The Communism of Forms: Sound + Image + Time – The Strategy of Music Videos proposes an investigation of the possibilities presented by the music video format. It is not an exhibition of music videos, but of an attempt to discuss the possibilities and the presence of the music video language in the contemporary artistic production. The curators are Fernando Oliva and Marcelo Rezende. The opening will take place on July 20th at 8:00 PM (with the release of the book Comunismo da Forma – Som, Imagem e Política da Arte). The exhibition will be at Galeria Vermelho, until August 4th.
The artists were invited to appropriate the music video language, establishing a creative relation with its three main elements: image, sound (music) and time (duration). According to the curators, there is a possibility to build a dialogue between the spectators’ mental, cultural memory and the emotional repertoires. “This is no longer about fostering a theoretical or curatorial speech about music videos as artistic expression. Music videos are now a real form of expression within the industry, bearing much in common with the early days of cinema”, they write in the text of the project. “As the ‘bastard’ child of television and cinema, music videos have become more than just a genre. As a result of the speed with which they are produced and shown, they have come to be inhabited by artists capable of overcoming the limitations of the media. Music videos – with their lack of hierarchy between old and new, technological and hand-made – set in motion the whole repertoire of the world.”
The exhibition gathers a series of new works, produced specially for the project, at the curators´ request. The majority of these works were never shown in Brazil, it is the case of the new production of the Slovenians of Laibach, the Mexican group Nuevos Ricos, the English duo Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard; and the work in video of the Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The exhibition brings yet a series of videos from Pipilotti Rist, a pioneer artist who turned to music video format when MTV started in the USA, in the early 80´s. In total, the exhibition shelters creations of about 40 artists, among Brazilians and foreigners. Ricardo Carioba, Rodrigo Matheus, Sara Ramo, Naiah Mendonça and Tetine have also produced recent videos (see full list below).
Complementing the exhibition, the book Comunismo da Forma – Som, Imagem e Política da Arte will be released through the Situações collection (Alameda Editorial), organized by the curators. The volume is not a catalogue, but a publication which debates the themes and questions raised by the project, through essays and interviews, texts which reflect on the power of the image empire when it teams up with a not-always-disposable song to create a commentary on politics and society. Among the authors that participate are Anselm Jappe (Italian philosopher, author of L’avant-garde inacceptable : Réflexions sur Guy Debord), Nicolas Bourriad (French critic and curator, author of Relacional and Post-Production), Charity Scribner (author of Requiem for Communism), Alexei Monroe (leader of the Slovenian group NSK and author of Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK), Earl Miller (Canadian curator) and the curators Marcelo Rezende and Fernando Oliva (with articles and a recent interview with Nicolas Bourriaud, taken place in São Paulo).
The Communism of Forms: Sound + Image + Time – The Strategy of Music Videos proposes an investigation of the possibilities presented by the music video format. It is not an exhibition of music videos, but of an attempt to discuss the possibilities and the presence of the music video language in the contemporary artistic production. The curators are Fernando Oliva and Marcelo Rezende. The opening will take place on July 20th at 8:00 PM (with the release of the book Comunismo da Forma – Som, Imagem e Política da Arte). The exhibition will be at Galeria Vermelho, until August 4th.
The artists were invited to appropriate the music video language, establishing a creative relation with its three main elements: image, sound (music) and time (duration). According to the curators, there is a possibility to build a dialogue between the spectators’ mental, cultural memory and the emotional repertoires. “This is no longer about fostering a theoretical or curatorial speech about music videos as artistic expression. Music videos are now a real form of expression within the industry, bearing much in common with the early days of cinema”, they write in the text of the project. “As the ‘bastard’ child of television and cinema, music videos have become more than just a genre. As a result of the speed with which they are produced and shown, they have come to be inhabited by artists capable of overcoming the limitations of the media. Music videos – with their lack of hierarchy between old and new, technological and hand-made – set in motion the whole repertoire of the world.”
The exhibition gathers a series of new works, produced specially for the project, at the curators´ request. The majority of these works were never shown in Brazil, it is the case of the new production of the Slovenians of Laibach, the Mexican group Nuevos Ricos, the English duo Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard; and the work in video of the Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The exhibition brings yet a series of videos from Pipilotti Rist, a pioneer artist who turned to music video format when MTV started in the USA, in the early 80´s. In total, the exhibition shelters creations of about 40 artists, among Brazilians and foreigners. Ricardo Carioba, Rodrigo Matheus, Sara Ramo, Naiah Mendonça and Tetine have also produced recent videos (see full list below).
Complementing the exhibition, the book Comunismo da Forma – Som, Imagem e Política da Arte will be released through the Situações collection (Alameda Editorial), organized by the curators. The volume is not a catalogue, but a publication which debates the themes and questions raised by the project, through essays and interviews, texts which reflect on the power of the image empire when it teams up with a not-always-disposable song to create a commentary on politics and society. Among the authors that participate are Anselm Jappe (Italian philosopher, author of L’avant-garde inacceptable : Réflexions sur Guy Debord), Nicolas Bourriad (French critic and curator, author of Relacional and Post-Production), Charity Scribner (author of Requiem for Communism), Alexei Monroe (leader of the Slovenian group NSK and author of Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK), Earl Miller (Canadian curator) and the curators Marcelo Rezende and Fernando Oliva (with articles and a recent interview with Nicolas Bourriaud, taken place in São Paulo).