Trash Metal is Dora Longo Bahia’s first solo show at Vermelho presenting five groups of new works – all dated 2010 – with videos, installations, paintings and photographs.
In the exhibit, Dora Longo Bahia continues her research on violence, a theme that is present in the most part of her career. In Trash Metal the artist approaches mankind’s self-inflicted violence with idyllic landscapes contrasting with garbage produced by consumer society and images of war.
The Escalpo Ferrado [Screwed Scalp], installation fills the second floor of the gallery with a ton of metal plaques from a junkyard. The artist then creates a series of scenes from war thorn landscapes with acrylic paint which, once they are dry, are removed and transferred to the metal surface. This modus operandi, known as her scalp series where acrylic paintings are removed from their original surface and transferred onto carbord as in Escalpo Caribenho [Caribbean Scalp]; outdoors announcing african sensationalists newspapers as in Escalpo Africano [African Scalp]; wood, as in Escalpo Carioca; abestos insulalting plates, as in Escalpo Paulista; and, onto the floor, as in the 28ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo (2008) where she covered five thousand and sixty three square meters with her Escalpo 5063 [5063 Scalp].
Four photographs from the Metaaal series complete the installation. They suggest escape ways to the claustrophobic and heavy ambient generated by the metal on the walls.
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 setting 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 hidden in Call of Duty, in Tese IX faces occupy three monitors composing the video and sound installation based on Walter Benjamin’s Thesis IX studies.
In Vermes [Worms], an artist book created from a school catalogue on bacteria and germ, Longo Bahia recreates situations associated with war over the original images in the catalogue.
Trash Metal is Dora Longo Bahia’s first solo show at Vermelho presenting five groups of new works – all dated 2010 – with videos, installations, paintings and photographs.
In the exhibit, Dora Longo Bahia continues her research on violence, a theme that is present in the most part of her career. In Trash Metal the artist approaches mankind’s self-inflicted violence with idyllic landscapes contrasting with garbage produced by consumer society and images of war.
The Escalpo Ferrado [Screwed Scalp], installation fills the second floor of the gallery with a ton of metal plaques from a junkyard. The artist then creates a series of scenes from war thorn landscapes with acrylic paint which, once they are dry, are removed and transferred to the metal surface. This modus operandi, known as her scalp series where acrylic paintings are removed from their original surface and transferred onto carbord as in Escalpo Caribenho [Caribbean Scalp]; outdoors announcing african sensationalists newspapers as in Escalpo Africano [African Scalp]; wood, as in Escalpo Carioca; abestos insulalting plates, as in Escalpo Paulista; and, onto the floor, as in the 28ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo (2008) where she covered five thousand and sixty three square meters with her Escalpo 5063 [5063 Scalp].
Four photographs from the Metaaal series complete the installation. They suggest escape ways to the claustrophobic and heavy ambient generated by the metal on the walls.
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 setting 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 hidden in Call of Duty, in Tese IX faces occupy three monitors composing the video and sound installation based on Walter Benjamin’s Thesis IX studies.
In Vermes [Worms], an artist book created from a school catalogue on bacteria and germ, Longo Bahia recreates situations associated with war over the original images in the catalogue.
