Page 97 - ARTE!Brasileiros #42

in which formats to proceed in a more concrete way. A discussion would be a test for these perceptions. Thus, it reminds one of the
on different narratives on the history of slavery for instance might scientific experiment, the test of hypotheses.
develop into a concrete project how to reconcile the victims. I expect Guy Brett, in a text written in 2005, republished in the book, states
that after the conference we will have different project ideas that that the Brazilian production by the generation before Cildo Meireles
are worthwhile to realize. relied on the senses. This investigation of perception was a way of
looking at the limits of bureaucratic rationality. Art must take these
It is expected any practical activity from that project, like publish a book or limits and seek a new relationship with life.
work for any partnership between universities? Artists like Lygia Clark and Helio Oiticica distance themselves
I am very sure that only the encounter of participants coming from traditional rationalist contemplation to create relationships
from different backgrounds, countries, cultures and disciplines but between senses that were apparently disconnected. Thus, they
working on the same theme will create a network that will help to have created situations or environments in which these sensuous
collaborate and to find supporters. Apart from that I do hope that ways of perceiving the works in high voltage. Body and mind, reason
concrete projects that already exist or that are developed newly can and sensibility, even the forms of conviviality would be remade by
be realized in the following years. “Echoes of the South Atlantic” these more direct and communal relations. This escapist promise,
is planned for three years and will hopefully grow in visibility and romantic and sensory, does not seem to be before Cildo when he
in participants. begins his first works.
The artist comes from the generation baptized by Frederico Morais
BOOKS | PAGES 76 AND 77 as “AI-5 generation”. The promises of modernization and the
THE METAMORPHOSES construction of a utopian perception were not on the horizon. The
sensations in his work, thereafter, become room for doubt. As we
OF THE ARTIST’S WORK learn from the text of Frederico Morais, the sensory experience is
called into question. Therefore, the appearance of the spheres in
Eureka/Blindhotland installation (1970-1975) is denied by their weight
THE THEME THAT COMES OUT OF THE WORK MADE BY CILDO MEIRELES and the sounds amplify what Sônia Salzstein names as confusion
REVEALS A GOOD KEY OF HIS HISTORY of the senses.
For this reason, the space of Cildo’s early works, Virtual Spaces:
BY TIAGO MESQUITA Cantos (1967-68), is not expansive. It looks like a dead end. The
colouring of Deviance for Red (1967-84) does not enhance perception
THE BOOK CILDO - ESTUDOS, ESPAÇOS, TEMPO(Cildo - studies, beyond the limits of rationality: red makes objects homogeneous.
spaces, time), released by Ubu Editora, portrays the trajectory of Cildo The experiences are negative, to look for something by sensations,
Meireles based on his procedures. The organizers Diego Matos and by the instruments of reason and not find what is desired. The
Guilherme Wisnik gathered about forty works, made over fifty years study seems to exhaust these knowledge, in a permanent skeptical
of his career. The works are shown through exhibition photographs, exercise of doubt.
artist’s notes, drawings and projects. We are presented to how the Cildo Meireles is problably one of the contemporary artists who most
works came to the public, but also to the steps of Cildo Meireles’ influenced the current art commited to a cause, behind his back.
elaboration and part of his critical repercussion. Unlike many others that use art as a vehicle for convictions, but it
The traces help us rebuild the steps of his work. We follow the is an ideological criticism, the criticism on how we think when we
metamorphosis of some important pieces over time and understand believe we are not thinking. His political force is the radicalisation
the form they take in different phases: idealization, design, of the incertitude and the indetermination. This book brings us the
implementation and use. The documentation came from the artist’s force of the radical doubt.
own file and it is arranged in chronological order.
The relation of the works in the book makes us think a connection BOOKS | PAGE 78
between the ideas of what came before and what came later. The book
is finished by excellent critical essays that explore the interlocution X-RANGE, A POEM
of the artwork with the history of Brazilian and foreign art, the
relationship with various theoretical forms and the meanings that ABOUT SPACE
the work gained when it escaped the hand of its author.
The book studies the variations of some ideas and the sense they gain REISSUE OF THE BOOK BY REGINA VATER, PUBLISHED IN 1977, IN NEW
in different forms of implementation. Therefore, the works shown YORK. THE ARTIST DIVES INTO THE PRIVATE SPACE OF HÉLIO OITICICA,
do not have a definite technique, nor do they ask the spectator for a LYGIA CLARK, JOHN CAGE AND VITO ACCONCI
conventional form of attention. Perhaps that is why more objectual
works, such as Diamond and Clubs (Ouro e Paus), Geometry Cases BY LEONOR AMARANTE
(Estojos de Geometria), Money Tree (Árvore do Dinheiro), which call
for a more traditional form of contemplation, have been left out of ARTISTS inhabit cultural and social forms. Studios become memory
the narrative in the book. phenomena and cause reflections about the space. Regina Vater
The notion of study organizes the work. The study would be a is one of the pioneers of video art and installations in Brazil, but
refinement of the puzzles that question ideological convictions. It manifests herself through photography and visual poetry to create

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