in the graph on his electric bill, which evokes a sense of perspective. The process was begun in April 2004 and ended in April 2005. Ironic and delicate, Doze Meses reveals the prosaic representation of an enormous physical force that transformed the artist’s routine throughout an entire year.
Ixodidae (2010), a scientific term for a tick, in a certain sense duplicates the action of the parasite from which it borrows its title. In the installation, a motion-detecting control box was connected to twelve electric hammers that are activated based on the viewer’s presence. Arranged throughout the exhibition space, when the electric hammers are activated, they damage the walls and the floor according to the number of observers and the length of their stay [thanks to Marcel Kowalski].
An artwork created in partnership with British artist Tim Knowles, Windcompass (2011) is part of the Weather Exchange project which was awarded a commission from the arts-encouragement program sponsored by the British Council and i-Dat, entitled CO-OS. Printed on cotton paper, the paintings present the eolic measurements (wind speed and direction) taken each hour by Heathrow Airport, in London, throughout the year 2010. The result is an agglomeration of arrows with colors, directions and sizes corresponding to the eolic variations, organized as a calendar [thanks to Simon Lock].
Nantucket Island (2010–2011), a series of large- and medium-format oil-on-paper drawings, makes reference to Nantucket Island, from which the Pequod departed in search of the white whale in the book Moby Dick by Herman Melville. The title lends continuity to the series of drawings made by Cadu in 2009, entitled Barbican (a historic district in the city of Plymouth, United Kingdom) in which the relation between the coast and the continent is explored through the representation of figure and background.
To create Ás de Espadas [Ace of Spades] (2011), Cadu built five different airplane models whose parts were laser-cut from playing cards, assembled, and displayed atop the same cards. There is a model for each of the four suits and one for the jokers. The airplanes are divided into two groups – red deck/blue deck – and arranged face to face on two wooden tables. In a further artwork, Partitura [Musical Score] (2010), Cadu has arranged bottles, jars, cups and other utensils along a model train track. Rods projecting from the train cars strike these items, producing notes that are part of the musical composition.
Pégaso [Pegasus] (2011) consists of four small robotic mechanisms attached to the wall, each with fingerlike extremities with tufts of hair at their tips, obtained from the manes of racehorses at the Rio de Janeiro horseracing track. The piece reacts to the approach of the viewer with movements that resemble caresses. The name of this hybrid structure refers to the Greek myth in which Perseus cuts off Medusa’s head and drags her blood through the sea off the coast of Ethiopia, where he saved and married the Princess Andromeda and witnessed the rise of two fantastic features: a huge winged horse and the giant Chrysaor.
Ixodidae (2010/2011), the scientific term for tick, repeats, in a way, the action of the parasite from which it borrows its title. In the installation, a presence-sensitive control box was connected to 12 electric hammers that are activated when the observer is present. Arranged throughout the exhibition space, the hammers, when activated, damage the walls and the floor according to how long the observer stays in the exhibition space [thanks to Marcel Kowalski].
This installation features three large-scale paintings from the series Escalpo Carioca, all created in the years 2005 and 2006 for the solo show Escalpo carioca e outras canções that Longo Bahia presented in 2006 at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, in Rio de Janeiro. In Escalpo Carioca, Longo Bahia re-creates idyllic Rio de Janeiro scenic views such as that of Sugarloaf Mountain and Two Brothers Mountain, and applies them on scraps of wood and discarded plywood.
The first solo show at Galeria Vermelho by artist Cinthia Marcelle, who was recently awarded the Future Generation Art Prize, from the Pinchuk Art Centre, Zero de Conduta (Zero for Conduct) began to be conceived during the 2008 economic crisis. A decisive, critical moment of suspension on the border between the annulment of rules suddenly revealed as obsolete and the adoption of new paradigms, the idea of crisis served as a theme for the artist in the creation of a world suspended in the sum of its artifices. Sculptures and photographs present situations and characters revealed by the crisis, an entire temporary world in which the relation between price and value, capital and labor is being reinvented on an ongoing basis. For an instant, the image of the market as a regulatory entity is abolished and an entire new world can arise. This is what takes place, for example, in Sobre este mesmo mundo [This Same World Over], a work presented at the 29th Bienal de São Paulo, in 2010. On the surface of a nearly 9-meter-long chalkboard, Marcelle suggests the crumbling and failure of the educational systems by almost completely erasing all the writing on the chalkboard and leaving the vestiges of this anachronistic knowledge in heaps of chalk dust on the floor.
Although Marcelle works on various supports – as is the case of most artists of her generation – video and photography seem to be the instruments with which the artist has attained her greatest power of synthesis. Her narratives, created by small actions realized repeatedly for a video or a photo camera, rely on simplicity to achieve clarity and objectivity, while retaining their poetics. This precise artistic gaze emerges in the new series of photographs that are part of the solo show Zero de Conduta. The four diptychs seem to narrate a process of deranging the world, through simple actions staged by common people, in places lacking identificatory elements and in a visible process of transformation.
This world in suspension that awaits a conclusion for the crisis also arises in the installation Economia [Economy], which occupies the gallery’s white cube. Created for the ceiling of the room, Economia suggests a frozen time. Nearly devoid of objects – like the showcases of the Temporário [Temporary] series installed by Marcelle in Vermelho’s entrance hall – the space occupied by the installation recalls a large North American car dealership battered by tough times and the necessities of the market.
Zero de Conduta points to the current instability and fragility of the social and economic systems. In this scenario, man is deprived of the social and economic structures that ensure his well-being in the world.
Bandeira em branco não é bandeira branca (A Blank Flag Is Not a White Flag), by Nicolás Robbio uses the symbolism employed by heraldry in the creation of insignia and coats of arms for reorganizing and resignifying his personal vocabulary. Drawing continues to be Robbio’s fundamental expressive tool, and can arise in the collages, installations that make up the solo show. Deconstructing the world, Robbio creates a new organization of meanings, bringing together symbols already assimilated by memory, small fractures that add complexity to the banal images of day-to-day life.
Sobre Cor [On Color], a new installation by Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain, combines five typographies developed by the artists and texts, concepts and theories about color by five different authors.
In the 60 screen prints, concepts and theories about color taken from Ludwig Wittgenstein [Remarks on Colour], Goethe [Theory of Colour], Maxwell [Experiments on Color, the Perceived by the eye], Isaac Newton [ Optiks] and Aristotle [De Sensu et sensibilia], are combined with Helvética Concentrated, Polígona Equilátera, Roseta, Retícula and Linear.
The different lines are expressed in primary colors, cyan, magenta and yellow, and come in different shapes according to the typography used, either through the succession of polygons with increasing number of sides equivalent to the alphabetical order of the triangle A icosioctágono equilateral Z in Polígona Equilátera; on the alphabet formed by growing radial lines starting from the center of each letter in Roseta, in a plot scale of intensity, with gradual values from A to Z in Retícula; on parallel lines equal to their position in alphabetical order Linear, or on the different disk sizes determined by different shape of the letters in Helvetica Concentrated.
The voices of Wittgenstein, Goethe, Maxwell, Newton and Aristotle combined with Detanico Lain typographies present 60 dialogues on color.
The second solo show of João Loureiro (1972) at Vermelho End of Part One is curated by Carlos Eduardo Ricciopo and presents 160 drawings created in the last ten years of the artist’s career. The set occupies halls 1 and 2 of the gallery without, however, creating a hierarchical difference between their environment allowing a uniform perception of the eloquent production that composes the lexicon of Loureiro.
Together, these drawings show an extensive repertoire of references making it clear that the core of this production comes from the notion of image. Thus, it is possible to notice that some of the forms of appearance of these drawings are taken as the subject, a kind of classification of certain subjects and themes.
Likewise, there are also some rules that organize some drawings, boundaries and self-imposed exercises that make the seizure oscillate between what is represented and how to represent.