The modern era arose in the shadow of the ideals won by the French Revolution. The growth of the liberal democracies and republics around the world, the development of the modern ideologies, the sciences and the arts, the invention of total war, and, most significantly, man as a central character in this scene, were born during the revolution.
In the field of art, many artists nowadays are dedicated to researching about the unfoldings of modernism. There are those who prefer to investigate the 16th-century philosophical, ethical, aesthetic and political roots that led to the rise of the modern era and the full establishment and expansion of the liberal ideals in all the spheres of Western culture until today. This investigatory procedure is evident in the exhibition U=RI proposed by the young artists Guilherme Peters and Henrique Cesar.
The exhibition’s title refers to the formula used in physics for the measurement of electrical tension (voltage) between two points, and, in the case of this exhibition, reveals a number of the procedures exercised by the artists in conceiving, elaborating and materializing their works. This takes place in the way that the three artists have chosen to represent the human body.
In the case of the series of self-portraits “Enxertos” [Grafts] “Antenas” [Antennas] and Terra [Earth], by Henrique Cesar, man, his physical needs, curiosities, originality and dominion over the forces of nature is the center of the exhibition, and, therefore, of the world, appearing turbocharged by technical artificialities suggested by antennas, in a mix between man and machine.
In the case of Guilherme Peters, repetition works as a tool to evidence man’s eternal search for overcoming the physical and intellectual limits of the body. In the performance “Estudante” [2012], which Peters will stage during the show, the repetition ad infinitum of a single movement refers, according to the artist himself, to the idea of the eminent failure of the entire process of knowledge. In the performance, the artist repeatedly tries to finish an observational drawing which, however, depends on physical action to suspend books related to the history of art by means of a system of pulleys and cables connected like processes to his body.
In 2010, Guilherme Peters embodied one of the main characters of modern history in the video “Robespierre e a tentativa de retomar a revolução” [Robespierre and the Attempt to Resume the Revolution]. In the installation, the artist weaves a commentary about the origin of the Republican movement, which points to the impossibility of the revolutionary utopia to prosper in a world in which simple and repetitive tasks provoke “vertigo.”
In U=RI, the artist continues this research by presenting a set of works directly related to this theme, such as the installation “Retrato de Robespierre”, in which an image of the French revolutionary is printed by way of a continuous process of oxidation, which will transform the image.
A similar chemical process is used by Peters in the installations “Autodestruição dos direitos humanos” [Self-Destruction of the Human Rights], “Terra Santa” [Holy Land] and “Máquina para evocar o espírito de Joseph Beuys através de sua imagem” [Machine to Evoke the Spirit of Joseph Beuys by Means of His Image]. In the first two works, the process of the oxidation of iron plates is constant and will lead to the complete transformation of the image of the 18th-century “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” and, in the second, of a passage excerpted from the Torah which refers to the Promised Land, or present-day Palestine. For its part, in “Máquina para evocar o espírito de Joseph Beuys através de sua imagem”, which makes reference to the performance created by Peters in 2009, Beuys’s portrait and one of the artist himself were embossed side-by-side on a copper plate (Beuys), and an iron plate (Peters). Submersed in an aquarium, the plates will undergo a process of electrolysis, which will make the portrait of Peters, on the iron plate, incorporate particles of copper given off by the Beuys plate.
The obscurantism that the modern era tried to combat by way of scientific knowledge appears in the series “Catacumbas” [Catacombs] by Henrique Cesar. In the drawings, the artist presents images of underground catacombs located in the cities of São Paulo and Paris, alongside the video “Endoscopia” [Endoscopy], in which an endoscopic camera scrutinizes the interior of a skeleton, as well as the polyptych “Radiografia de Parede” [Wall X-Ray]. In the latter, Cesar presents what lies under the cement coating on walls, revealing his scientific interests concerning that which is beneath the sidewalk, beneath the skin or even beneath the façade of walls.
A similar procedure of scrutiny appears in the video “Tentativa de aspirar o grande labirinto” [Attempt to Aspirate the Great Labyrinth], in which Peters used 3-D editing tools to create a virtual stroll within one of Helio Oiticica’s “Metasquemas”. In the work, Peters also appropriates the text “Brasil Diarréia,” written by Oiticica in 1970, which points to the dilution of the Brazilian constructive elements.
To works such as “Catacumbas”, “Endoscopia” and “Políptico Radiografia de Parede”, Cesar counterposes his “Tratado Anagógico” [Anagogic Treatise]. The 1.8-meter-high drawing, similar to a giant chemical formula, uses technical tools with a very clear and specific role in the field of science to verify mystical and obscurantist meanings.
If on the one hand Cesar chooses the term “treaty” to criticize the countercurrent that insists on questioning scientific knowledge, Peter prefers the format of diagrams, schemes, graphics and circuits, which, in the history of knowledge, helped man to organize knowledge and assured the basis for the future comprehension of his acquisitions, to approach subjective questions. This is what occurs in “Projeto para um grande resistor” [Project for a Large Resistor] and “Projeto para grande carburador” [Project for a Large Carburetor]. In the first, Peters used pages from Mao Tse-tung’s Little Red Book as the backdrop for a large drawing that imitates an electrical circuit, and, in the second, the drawing for the design of a large carburetor is overlaid on notes about the French Revolution.
The modern era arose in the shadow of the ideals won by the French Revolution. The growth of the liberal democracies and republics around the world, the development of the modern ideologies, the sciences and the arts, the invention of total war, and, most significantly, man as a central character in this scene, were born during the revolution.
In the field of art, many artists nowadays are dedicated to researching about the unfoldings of modernism. There are those who prefer to investigate the 16th-century philosophical, ethical, aesthetic and political roots that led to the rise of the modern era and the full establishment and expansion of the liberal ideals in all the spheres of Western culture until today. This investigatory procedure is evident in the exhibition U=RI proposed by the young artists Guilherme Peters and Henrique Cesar.
The exhibition’s title refers to the formula used in physics for the measurement of electrical tension (voltage) between two points, and, in the case of this exhibition, reveals a number of the procedures exercised by the artists in conceiving, elaborating and materializing their works. This takes place in the way that the three artists have chosen to represent the human body.
In the case of the series of self-portraits “Enxertos” [Grafts] “Antenas” [Antennas] and Terra [Earth], by Henrique Cesar, man, his physical needs, curiosities, originality and dominion over the forces of nature is the center of the exhibition, and, therefore, of the world, appearing turbocharged by technical artificialities suggested by antennas, in a mix between man and machine.
In the case of Guilherme Peters, repetition works as a tool to evidence man’s eternal search for overcoming the physical and intellectual limits of the body. In the performance “Estudante” [2012], which Peters will stage during the show, the repetition ad infinitum of a single movement refers, according to the artist himself, to the idea of the eminent failure of the entire process of knowledge. In the performance, the artist repeatedly tries to finish an observational drawing which, however, depends on physical action to suspend books related to the history of art by means of a system of pulleys and cables connected like processes to his body.
In 2010, Guilherme Peters embodied one of the main characters of modern history in the video “Robespierre e a tentativa de retomar a revolução” [Robespierre and the Attempt to Resume the Revolution]. In the installation, the artist weaves a commentary about the origin of the Republican movement, which points to the impossibility of the revolutionary utopia to prosper in a world in which simple and repetitive tasks provoke “vertigo.”
In U=RI, the artist continues this research by presenting a set of works directly related to this theme, such as the installation “Retrato de Robespierre”, in which an image of the French revolutionary is printed by way of a continuous process of oxidation, which will transform the image.
A similar chemical process is used by Peters in the installations “Autodestruição dos direitos humanos” [Self-Destruction of the Human Rights], “Terra Santa” [Holy Land] and “Máquina para evocar o espírito de Joseph Beuys através de sua imagem” [Machine to Evoke the Spirit of Joseph Beuys by Means of His Image]. In the first two works, the process of the oxidation of iron plates is constant and will lead to the complete transformation of the image of the 18th-century “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” and, in the second, of a passage excerpted from the Torah which refers to the Promised Land, or present-day Palestine. For its part, in “Máquina para evocar o espírito de Joseph Beuys através de sua imagem”, which makes reference to the performance created by Peters in 2009, Beuys’s portrait and one of the artist himself were embossed side-by-side on a copper plate (Beuys), and an iron plate (Peters). Submersed in an aquarium, the plates will undergo a process of electrolysis, which will make the portrait of Peters, on the iron plate, incorporate particles of copper given off by the Beuys plate.
The obscurantism that the modern era tried to combat by way of scientific knowledge appears in the series “Catacumbas” [Catacombs] by Henrique Cesar. In the drawings, the artist presents images of underground catacombs located in the cities of São Paulo and Paris, alongside the video “Endoscopia” [Endoscopy], in which an endoscopic camera scrutinizes the interior of a skeleton, as well as the polyptych “Radiografia de Parede” [Wall X-Ray]. In the latter, Cesar presents what lies under the cement coating on walls, revealing his scientific interests concerning that which is beneath the sidewalk, beneath the skin or even beneath the façade of walls.
A similar procedure of scrutiny appears in the video “Tentativa de aspirar o grande labirinto” [Attempt to Aspirate the Great Labyrinth], in which Peters used 3-D editing tools to create a virtual stroll within one of Helio Oiticica’s “Metasquemas”. In the work, Peters also appropriates the text “Brasil Diarréia,” written by Oiticica in 1970, which points to the dilution of the Brazilian constructive elements.
To works such as “Catacumbas”, “Endoscopia” and “Políptico Radiografia de Parede”, Cesar counterposes his “Tratado Anagógico” [Anagogic Treatise]. The 1.8-meter-high drawing, similar to a giant chemical formula, uses technical tools with a very clear and specific role in the field of science to verify mystical and obscurantist meanings.
If on the one hand Cesar chooses the term “treaty” to criticize the countercurrent that insists on questioning scientific knowledge, Peter prefers the format of diagrams, schemes, graphics and circuits, which, in the history of knowledge, helped man to organize knowledge and assured the basis for the future comprehension of his acquisitions, to approach subjective questions. This is what occurs in “Projeto para um grande resistor” [Project for a Large Resistor] and “Projeto para grande carburador” [Project for a Large Carburetor]. In the first, Peters used pages from Mao Tse-tung’s Little Red Book as the backdrop for a large drawing that imitates an electrical circuit, and, in the second, the drawing for the design of a large carburetor is overlaid on notes about the French Revolution.
