Questioning the modernist ideals while borrowing instruments from the movement’s essential toolbox has been one of the key procedures used by Marcelo Cidade over the course of his career.
In the solo show Quase Nada, Cidade appropriates historical elements as a strategy for subverting and criticizing the prevailing political system. But his work does not discuss the ideological content of facts that marked the history of Brazil and the world, like the JK [Juscelino Kubitschek] era, or the legacy left by communism in countries like former Yugoslavia. In this solo show, Cidade seeks nonideological ways to discuss politics.
In the installation …e agora, José? […And now, José?] (2012), which occupies the gallery’s hall 1, Cidade appropriates an image from a huge billboard used in Marshal Henrique Teixeira Lott’s campaign for the Brazilian presidency, in 1960. The panel presents the candidate wearing his military uniform beside Juscelino Kubitschek dressed as Borba Gato [a historical explorer of the Brazilian colonial frontier] and referred to as the “grande bandeirante do século” [great pioneer of the century]. Despite his association with the pioneering image of JK, who had built Brazil’s new federal capital, Lott lost the election to Jânio Quadros.
Cidade appropriates an image from Lott’s campaign as an instrument for criticizing the ideals of modernism and progress implanted in Brazil at that time. Brasília, a city created on paper before being inhabited, reflects the problems of the real Brazil.
Similar content appears in Obra Obsoleta [Obsolete Artwork] (2011). In order to create it, Cidade appropriated images of monuments from former Yugoslavia, photographed by Belgian photographer Jan Kempenaers. After gluing them to sheets of plywood, Cidade takes out the monument, leaving only the landscape in the background. What one sees are desolate and distant landscapes. Nowadays these sculptures, symbolizing the thinking of an era, are transformed into mere obsolete and anachronistic forms that point to the void left by the ideologies that marked the 20th century.
Adição por subtração [Addition by Subtraction] (2012) reaffirms the void in the field of architecture and art, questioning the perspective. What one sees are frames made of glass shards, but empty where the artwork would be.
The solo show is capped off by the video Quase Nada [Almost Nothing] and the silkscreen Paranga.
Questioning the modernist ideals while borrowing instruments from the movement’s essential toolbox has been one of the key procedures used by Marcelo Cidade over the course of his career.
In the solo show Quase Nada, Cidade appropriates historical elements as a strategy for subverting and criticizing the prevailing political system. But his work does not discuss the ideological content of facts that marked the history of Brazil and the world, like the JK [Juscelino Kubitschek] era, or the legacy left by communism in countries like former Yugoslavia. In this solo show, Cidade seeks nonideological ways to discuss politics.
In the installation …e agora, José? […And now, José?] (2012), which occupies the gallery’s hall 1, Cidade appropriates an image from a huge billboard used in Marshal Henrique Teixeira Lott’s campaign for the Brazilian presidency, in 1960. The panel presents the candidate wearing his military uniform beside Juscelino Kubitschek dressed as Borba Gato [a historical explorer of the Brazilian colonial frontier] and referred to as the “grande bandeirante do século” [great pioneer of the century]. Despite his association with the pioneering image of JK, who had built Brazil’s new federal capital, Lott lost the election to Jânio Quadros.
Cidade appropriates an image from Lott’s campaign as an instrument for criticizing the ideals of modernism and progress implanted in Brazil at that time. Brasília, a city created on paper before being inhabited, reflects the problems of the real Brazil.
Similar content appears in Obra Obsoleta [Obsolete Artwork] (2011). In order to create it, Cidade appropriated images of monuments from former Yugoslavia, photographed by Belgian photographer Jan Kempenaers. After gluing them to sheets of plywood, Cidade takes out the monument, leaving only the landscape in the background. What one sees are desolate and distant landscapes. Nowadays these sculptures, symbolizing the thinking of an era, are transformed into mere obsolete and anachronistic forms that point to the void left by the ideologies that marked the 20th century.
Adição por subtração [Addition by Subtraction] (2012) reaffirms the void in the field of architecture and art, questioning the perspective. What one sees are frames made of glass shards, but empty where the artwork would be.
The solo show is capped off by the video Quase Nada [Almost Nothing] and the silkscreen Paranga.