From February 26 to March 23, 2013, Galeria Vermelho is presenting the solo show Pelas Bordas [From the Edges] by Carla Zaccagnini.
Carla Zaccagnini is known for an artistic production that transits in a unique way between installation, video, text, drawing and performance. In this solo show, the artist works “from the edges,” – that is, with a perception couched in the periphery – to reinterpret the systems and rules that govern our observation, comprehension and representation of the terrestrial globe.
To this end, Zaccagnini, who was born in Buenos Aires, in 1973, has brought together recent works and others produced from 2003 onward, documents of her displacements to different regions of the world in various artist’s residencies, and projects she has carried out in the last decade.
In Alfabeto Fonético Aplicado II: pavimentaram a Panamericana e tudo o que vejo é a falha de Darien [Applied Phonetic Alphabet II: They paved a Panamericana and all I can see is the Darien Gap] (2010), Zaccagnini appropriates the International Radiophony Spelling Alphabet, known as the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, currently used by aviation companies and ham radio operators around the planet. The work proposes a new alphabet for spelling based on words whose meaning and spelling is international, but whose pronunciation is adapted to various languages and to the sounds of each country. In the first edition of the work, presented at ARCO 2010, Zaccagnini appropriated the Panama Canal’s motto, “Dividing the land to unite the World.” The current version, which occupies the gallery’s façade, perverts the previous one, pointing to a world that is not so unified, since the Pan-American Highway, which should link Patagonia to Alaska, still has an 87-km gap between Colombia and Panama (the Darien Gap), which belies the concept of unification that nourished the creation of the Panama Canal.
The video Walking Distance (2003) emerges, according to the artist, “as a preface to all the works that will come after it in this solo show”. Installed in Vermelho’s entry hall, it reveals images of a walk the artist took on a beach on North Uist Island [Scotland], in 2003.
The installation Bravo-Radio-Atlas-Virus-Opera (2009–2010), presents the videographic record of a crossing through the Panama Canal by boat, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, between 5 p.m. June 27, 2009, and 1 p.m. the following day.
In The North-West Passage (2012), Zaccagnini appropriates the image of the work by painter John Everett Millais and superimposes on to it a text of her authorship, commissioned by Tate, the museum to which the work belongs. The text provides a poetic description of man’s first attempts to find a passage through the Arctic Ocean that would link the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.
The third passage by water between these two oceans appears in Sem Título [Untitled] (2007), which features photographs taken during a roundtrip journey between Argentina and Chile, along the Beagle Channel.
Created between the years 2003 and 2012, Duas Margens [Two Shores], is a project carried out in collaboration with six artists. In the first version, Wagner Morales [Brazil] and Sofia Ponte [Portugal] simultaneously recorded the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, each at a beach of his/her own choice, according to Zacagnini’s instructions: Morales on the Brazilian coast and Ponte on the Portuguese coast. The recordings, both of one-hour duration, were made at the same moment, but at different local times. In 2005, the same procedure was repeated. This time, Helmut Batista, on a beach in Chile, and Eric Holowacs, in New Zealand, simultaneously recorded the waters of the Pacific on opposite shores. The third and last part of the project, the Indian Ocean, was filmed in 2012 by Runo Lagomarsino, from the Mauritius Islands, in Africa, and by David Wells in Perth, Australia. Installed in the same room, the three diptychs – Atlantic, Pacific and Indian – of the project Duas Margens [Two Shores] suggest a fictional space of encounter between the three oceans.
The solo show is capped off by a set of drawings, collages and prints entitled Como darlo vuelta [How to turn it around](2013). In this series, the artist questions the conventional manners of representing the terrestrial globe, in a way that subverts them based on an imaginary universe. North and South switch position. Each artwork shows a different way of inverting the cardinal points and suggests a global reorganization that criticizes the cultural and economic conventions.
Through appropriations, citations, partnerships and collaborations, in Pelas Bordas Carla Zaccagnini constructs a set of possibilities and challenges that suggests a new – even if fantastic – cartography for the globe, based on its borders.
From February 26 to March 23, 2013, Galeria Vermelho is presenting the solo show Pelas Bordas [From the Edges] by Carla Zaccagnini.
Carla Zaccagnini is known for an artistic production that transits in a unique way between installation, video, text, drawing and performance. In this solo show, the artist works “from the edges,” – that is, with a perception couched in the periphery – to reinterpret the systems and rules that govern our observation, comprehension and representation of the terrestrial globe.
To this end, Zaccagnini, who was born in Buenos Aires, in 1973, has brought together recent works and others produced from 2003 onward, documents of her displacements to different regions of the world in various artist’s residencies, and projects she has carried out in the last decade.
In Alfabeto Fonético Aplicado II: pavimentaram a Panamericana e tudo o que vejo é a falha de Darien [Applied Phonetic Alphabet II: They paved a Panamericana and all I can see is the Darien Gap] (2010), Zaccagnini appropriates the International Radiophony Spelling Alphabet, known as the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, currently used by aviation companies and ham radio operators around the planet. The work proposes a new alphabet for spelling based on words whose meaning and spelling is international, but whose pronunciation is adapted to various languages and to the sounds of each country. In the first edition of the work, presented at ARCO 2010, Zaccagnini appropriated the Panama Canal’s motto, “Dividing the land to unite the World.” The current version, which occupies the gallery’s façade, perverts the previous one, pointing to a world that is not so unified, since the Pan-American Highway, which should link Patagonia to Alaska, still has an 87-km gap between Colombia and Panama (the Darien Gap), which belies the concept of unification that nourished the creation of the Panama Canal.
The video Walking Distance (2003) emerges, according to the artist, “as a preface to all the works that will come after it in this solo show”. Installed in Vermelho’s entry hall, it reveals images of a walk the artist took on a beach on North Uist Island [Scotland], in 2003.
The installation Bravo-Radio-Atlas-Virus-Opera (2009–2010), presents the videographic record of a crossing through the Panama Canal by boat, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, between 5 p.m. June 27, 2009, and 1 p.m. the following day.
In The North-West Passage (2012), Zaccagnini appropriates the image of the work by painter John Everett Millais and superimposes on to it a text of her authorship, commissioned by Tate, the museum to which the work belongs. The text provides a poetic description of man’s first attempts to find a passage through the Arctic Ocean that would link the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.
The third passage by water between these two oceans appears in Sem Título [Untitled] (2007), which features photographs taken during a roundtrip journey between Argentina and Chile, along the Beagle Channel.
Created between the years 2003 and 2012, Duas Margens [Two Shores], is a project carried out in collaboration with six artists. In the first version, Wagner Morales [Brazil] and Sofia Ponte [Portugal] simultaneously recorded the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, each at a beach of his/her own choice, according to Zacagnini’s instructions: Morales on the Brazilian coast and Ponte on the Portuguese coast. The recordings, both of one-hour duration, were made at the same moment, but at different local times. In 2005, the same procedure was repeated. This time, Helmut Batista, on a beach in Chile, and Eric Holowacs, in New Zealand, simultaneously recorded the waters of the Pacific on opposite shores. The third and last part of the project, the Indian Ocean, was filmed in 2012 by Runo Lagomarsino, from the Mauritius Islands, in Africa, and by David Wells in Perth, Australia. Installed in the same room, the three diptychs – Atlantic, Pacific and Indian – of the project Duas Margens [Two Shores] suggest a fictional space of encounter between the three oceans.
The solo show is capped off by a set of drawings, collages and prints entitled Como darlo vuelta [How to turn it around](2013). In this series, the artist questions the conventional manners of representing the terrestrial globe, in a way that subverts them based on an imaginary universe. North and South switch position. Each artwork shows a different way of inverting the cardinal points and suggests a global reorganization that criticizes the cultural and economic conventions.
Through appropriations, citations, partnerships and collaborations, in Pelas Bordas Carla Zaccagnini constructs a set of possibilities and challenges that suggests a new – even if fantastic – cartography for the globe, based on its borders.
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/1_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013_edouard_fraipont.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013_edouard_fraipont.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/3_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/5_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013_edouard_fraipont.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/4_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013_edouard_fraipont.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/6_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/7_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013_edouard_fraipont.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/8_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013_edouard_fraipont.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/10_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013_edouard_fraipont.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/9_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013_edouard_fraipont.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/11_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013_edouard_fraipont.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/bravo_stills_2.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/12_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/13_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013.jpg)
![](https://galeriavermelho.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/14_carla_zaccagnini_pelas_bordas_2013_edouard_fraipont.jpg)