In architecture, the term As Built refers to a study of all measures and proportions existing in buildings, made after the construction of a project. In the piece by Nitsche, of the brothers João and Pedro Nitsche, the procedure carried out on the Vermelho’s façade highlights the drawing present in the construction of the gallery’s main building. In addition, their intervention opens the group show as a mirror of what will be inside the gallery: a study of relationships between works of different periods, made by different artists.

In architecture, the term As Built refers to a study of all measures and proportions existing in buildings, made after the construction of a project. In the piece by Nitsche, of the brothers João and Pedro Nitsche, the procedure carried out on the Vermelho’s façade highlights the drawing present in the construction of the gallery’s main building. In addition, their intervention opens the group show as a mirror of what will be inside the gallery: a study of relationships between works of different periods, made by different artists.

In “Four Words”, the five letters of the word GESTO (gesture in Portuguese) are repeated four times, with brushstrokes made by the artist on individual sheets of 100% cotton paper, using black Indian ink, and combined to form four versions of the same word, in a way that each word GESTO is composed by words written/ painted with gestures more or less diferente from each other, and form and content of the word/ painting relate to each other as well as deny each other, as each word GESTO is composed by and gives shape to different gestures and moments.
In this work, the action of writing/ painting shows the embodiment of language through the artist’s body, and brings to surface the performative aspect of Ianês work.

In Untitled, Edgard de Souza draws with his fingers over a velvet “skin”. The drawing formed is referential to that of another artist, José Leonilson (1957-1993), with whom de Souza has / had poetic and personal convergences. There is a triple contact in the work: that of the finger on the velvet, the one of the recreated drawing and the one of the memory.

In Circuito [Circuit], Lia Chaia elaborates routes and displacements on sheet of corrugated paper that seem to generate systems. The spontaneous drawings generate, from the fluidity of the pen that runs at times parallel and times cross the wrinkles of the paper, a finishing that seems to come from two essential operations of the drawing: the dot and the line.

In Circuito [Circuit], Lia Chaia elaborates routes and displacements on sheet of corrugated paper that seem to generate systems. The spontaneous drawings generate, from the fluidity of the pen that runs at times parallel and times cross the wrinkles of the paper, a finishing that seems to come from two essential operations of the drawing: the dot and the line.

Atlas is a titan in Greek mythology that sustains the heavens or the celestial sphere.
In the piece by Henrique Cesar, the acrylic resin dome is the structure that holds the lone star, made up of lightning rod tips, and carries in itself engraved representations of some of the operating laws of the universe.

In Airshaft, 3D environments display fictional ambience constructed so to comment on the utopian and mechanical life envisioned by modernism, revealing an abyssal lost world. In Airshaft reproduces a sense of a world that breathes restless and breaks itself constantly into a fragmented mirrored perspectives.

In the volatile series, iron bars are supported by nails that maintain thus its stability, and drawings are engraved on the wall with vertical and horizontal incisions forming a grid. The bars are horizontal, diagonal or curved and the drawings are placed where there are distortions in the bar. The iron rods, material commonly used to structure buildings, establishes a certain rigidity to the work. The work seeks to establish a tension between an invisible reality, control and possible distortions.

Edgard de Souza’s Rabiscos[Doodles]record the artist’s movements. They are drawings made during simple challenges: drawing while dancing, while talking on the phone, using two hands at the same time, using the pen until it runs out of ink, being symmetric, avoiding symmetry. Each of these tasks gives rise to a graphically or materially different drawing that is imposed on the paper in a different way. They are nevertheless struggles and analyses of his body, which seems to be present in each of them.

Edgard de Souza’s Rabiscos[Doodles]record the artist’s movements. They are drawings made during simple challenges: drawing while dancing, while talking on the phone, using two hands at the same time, using the pen until it runs out of ink, being symmetric, avoiding symmetry. Each of these tasks gives rise to a graphically or materially different drawing that is imposed on the paper in a different way. They are nevertheless struggles and analyses of his body, which seems to be present in each of them.

Frottage of shells found on the banks of the Seine River in Paris, on 19th century engraving.

Frottage of shells found on the banks of the Seine River in Paris, on 19th century engraving.

Semi-Breve [Semibreve] consists of a piece of obsidian cut into the form of a rectangular solid, positioned below and adjacent to a horizontal line of tensioned wire as in string instruments. The image reproduces the symbol of the same name used in musical scores, representing a long pause, equal to the length of a whole note.

This work examines the depiction of explosions in the Soviet War Memorial of Berlin’s Treptower Park, where concrete-cast reliefs narrate the history of WWII through allegorical scenes as abstract point, described by Zaccagnini as “spaces for the void of sense that characterizes this and other wars”. Through the process of frottage (rubbing a pencil over thin paper covering a textured surface), Zaccagnini reproduces and solidifies these shapeless images in an almost iconic synthesis. The work embodies the frustration inherent in any attempt to translate experience – a task that, as the influential postcolonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak puts it, is “impossible but necessary”.

The works in this series examine different man-made interventions on Earth and their scales. These pieces were carried out from an immersion by Moscheta in the Atacama Desert, where the artist encountered tracks made by ancestral peoples. They are drawings that the artist see in the construction of these paths or in the manipulation of stone forms or in the construction of Apachetas – small piles of stones organized in a conical form as offerings made by the indigenous peoples of the Andes to Pachamama or to other entities.

Nicholas Robbio was inspired by the work of Austrian architect and artist Friedensreich Hundertwasse and his manifestos, which aimed at man and nature as a single body, to build xxx. Hundertwasse developed a theory, known as Five Skins. The first skin would be the epidermis; the second would be the clothing, as a social passport and as the first level of distinction of man in the world; the house acts as the third skin; the social and cultural environment act as the fourth skin and the fifth and final skin would be nature, the planet Earth. In Robbio’s work, the skins are seven: body, clothing, house, neighborhood, city, country and atmosphere.

During his residence in the Honda the artist collected small stones in the Magdalena River valley. Treated as a detailed geological study and based in the aesthetics of scientific illustration boards of the XVIII made by José Celestino Mutis in the same place, the title refers both to the rotational movement of the stones as to the history of the country, the scene of many wars and disputes since its colonization. The stones are the testimonies of this history shaped in themselves and in the brutal landscape that surrounds them since time immemorial.

During his residence in the Honda the artist collected small stones in the Magdalena River valley. Treated as a detailed geological study and based in the aesthetics of scientific illustration boards of the XVIII made by José Celestino Mutis in the same place, the title refers both to the rotational movement of the stones as to the history of the country, the scene of many wars and disputes since its colonization. The stones are the testimonies of this history shaped in themselves and in the brutal landscape that surrounds them since time immemorial.

During his residence in the Honda the artist collected small stones in the Magdalena River valley. Treated as a detailed geological study and based in the aesthetics of scientific illustration boards of the XVIII made by José Celestino Mutis in the same place, the title refers both to the rotational movement of the stones as to the history of the country, the scene of many wars and disputes since its colonization. The stones are the testimonies of this history shaped in themselves and in the brutal landscape that surrounds them since time immemorial.

The works from the Blocão (Big Bloc) series, were initially created in collaboration with art critic Gloria Ferreira and artist Juliana Ferreira and features a selection of polemic phrases said or published by politicians and media personalities.

The works from the Blocão (Big Bloc) series, were initially created in collaboration with art critic Gloria Ferreira and artist Juliana Ferreira and features a selection of polemic phrases said or published by politicians and media personalities.

The works from the Blocão (Big Bloc) series, were initially created in collaboration with art critic Gloria Ferreira and artist Juliana Ferreira and features a selection of polemic phrases said or published by politicians and media personalities.

In Between, Robbio explores a point of tension and balance between a reproduction of his own finger, cast in lead, and a line segment, produced in brass.

Tepmoah is part of a series of machines invented by Lia Chaia.
The acronym stands for Tempo Espacial Parada Movimento Organica Artificial Humana [Space Time Stopping Human Artificial Organ Movement].

Words, phrases and typographies of old advertisements are recovered by Marilá Dardot to compose a series of new artworks that the artist has entitled Novas Pinturas [2011–2012].
The artist removes these words from their original contexts and applies them on large panes of glass. Like showcases that announce the latest seasonal fad, they weave a commentary on the demands of the art system and consumer society.

Riverrun consists of 14 parts that constitute a long phrase, using two different alphabets. To the straightforward and legible type used in one of these alphabets, Mlászho overlays a second one created with archaic and “tormenting” types, difficult to read and understand. The title and construction of the piece refer to the opening of James Joyce’s Finnegans wake, where the author merges words and languages in search of new meanings.

Self-supporting, easy to carry and to assemble, ladders are simple machines. They (Un) make up the effort of the body to reach the heights desired by the gaze. At the rhythm of the steps, each step turns into lever to move the whole body, coordinating in the inclined plane the combined force of arms and legs.
Excerpt from ESCADAS – relato de uma montagem, by Carmela Gross

The set of frottages from the Secession series: The Tempest, is part of a project created for an artist book by Cinthia Marcelle, published in parallel with the solo show “Dust never sleeps”, by the artist in the Secession, in Vienna, in 2014. The images were made from folded sheets of paper, the same size of the publication pages, creating a kind of book within the book.
Composed of 21 chapters, the project builds a narrative of this gesture of folding paper. It is a relation between what is and what is not present, as frottage – or tracing – depends on a tangible referent.

In Transfusão [Transfusion], Chaia uses PVC pipes and cords of different tones of red to refer not only to a circuit of human veins, but also to architecture as something both alive and propositive.

In this series of paintings on cardboard are represented ships wrecks left in the territory once occupied by the Aral Sea, which has gradually shrunk since the 1960s, after Soviet irrigation projects diverted the rivers that feed it. Accompanying the images of the ships, are images of extinct or endangered fish.

In the video’s static framework, the artist appears writing those headlines with water on a large concrete wall that, heated by the sun, made the messages disappear instantly by evaporating the water used as ink. Dardot seems to make a comment about the ephemerality of the impact caused by the news. When viewed with the 7 simultaneous channels, “Diário” (journal) shows the Herculean attempt to try to give attention to the severity of the information shared on the wall.
Work created during residence in the Wabi House, in Oaxaca, Mexico.

At Vermelho’s façade we see the Ocitarcomed [Citarcomed] installation (2016), a mirrored spelling of the word democrático [democratic], using protective clamps for exterior walls to build every letter. The typeface alludes to the calligraphy employed by graffiti street artists and, as such, also work as a kind of challenging cypher. Marcelo Cidade is commenting on the current state of Brazilian democracy as something deformed and indefinite.

In Confortável Conformismo [Comfortable conformism], Cidade works with instructions that must be followed by the organizer, curator, producer or anyone involved with the exhibition that the artwork will be a part of. In seven steps, the artist describes a process in which an abandoned spring mattress must be found in the city’s streets and then burned, with its skeleton placed forming a 90-degree angle with the wall. The presentation mentions the work Untitled (Double Amber Bed), from 1991, by Rachel Whiteread, in which the artist intended to comment of the situation of London street-dwellers from the early 1990, bringing inside the gallery an object from daily street-dwelling life.
By dissociating himself from the artwork’s production processes (beyond conception), Cidade is making room for chance to take over.

The instructions are:

1) the production of this work of art does not depend on the artist, and may be executed by the curator, producer or any other party involved or otherwise with organizing the exhibition that the work will be a part of.

2) the mattress used in the work must have springs and a metal frame.

3) the mattress must be found in the street of the city hosting the exhibition, and therefore must not be bought.

4) as this object is to be found, the final work has no fixed form.

5) the burning stage may be performed as safely as possible. It is suggested to be done outdoors, using alcohol or gasoline.

6) after burning, the physical iron frame and the springs should be showing

7) after cooling down, the structure is to be transported to the exhibition space and placed, folded, forming a 90-degree angle with the floor and the wall.

The instructions are:

1) the production of this work of art does not depend on the artist, and may be executed by the curator, producer or any other party involved or otherwise with organizing the exhibition that the work will be a part of.

2) the mattress used in the work must have springs and a metal frame.

3) the mattress must be found in the street of the city hosting the exhibition, and therefore must not be bought.

4) as this object is to be found, the final work has no fixed form.

5) the burning stage may be performed as safely as possible. It is suggested to be done outdoors, using alcohol or gasoline.

6) after burning, the physical iron frame and the springs should be showing

7) after cooling down, the structure is to be transported to the exhibition space and placed, folded, forming a 90-degree angle with the floor and the wall.

In the series “(Un) Monument for V.Tatlin” Marcelo Cidade recreates the Monuments that Dan Flavin made in homage to Vladimir Tatlin, using overlapping fixtures structures for fluorescent lamps. While Flavin uses lamps to argue the impermanence of the materials and thus, of the systems, Cidade works around the ruin. In the recreations of Marcelo Cidade, there is no longer room for impermanence; there is only the useless waste of a utopian plan.

digital print pasted on the wall and hand-painted fabric banner

Cidade has used traditional Brazilian voting booths to create the work that lends its name to the exhibition. Built from cut and folded shapes of cardboard sheets, imitating the official voting booths, Cidade’s booth is covered in concrete, forming a kind of “bunker” where the voter may privately make his choice. The work shows the democratic gesture of choosing the candidate that better represents one’s values has become an experience lacking protection and safety.

In the Corpo mole [Lazy body] series, Cidade envelops cardboard boxes with materials commonly found in buildings – concrete –, thus highlighting the apparatus’ permanence as something that is elusive to the public power and useful to those depending on it. Cardboard has been at the forefront of recent news on the city of São Paulo and the social hygiene process unleashed by the state and local governments on its streets. In a series of recent police operations, under the watchful eye of the above-mentioned authorities, street-dwellers have been forbidden to accumulate cardboard and had the material confiscated.

In the A___________ social series, from 2015, Marcelo Cidade presents images gathered from the Internet showing household break-in attempts. In the images, haphazard burglars are seen stuck in bits of architecture such as windows, chimneys and fences. Along every serigraphed image, Cidade adds aphorisms from the Arquitectura social, três olhares críticos [Social architecture: three critical perspectives] paper, by Luís Santiago Baptista, Joaquim Moreno and Fredy Massad, in which the authors relate essential aspects of relationships and the implications of social architecture in a world fraught with crisis and conflict. Finally, Cidade removes the term “Arquitetura Social” from each axiom, replacing it with a continuous underline, as if waiting for the observer to fill in the gap.

In the Corpo mole [Lazy body] series, Cidade envelops cardboard boxes with materials commonly found in buildings – concrete –, thus highlighting the apparatus’ permanence as something that is elusive to the public power and useful to those depending on it. Cardboard has been at the forefront of recent news on the city of São Paulo and the social hygiene process unleashed by the state and local governments on its streets. In a series of recent police operations, under the watchful eye of the above-mentioned authorities, street-dwellers have been forbidden to accumulate cardboard and had the material confiscated.

In the Corpo mole [Lazy body] series, Cidade envelops cardboard boxes with materials commonly found in buildings – concrete –, thus highlighting the apparatus’ permanence as something that is elusive to the public power and useful to those depending on it. Cardboard has been at the forefront of recent news on the city of São Paulo and the social hygiene process unleashed by the state and local governments on its streets. In a series of recent police operations, under the watchful eye of the above-mentioned authorities, street-dwellers have been forbidden to accumulate cardboard and had the material confiscated.

In the A___________ social series, from 2015, Marcelo Cidade presents images gathered from the Internet showing household break-in attempts. In the images, haphazard burglars are seen stuck in bits of architecture such as windows, chimneys and fences. Along every serigraphed image, Cidade adds aphorisms from the Arquitectura social, três olhares críticos [Social architecture: three critical perspectives] paper, by Luís Santiago Baptista, Joaquim Moreno and Fredy Massad, in which the authors relate essential aspects of relationships and the implications of social architecture in a world fraught with crisis and conflict. Finally, Cidade removes the term “Arquitetura Social” from each axiom, replacing it with a continuous underline, as if waiting for the observer to fill in the gap.

In the Corpo mole [Lazy body] series, Cidade envelops cardboard boxes with materials commonly found in buildings – concrete –, thus highlighting the apparatus’ permanence as something that is elusive to the public power and useful to those depending on it. Cardboard has been at the forefront of recent news on the city of São Paulo and the social hygiene process unleashed by the state and local governments on its streets. In a series of recent police operations, under the watchful eye of the above-mentioned authorities, street-dwellers have been forbidden to accumulate cardboard and had the material confiscated.

[:pt]Na série A___________ social, de 2015, Marcelo Cidade apresenta imagens colecionadas a partir da internet em que figuram tentativas de invasão a domicílios. Nas imagens, salteadores inábeis aparecem presos em elementos arquitetônicos como janelas, chaminés e grades. Junto a cada imagem reproduzida em serigrafia, Cidade acrescenta aforismos retirados do texto Arquitectura social, três olhares críticos, de Luís Santiago Baptista, Joaquim Moreno e Fredy Massad, aonde os autores articulam aspectos essenciais das relações e implicações da arquitetura social num mundo em crise e conflito. Cidade, finalmente, retira o termo “Arquitetura Social” de cada axioma, deixando em seu lugar uma linha, como que a ser preenchida pelo observador.[:en]In the A___________ social series, from 2015, Marcelo Cidade presents images gathered from the Internet showing household break-in attempts. In the images, haphazard burglars are seen stuck in bits of architecture such as windows, chimneys and fences. Along every serigraphed image, Cidade adds aphorisms from the Arquitectura social, três olhares críticos [Social architecture: three critical perspectives] paper, by Luís Santiago Baptista, Joaquim Moreno and Fredy Massad, in which the authors relate essential aspects of relationships and the implications of social architecture in a world fraught with crisis and conflict. Finally, Cidade removes the term “Arquitetura Social” from each axiom, replacing it with a continuous underline, as if waiting for the observer to fill in the gap.[:]

The New Methods series reproduces images from fragments of copies of classical sculptures acquired by Argote in China. Over them, however, the artist inserts texts that he himself created, which reveal his sociopolitical and artistic questionings.

The New Methods series reproduces images from fragments of copies of classical sculptures acquired by Argote in China. Over them, however, the artist inserts texts that he himself created, which reveal his sociopolitical and artistic questionings.

Covers is an extention of the works on collage that Argote has been developping for several years. Digging into historical issues and imagery about the impact of ‘ideological wars’, this layered compositions behave as allegories about how our subjectivies are conditioned by external forces linked to a certain idea of progress and truth, that has been shaped by historical centers of power in their own conveniences and perdurability. Here the superposition of burned and cut fabrics, makes appear images and texts that confronts slogans, statements, and found fotage, creatng a texture with multiple entraces of lecture. Argote beliefs in the idea of ‘not- disociation’, which tends to approach big historical issues without avoiding the noise around them, the intrinsic complexity of the way look at them, and also the way they affect us in a personal level.

The New Methods series reproduces images from fragments of copies of classical sculptures acquired by Argote in China. Over them, however, the artist inserts texts that he himself created, which reveal his sociopolitical and artistic questionings.

Deep in the British countryside, the English State has preserved a tree with great care. It is the famous apple tree of which a fruit, falling, is believed to have inspired Isaac Newton, during one of his bucolic walks around 1666, and his law of universal gravity. Taking as a point of departure this anecdote (manufactured in reality 30 years later by the wise man’s first biographer) and the current site of this legendary tree, the Colombian artist Iván Argote carries out experiments as choreographic as sculptural by the grace, among others, of allowed down images which allow better observation of the effect of gravity on diverse bodies. Borrowing popularization texts from the history of science as well as manuals for children, or indeed educational clips, the film amusingly gives joyous illustrations of scientific phenomena.

The panel lit by LEDs, Figurantes (2016), by Carmela Gross, resembles so many other such panels usually found in bars, stores and gasoline stations, bearing advertisements. But here, instead of products and services, the panel presents an extraordinary procession of dubious figures. They are those listed by Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852), as members of the Society of December 10, consisting of temporary workers, parvenus, ruined heirs, vagabonds and all sorts of shiftless people: pickpockets, ex-cons, swindlers, decadent ruffians and many others… The luminous redemption of this peculiar group of political activists, shown on the LED panel mounted by the artist, reactualizes other groups that came in the wake of that one, and points to so many more which circulate in the contemporary cities.

The video-room features the video animation 13 Passantes [13 Passers-by] (2015/2016), which presents figures made of black adhesive tape on a background of graph paper. The figures move from one edge of the screen to the other. The fragile balance of their lines highlights and singularizes different ways of walking and crossing “the lighted stage” of the projection.
For 13 Passantes, Vermelho has the support of Epson who kindly provided one PowerLite Pro G6900WU projector for viewing the film.
Animation: Pedro Perez Machado

The gallery’s Room 1 is occupied by the installation Darlenes (2014), consisting of two parking lot gates. Usually such gates signal to the cars whether they can move forward or not. But not here. These are gates for pedestrians who can approach and manipulate them, if they wish, configuring other meanings.
The mechanical posts are remote-controlled by a device accessible to anyone going past. The movement of raising and lowering the posts unfolds and extends two shapeless swathes of red fabric, drawing a large X in the space. The posts can be moved again to return to their initial position, unmaking the drawing in red. This process can be repeated as many times as one wishes.

78 drawings displayed side-by-side form an environment suitable for imaginary projections of various sorts. They compose a multitude of animals, made of green splotches that looked like the outlines of animals, situated among grayish fields made of scribbled graphite. They surround, like a lurking horde, whoever is going through the room.

78 drawings displayed side-by-side form an environment suitable for imaginary projections of various sorts. They compose a multitude of animals, made of green splotches that looked like the outlines of animals, situated among grayish fields made of scribbled graphite. They surround, like a lurking horde, whoever is going through the room.

78 drawings displayed side-by-side form an environment suitable for imaginary projections of various sorts. They compose a multitude of animals, made of green splotches that looked like the outlines of animals, situated among grayish fields made of scribbled graphite. They surround, like a lurking horde, whoever is going through the room.

78 drawings displayed side-by-side form an environment suitable for imaginary projections of various sorts. They compose a multitude of animals, made of green splotches that looked like the outlines of animals, situated among grayish fields made of scribbled graphite. They surround, like a lurking horde, whoever is going through the room.

[:pt]Exercício Construtivo para uma Guerrilha Sem Terra aponta para um uso da arquitetura como tática de guerrilha. Se existem estruturas erguidas, a remoção de um grupo de pessoas de um terreno ocupado só pode ser feita com mandado judicial. Desta forma, arquitetura, tempo e coletividade integram-se para formar uma ocupação bem sucedida, onde o máximo de estruturas - casebres, barracas - deve ser erguido no menor tempo possível.[:en]Exercício Construtivo para uma Guerrilha sem terra [constructive exercise for landless guerrilla] points to a use of architecture as guerrilla tactics. If there are built structures resembling dwellings, the removal of a group of people from an occupied land with such structures, can only be made with a warrant. Thus, architecture, community and time integrate to form a successful occupation, where the maximum number of structures - shacks, tents – has to be constructed as quickly as possible.[:]

The stainless steel columns with mirrors by Ana Maria Tavares question our own presence in the spaces through a powerful reference to the surveillance systems that touch our day life in the cities.

In the performance Centro de Pesquisa de Ideologia das Imagens [Center of Research into the Ideology of Images] (2015), Ianês positions himself at the gallery’s entrance, receiving the participants, with whom he holds a conversation. After this personal interview, in which the subjective views of each participant are considered, he asks them to suggest some image that symbolizes their view of history, politics, or local or global contemporary society. Together, the two searches the internet for the suggested image or something similar. The images chosen by the participants is printed and shown on the wall of the room where the action takes place. The images are then distributed and arranged by the artist in order to create, through his external view, a narrative of the history of Brazil or the world with the images chosen by the public. Ianês seeks to relate these images by proximity, connecting them. Centro de Pesquisa de ideologia das imagens proposes a situation of opening to the public, in such a way that the result of the action and its documentation is actively and extensively constructed together with the participants.

The series Corpo da Alma [Body of the Soul] (2005) is articulated around a set of images originally published in newspaper articles, of people who are holding photographs of relatives or friends who disappeared in situations of war, terrorism or urban violence. With this procedure, Rennó destabilizes one of the main characteristics of photography, which is to freeze the event, according to critic Paulo Herkenhoff, “demobilizing” the archival sleep of the photograph, making extra-imagetic facts visible.

In the series of drawings Bioma [Biome] (2016), by Henrique cesar, oil refineries acquire aspects of microbiomes.

In the series of drawings Bioma [Biome] (2016), by Henrique cesar, oil refineries acquire aspects of microbiomes.

In “:::::::::::::” Cadu works with telephonic cards for use in public telephones sold by Telefonica Brazil, company that provides telephone service for the state of São Paulo. The cards had their graphical information removed and are available for free distribution. In times of wiretaps, Cadu’s cards become a strategy for discretion and stealth.

Raspadinha [Scratch ticket] (2009 / 2016) – Marcelle bases her work on the lottery scratch ticket, which, by way of luck, transfers possession to whoever finds the prize hidden on the scratchable card. On Marcelle’s scratch card, the prize is Poder [as a noun, “power”; as a verb, “to be able to”] written twice in a homocentric way. The repetition of the word refers to its variants as a noun and a verb. On the back of the card, there is a graphic device that allows for the transfer of the prize to someone else.

In the video installation by Nicolás Robbio (2016) a small out-of-focus projection shows the debates in the Brazilian chamber of deputies during the session that preceded the voting for the opening of the impeachment process against elected President Dilma Roussef. A magnifying glass placed between the projector and the projection focuses only on the detail of the person giving sign language for the hearing impaired.

In Farsa – Delacroix (La liberté guidant le peuple) [Farce – Delacroix (Liberty Leading the People)] and Farsa – Delacroix (O MST guiando o povo) [Farce – Delacroix [The MST Leading the People)], both from 2013, Longo Bahia bases
her work on Karl Marx’s maxim that states, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce,” to trace a parallel between the French Revolution and a hypothetical revolution guided by the MST [Movement of Landless Rural Workers]. In the first painting, the artist re-creates the painting by Delacroix, with the same proportions as the original, in green tones. In the second, she substitutes the characters of the original by members of the MST.

In Banco Brasília [Brasília Bench/Bank] (2015), Marcelo cidade proposes an iconoclastic articulation around the Brazilian modernist promise and the powers that be, through a composition that uses clean dinner plates and empty beer bottles to emulate the building of the national congress.

The vortices occur from the pressure difference between two neighboring regions, generating an outflow. Within the exhibition context, Água suja [Dirty water] makes a comment about the polarization experienced in the country, as well as the visibility that dishonest actions have currently had in Brazil.


In Farsa – Delacroix (La liberté guidant le peuple) [Farce – Delacroix (Liberty Leading the People)] and Farsa – Delacroix (O MST guiando o povo) [Farce – Delacroix (The MST Leading the People)], both from 2013, Longo Bahia bases
her work on Karl Marx’s maxim that states, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce,” to trace a parallel between the French Revolution and a hypothetical revolution guided by the MST [Movement of Landless Rural Workers]. In the first painting, the artist re-creates the painting by Delacroix, with the same proportions as the original, in green tones. In the second, she substitutes the characters of the original by members of the MST.

O canto dos esquecidos reverbera pelo edifício da vitória [The Song of the Forgotten Reverberates through the Edifice of Victory] (2016), the inaugural speech of former Brazilian President João Goulart, is played in a loop through a series of electrical cords that climb the wall in a geometric design. After finishing its path through the cords, going through a series of guitar effect pedals, the speech is projected into the space, through an amplifier, completely distorted. A set of earphones makes it possible to individually listen to the speech before the distortion.

Carmela Gross confronts the phonetic characteristic of the first-person singular personal pronoun in Portuguese (eu), which contains a diphthong, with the possibility of transferring it to the dimension of an inclusive plural action.

In Buraco [Hole] (2009), by the group Chelpa Ferro, a set of devices constructed for the proliferation of the word microphone plus loudspeaker are arranged in a self-contained way, giving rise to a deafening sound.

[:pt]Na série Diarreia (2016), André Komatsu trabalha com páginas de revistas da década de 1970, cobrindo seus conteúdos com composições que remetem às vanguardas artísticas brasileiras, deixando entrever pequenos fragmentos de notícias acerca do governo ditatorial militar.[:en]In the series Diarreia [Diarrhea] (2016), André Komatsu works with magazine pages from the 1970s, covering their contents with compositions that refer to the Brazilian artistic avant-gardes, but allowing small fragments of news about the military dictatorship to show through.[:]

[:pt]25 gestos de cumprimentos foram desenhados por Cidade com nanquim de maneira rápida e gestual, repetindo o modo habitual de se apertar a mão de alguém. São 25 diferentes gestos sociais que expressam sentimentos positivos de amizade, afinidade ou confiança entre dois seres-humanos. Além de constituir uma saudação, um aperto de mão pode também consolidar um acordo verbal entre duas pessoas ou entidades, ou até mesmo simbolizar a concretização de um contrato formal. Em Pequenos delitos a automação do gesto de confiança pode vir acompanhada de transgressão da moral.[:en]Greetings gestures were drawn by Cidade with china ink in a quick and gestural way, repeating the usual way of shaking someone's hand. In the work there are 25 different social gestures that express positive feelings of friendship, affinity or trust between two human beings. In addition to constituting a greeting, a handshake can also consolidate a verbal agreement between two people or entities, or even symbolize the completion of a formal contract. In Pequenos delitos [Small offenses], the automation of the gesture of trust may be accompanied by a transgression of morals.
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[:pt]Obra criada originalmente para a Jornada internacional na cidade sem meu carro, que ocorreu em setembro de 2009 na cidade de Campinas, Setamanco é uma instalação composta por 60 tamancos de madeira, em forma de setas. Todos os tamancos estão disponíveis para utilização pelo público dentro do espaço expositivo. Setamanco se utiliza de instrumentos simples e familiares de localização e deslocamento para criar metáforas sobre as relações humanas.[:en]Originally created for the International Day in the City without My Car, which took place in September 2009 in the city of Campinas, Setamanco is an installation made up of 60 wooden clogs, shaped like arrows. All clogs are available for use by the public within the exhibition space. Setamanco uses simple and familiar instruments of location and displacement to create metaphors about human relationships[:]

[:pt]A proposta de Catete é produzir e comercializar, em parceria com uma confecção de pijamas, uma versão do pijama usado por Getúlio Vargas no momento do seu suicídio. Composta por calça e camisa, tal versão baseia-se no estado do pijama antes da consumação do suicídio, sem as marcas de tiro, sangue e cortes. Interessa ao artista o modo como um pijama, objeto cotidiano, íntimo, privado, tornou-se símbolo daquele momento histórico. Catete nos leva a pensar como a instituição molda, por contingência, ao longo dos anos e das diversas administrações, uma versão da história, centralizando no pijama de Getúlio Vargas a narrativa sobre os fatos ocorridos em agosto de 1954.[:en]Catete (2015) aims to produce and commercialize, in partnership with a pajama manufacturer, a version of the pajama worn by former Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas at the moment of his suicide. Consisting of pants and shirt, this version is based on the state of the pajamas before the consummation of the suicide, without the marks of the gunshot, blood and cuts. The artist is interested in the way that the pajama – an everyday, intimate, private object – became a symbol of that historic moment. Catete leads us to think about how, through contingency, over the years and throughout various governmental administrations, a version of this historical episode has been shaped, centered on Getúlio Vargas’s pajamas as an icon of the events that took place in august 1954.[:]

[:pt]Em A Queda, a matéria orgânica da vegetação é substituída pela inerte materialidade do carpete cinza sintético. No contexto desta exposição, a instalação soma um comentário taciturno e melancólico sobre a conjuntura brasileira.[:en]In A Queda [The Fall], the organic matter of the vegetation is replaced by the lifeless materiality of the synthetic gray carpet. In the context of this exhibition, the installation adds a taciturn and melancholic commentary on the Brazilian situation.

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[:pt]Proxy Reverso é um longa-metragem de ficção realizado com imagens capturadas de telas de computador pelos diretores Guilherme Peters e Roberto Winter. O filme conta a história de Davi Reis, um jovem paulistano técnico em informática que, após perder seu emprego, é levado a envolver-se no plano de seu amigo Luis Pires, um jornalista independente narcisista e obcecado pela fama. Luis quer usar as habilidades de hacker de Davi para acessar dados confidenciais que comprovem que o instituto Vox Populi fraudou o resultado de pesquisas de intenção de voto que precederam as eleições presidenciais de 2014 no Brasil. As imagens do filme foram captadas ao longo de 2014, nas datas e horários em que se passam as cenas, e podem ser acompanhadas pelo relógio da área de trabalho do computador que aparece em cena. Assim, apesar de se tratar de uma história ficcional, os personagens interagem com estímulos do mundo real que entram a partir do uso da internet, por vezes simulado e por vezes efetivo. A separação entre verdade e ficção, ou entre o real e o virtual, se torna difusa e o filme também se apresenta como uma espécie de documentário satírico. Essa estética arrojada rendeu ao longa três prêmios na VII edição do festival Semana dos Realizadores, sediado anualmente no Rio de Janeiro: Prêmio Especial do Júri, pelo Júri Oficial do festival; Prêmio EDT de Montagem de Invenção de Melhor Longa-Metragem, concedido pela Associação de Profissionais de Edição Audiovisual do Rio de Janeiro; Prêmio ABD – Audiovisual Independente de Melhor Longa-Metragem, concedido pela Associação Brasileira de Documentaristas do Rio de Janeiro. Proxy Reverso é um comentário sobre a facilidade de se criar verdades através de ferramentas amplamente acessíveis, e sobre como as instancias de comunicação e poder podem fazer uso interessado dessas verdades.[:en]Proxy Reverso [Reverse Proxy] is a feature-length film made with computer screenshots captured by directors Guilherme Peters and Roberto Winter. The film tells the fictional story of Davi Reis, a young computer technician from the city of São Paulo, who after losing his job is coaxed into taking part in the risky plan of his friend Luis Pires, a narcissistic freelance journalist obsessed with fame. Luis wants to use Davi’s hacker skills to access confidential data proving that the polling Institute Vox Populi reported fraudulent results on a survey about voting intentions in the lead-up to Brazil’s 2014 presidential election. The screenshots were captured throughout 2014, at the time and date of the scene shown, as evidenced by the clock on the task bar of the computer they were captured on. Thus, despite that it’s a fictional story, the characters interact with stimuli from the world at large that enter via internet, depicting events that are sometimes simulated, sometimes drawn from real life. The separation between truth and fiction or between the real and the virtual becomes blurred and the film is also presented as a mockumentary. This bold aesthetic approach won the film three awards at the VII edition of the Semana dos Realizadores Festival, held annually in Rio de Janeiro: the Special Jury Prize, from the festival’s official jury; the EDT Inventive Editing Prize in the feature film category from the Associação de Profissionais de Edição Audiovisual do Rio de Janeiro; and the ABD Independent Audiovisual Prize for Best Feature Film, from the Associação Brasileira de Documentaristas do Rio de Janeiro. Proxy Reverso is a commentary on the ease of creating truths through widely accessible tools and about how entities in the fields of communication and power can use those truths for furthering their own interests.[:]

For the Brazilian indigenous people, the burning of the maloca represents renewal through change. When the land off of which they’re living no longer bears fruit and the forest surrounding them offers no animals to hunt, they burn their houses to build new ones, elsewhere, thus making possible a new beginning.

In 1974, Andujar worked on a series of portraits featuring a young Indian girl named PAXO+M+K+ using black-and-white film stock. These images are among the first Andujar has made in her visits to the Yanomamis’ lands. In 1982, she rephotographed the original using infrared film. From this process – a recurring one in her career -, Andujar seeks to infuse images with idyllic aspects, recovering part of her memories from these first meetings, setting them on a different world – pictorial, imaginary and subjective. According to Andujar, “I bring from memory the green of the vegetation and the blue of the sky, idyllic elements from Amazônia, and the colors infuse this work representing the Indians’ virtue in continuing to defend the preservation of the environment and their struggle to keep it healthy and free from meddling, either from illegal mining or the invasion of lands already defined as belonging to the Yanomamis.”

In 1974, Andujar worked on a series of portraits featuring a young Indian girl named PAXO+M+K+ using black-and-white film stock. These images are among the first Andujar has made in her visits to the Yanomamis’ lands. In 1982, she rephotographed the original using infrared film. From this process – a recurring one in her career -, Andujar seeks to infuse images with idyllic aspects, recovering part of her memories from these first meetings, setting them on a different world – pictorial, imaginary and subjective. According to Andujar, “I bring from memory the green of the vegetation and the blue of the sky, idyllic elements from Amazônia, and the colors infuse this work representing the Indians’ virtue in continuing to defend the preservation of the environment and their struggle to keep it healthy and free from meddling, either from illegal mining or the invasion of lands already defined as belonging to the Yanomamis.”

The installation that lends its title to the exhibition occupies the gallery’s main room and consists of a five-meter-high scaffold together with seven drawings done in graphite on PVC. The images represent seven waterfalls which, for reasons linked to the spirit of human progress, were expunged from the natural landscape by works of engineering.
The title and drawings make reference to the history of the Seven-Falls Cataract, or the Guaíra Cataract, which on October 13, 1982, had its 19 waterfalls (which were divided into seven groups) flooded over by the construction of the Itaipú hydroelectric plant. Held as the largest system of waterfalls in the world in volume of water and considered one of the planet’s greatest natural spectacles, the Seven-Falls Cataract disappeared from the landscape in the name of “progress.”
The local community, however, was cut in half, since it had depended intrinsically on the tourism generated by the waterfalls.

O Trabalho dos Dias [Days’ Work], 2016, shows a recent “fall.” Moscheta juxtaposes a set of time-card holders (as used near time clocks at businesses) to an image of a terikon, in the Ukraine. Terikons, also called spoil tips, are manmade piles built with the overburden and waste rock of the mining industry. Moscheta comments on the effort of human work necessary to construct these topographic elevations in the landscape of a city by juxtaposing the time-card holder to the image of the terikon, systematically perforated to represent the record of man’s passage through the landscape. The time clock was created at the end of the 19th century, in the United States, with the aim of increasing productivity and allowing employers to control the hours of workers. Here, its vestige refers to another measure likewise aimed at profit and the exploitation of workforces and natural resources, since the terikons present hazards to the surrounding populations, due to constant landslides and underground combustion.

In the series Positivo Singular [Singular Positive], Moscheta presents a series of ten photographs of uncommon landscapes of the Chilean desert topped with iron sheets that form volumes which recall the monolith in the film 2001: a Space Oddyssey, by Stanley Kubrick.
In the 1968 film, the black volume made of an undefined material symbolized a synchronism between past and future, like an atemporal announcement of man’s pioneering destiny. The first appearance of the object in the film takes place at the moment when man’s ancestor discovers that the same bone that forms his structure can be used as a tool or as a weapon.
In Moscheta’s works, however, this monolith is subject to the passage of time and, due to its ferrous material, acquires marks of the passage of time, with constant oxidation and corrosion. Moscheta’s monoliths are thus synchronous with those of Kubrik, but insofar as they are manmade, they only tend to decay.

In the series Positivo Singular [Singular Positive], Moscheta presents a series of ten photographs of uncommon landscapes of the Chilean desert topped with iron sheets that form volumes which recall the monolith in the film 2001: a Space Oddyssey, by Stanley Kubrick.
In the 1968 film, the black volume made of an undefined material symbolized a synchronism between past and future, like an atemporal announcement of man’s pioneering destiny. The first appearance of the object in the film takes place at the moment when man’s ancestor discovers that the same bone that forms his structure can be used as a tool or as a weapon.
In Moscheta’s works, however, this monolith is subject to the passage of time and, due to its ferrous material, acquires marks of the passage of time, with constant oxidation and corrosion. Moscheta’s monoliths are thus synchronous with those of Kubrik, but insofar as they are manmade, they only tend to decay.

In Homo Faber, Moscheta presents 40 stone blades in a set of drawings made with graphite on PVC. The stone blades are tools carved from stone and used as percussion weapons or cutting instruments. They also represent the first technological advance of human history that marks the Stone Age, together with fire and clothing.
Moscheta divides each drawing into a field, attributing iconic characteristics to each instrument represented. The characteristic of an icon, or object of worship, is reinforced by the origin of the images. The artist gathered the photos of the 40 stone blades from public archives of museums scattered around the world.

In Fundo Infinito [Infinite Background] 2016, Marcelo Moscheta records the ruins of a rudimentary – and singular – construction in the middle of the Atacama Desert. The fragmented building blends into the desert’s rocky landscape. The image recorded on offset sheets attached to galvanized sheets also chromatically approximates the two instances and provides a commentary on the failure of entrepreneurial man, since the figure appears destructured, in a process of falling, on the bent galvanized sheet. Nevertheless, even though it is falling, man’s developmentalist aspect seems to be reaffirmed by the structure of the figure’s base – a stack of perfectly aligned and stable blocks made of cellular concrete, a sort of concrete “foam” that is a relatively new technology (it has only been used in Brazilian civil construction for 30 years), which ensures durability, lightness and constructive ease along with excellent thermal and acoustic properties. The juxtaposition of this material with the image of the construction made of stone remnants evokes the future state of recent and future constructions. It is man superimposing himself on nature.

In various notebooks printed with blank musical staves, Chiara embedded stones of black tourmaline in rectangular formats. The tourmalines allude to semibreve symbols, and, since their apparently random arrangement on the pages does not seem to indicate a musical construction with notes, we can read their presence as marks of silence. This silence, once again, is rhythmic, in light of the profusion of the mineral pieces scattered on the pages of the notebooks.

Stones in general have an intrinsic capacity to transmit vibrations and frequencies. In Chiara’s work they appear in different articulations. In “Pauta” [Staff], 2016, quartz crystals containing naturally embedded chunks of tourmaline are organized in five horizontal lines, forming a sort of rhythmic musical score.

In various notebooks printed with blank musical staves, Chiara embedded stones of black tourmaline in rectangular formats. The tourmalines allude to semibreve symbols, and, since their apparently random arrangement on the pages does not seem to indicate a musical construction with notes, we can read their presence as marks of silence. This silence, once again, is rhythmic, in light of the profusion of the mineral pieces scattered on the pages of the notebooks.

In the works “Estudos para Debussy”, Banfi covers and erases notes from Claude Debussy’s scores, creating a new construction with the compositions, modifying the use of the composer’s notations.

In “Lin Melódica” [Melodic Lin], 2016, thirteen stones attached to the wall are arranged in a horizontal line and interconnected by RCA cords, thus creating different sequences among the pieces, like the old synthesizers that used “patch cords” to create different connections between the sound modules.

Symbols of the same family are also seen in “Pausa de Bach” [Pause by Bach], 2016. In the installation that occupies the gallery’s main room, twelve books with different musical scores by Bach had their notations nearly completely blotted out by the artist with black ink, leaving only the symbols for pause and silence. Johann Sebastian Bach created a musical scale with a compositional logic that has been widely used until today in Western music, organized into twelve semi-tones (or notes).

Symbols of the same family are also seen in “Pausa de Bach” [Pause by Bach], 2016. In the installation that occupies the gallery’s main room, twelve books with different musical scores by Bach had their notations nearly completely blotted out by the artist with black ink, leaving only the symbols for pause and silence. Johann Sebastian Bach created a musical scale with a compositional logic that has been widely used until today in Western music, organized into twelve semi-tones (or notes).

Symbols of the same family are also seen in “Pausa de Bach” [Pause by Bach], 2016. In the installation that occupies the gallery’s main room, twelve books with different musical scores by Bach had their notations nearly completely blotted out by the artist with black ink, leaving only the symbols for pause and silence. Johann Sebastian Bach created a musical scale with a compositional logic that has been widely used until today in Western music, organized into twelve semi-tones (or notes).

In the pieces entitled “Confluência” [Confluence] stones and rocks from different origins – and which are never found next to each other in nature – are connected by the same RCA cables as in “Lin Melódica”, suggesting combinations of different sounds.

In the works of the series Estudos de Debussy [Studies on Debussy], Banfi covers and erases notes on musical scores by Claude Debussy, creating a new construction with the compositions, modifying the use of the composers notations.