Trash Metal is Dora Longo Bahia’s first solo show at Vermelho. There are five groups of new works presented, all dated 2010, with videos, installations, paintings and photographs.
In Trash Metal, Dora Longo Bahia continues her research on violence, a theme that is present in the most part of her career. Here the artist approaches mankind’s self-inflicted violence with idyllic landscapes contrasting with garbage produced by consumer society along with images of war. Her famous Scalps – acrylic paintings removed from their original frames that were seen in many exhibitions in Brazil and abroad – point out to the artist’s intention of revealing what is inside things, and not only what is inside them.
The installation Call of Duty presented in the gallery’s ground floor was created in collaboration with Rodolfo Ferrari. All the walls in the white cube were entirely covered with one scalp composed by geometric figures. The scalp works as a niche for Call of Duty, video images of a teenager playing a videogame based on a World War II setting.
While the teenager’s face is preserved in Call of Duty, in Tese IX faces occupy three monitors composing the installation based on Walter Benjamin’s Thesis IX studies.
In Escalpo Ferrado (Iron Scalp), the installation presented in hall 2, Longo Bahia covers the walls with one ton of metal plaques from a junkyard. The artist then creates a series of landscapes with acrylic paint. Once they are dry, they are removed and transferred to the metal surface. Four photographs of the Metaaal series complete the installation. They suggest exit or escape ways to the claustrophobic and heavy ambient generated by the metal on the walls.
One last work concludes Trash Metal, Vermes (Worms) is an artist book created from a school catalogue on bacteria and germ, Longo Bahia recreates situations associated to war over the original images in the catalogue.
Trash Metal is Dora Longo Bahia’s first solo show at Vermelho. There are five groups of new works presented, all dated 2010, with videos, installations, paintings and photographs.
In Trash Metal, Dora Longo Bahia continues her research on violence, a theme that is present in the most part of her career. Here the artist approaches mankind’s self-inflicted violence with idyllic landscapes contrasting with garbage produced by consumer society along with images of war. Her famous Scalps – acrylic paintings removed from their original frames that were seen in many exhibitions in Brazil and abroad – point out to the artist’s intention of revealing what is inside things, and not only what is inside them.
The installation Call of Duty presented in the gallery’s ground floor was created in collaboration with Rodolfo Ferrari. All the walls in the white cube were entirely covered with one scalp composed by geometric figures. The scalp works as a niche for Call of Duty, video images of a teenager playing a videogame based on a World War II setting.
While the teenager’s face is preserved in Call of Duty, in Tese IX faces occupy three monitors composing the installation based on Walter Benjamin’s Thesis IX studies.
In Escalpo Ferrado (Iron Scalp), the installation presented in hall 2, Longo Bahia covers the walls with one ton of metal plaques from a junkyard. The artist then creates a series of landscapes with acrylic paint. Once they are dry, they are removed and transferred to the metal surface. Four photographs of the Metaaal series complete the installation. They suggest exit or escape ways to the claustrophobic and heavy ambient generated by the metal on the walls.
One last work concludes Trash Metal, Vermes (Worms) is an artist book created from a school catalogue on bacteria and germ, Longo Bahia recreates situations associated to war over the original images in the catalogue.
