Page 122 - ARTE!Brasileiros #40

EXCLUSION, ART AND THE PLACE OF SPEECH ENGLISH VERSION

UNTIL LAST MAY, Letícia Parente (1930 – 1991) was virtually her pieces by subverting the established orders, such as the
known as a one-piece artist: Marca Registrada [Registered conventional arrangement of objects in a home. In that period,
Trademark]. In the video, created in 1975, she sews her own feet household chores were always identified with the female figure,
with the expression “Made in Brazil”, a work shown and re-shown and inserting situations that provoke attrition in this image, she
in exhibits that address issues surrounding the body, gender, the criticizes the tasks established by a system that was beginning
military period in Brazil, or even the audiovisual language. to disintegrate.
Prematurely dead at when she was sixty years old, she didn’t have The criticism to the search of beauty, another demand which at
time to see her work be revisited as many other artists from her the time concerned virtually only women, is also a theme in the
generation, such as Anna Maria Maiolino and Anna Bella Geiger, collages of Projeto 158-1/Série Mulheres. It shows a sort of menu of
who today are internationally known because of their works from possible styles such as “smooth vegetarian behavior” or “average
that time. statistical behavior,” all coming from an image of the same person,
Eu armário de mim [Me Closet of Myself], exhibition in the only altering the distances between parts of her face.
Jaqueline Martins gallery held between March and May, presented There is in fact a good humor surrounding these works by Parente,
a representative set of works, up until then virtually unknown, which also brings her together to the militant and sarcastic
which afford the understanding of Parente’s poetics beyond his production of artists such as the North American Martha Rosler.
emblematic video. It is surprising that the show is not held in a Author of the also emblematic Semiotics of the Kitchen, from the
museum or similar institution, but in fact Jaqueline Martins’s same year of 1975, which describes how to use kitchen utensils,
gallery has been fulfilling an expressive role by showcasing a little together with Parente, also captures the confronting spirit of the
known production from the 1970s and 1980s. time, which included the struggle for female emancipation.
The pieces shown were mostly completed in 1975, a very productive However, what surprises the most in the show is the installation
year for Parente, a chemistry PhD, titular professor at the Federal Medidas [Measures], from 1976, an interactive work comprised
University of Ceará and at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio of a group of stations to measure the visitors’ blood type,
de Janeiro. From that year, there are works in different media, attention, vision, pain endurance, physical type, weight, height
from collages to drawings and video, but the photocopy is the and respiration. With such information, it is possible to make
language that stands out the most. comparisons with other data previously collected from newspapers
In all of them, the criticism of habits stands out, such as the and publications, and match the information is if they had to fit
video that gives the exhibition its title. In Eu armário de mim, the into standards, a pioneering installation in the country, which
artist repeats the phrase like a mantra, while a closet is occupied relates art and science in an amusing way.
in different ways: normally, filled with furniture such as chairs, Rescue is today a worn out word, but what we see in Eu armário
or with only shoes. It is difficult not to recall the production of de mim is something beyond that: a work that even remaining
current artists, such as Sara Ramo, who obsessively repurposes unknown for years, reappears current and blunt.
everyday objects in small spaces.
What we can notice is that Parente, in the 1970s, already created 1 | SEM TÍTULO (UNTITLED, 1975) FROM LETÍCIA PARENTE’S MULHERES [WOMEN] SERIES

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