Page 108 - ARTE!Brasileiros #43

WHAT UNITES US? ENGLISH VERSION
It was only after I had made such a decision that I realized that she put into the cliché of the tourist image of Rio, as to open the possibility of collaboration with
effect a very interesting hypothesis about delusion: the idea that she refuses anyone who could. The result was divided into two supports: the exhibition, which
the neutral surface of representation on which each object is inscribed, isolated ran between December 2017 and April 2018, and the extensive 480-page catalog
from the others, in its relation to a given word . Once this basis of representation that brought together about 500 of the more than 1,000 collected photographs
is rejected, the model of which would be that of the blank sheet of paper on and detailed texts on the history of each place - usually initiated as resettlement
which one inscribes something, the world presents itself as a palimpsest, as a of residents removed from favelas in the southern zone or as illegal occupation of
contamination of objects and multiple writings to combine according to the look undeveloped areas.
- the reading - of each one of us. I was then struck by the fact that the history of The exhibition was built in time - like an album is gradually filled-, as the images
art is also marked by diverse strategies of building such a surface and, at least would reach the IMS. A large map of the city was plotted on the floor of the
since the beginning of the twentieth century, of its destruction, in an attempt to exhibition space, leaving empty walls to be occupied by images of the communities
take the art out of representation and make it rediscover life (pulsating) and the scattered across the map. At the end of it, the images formed a mosaic composed
world (always problematic). of dozens of looks from residents, workshop participants, and the artist herself,
Gradually, I became aware of another facet of the exposition project: it was an without hierarchy: merged.
attempt to put the works into instability, or even in movement, in the manner of Rennó reveals the several layers that make up the urban utopia of Rio de Janeiro
what was done in the bishops’ cells of the Rosary while he was alive: the different far beyond Corcovado and Christ the Redeemer through texts and images. Vila
pieces were repositioned and sometimes modified by him in a complex game Progresso, in Vila Kennedy, for instance, an undeveloped settlement with 58,000
that Frederico Morais described as “stupidity”. Its internal dynamics makes m2 and about 1,500 residents, is portrayed by Thais Alvarenga in pictures of children
arbitrary the delimitation of each element as a “work”, radically problematizing playing and occupying its streets. As the project continued receiving images this
the traditional conditions of exposure. Seeking to activate such a dimension - year, it already includes the ill-fated military occupation in Rio, as shown in photos
which I came to regard as one of the fundamental characteristics of delusion - my of Vila Aliança, taken by Alan Lima and Danilo Verpa.
attempt was to put the works virtually in motion, in the succession of points of Thereby, the photographer who does not photograph anymore, but actually did,
view of each spectator to walk among them. creates an image of Rio de Janeiro that is closer to dystopia than utopia: a portrait of
The invitation of Sesc Pompeia to host a new version of Places of Delirium a country of promised and unfulfilled hopes, an unusual outlook in the well-behaved
allowed this expogation proposal to expand and radicalize thanks to its unique system of Brazilian visual arts.
architecture, diametrically opposed to the structure of the “white cube”. In this
space of broad and open coexistence in which no surface is neutral, in its brick EXHIBITION RIO DE JANEIRO | PAGES 60 TO 61
continuity with the area where children play, Places of Delirium seems to move A SHAMAN IN CABELO’S
walls, its meandering lake (as if waiting for boats that would inhabit it) and its
in various directions, to unfold multiple scenes-close or far, in their panoramas ANTI-EXHIBITION
and in their songs-redrawing themselves in each path of each spectator, at the
very moment when his gaze turns some works and, beyond them - who knows? - YANOMAMI LEADER DAVI KOPENAWA PARTICIPATES IN THE EXHIBITION LIGHT
Maybe something will change in the world.
WITH DARKNESS, BY THE CARIOCA ARTIST CABELO, CURATED BY LISETTE
EXHIBITION RIO DE JANEIRO | PAGES 56 TO 58 LAGNADO
RIO WITH NO BEACHES, NO BY FABIO CYPRIANO, IN RIO DE JANEIRO
CHRIST AND NO CORCOVADO “TO BE A GREAT ARTIST, it is not necessary to use the art badge,” defended
the artist Cabelo, in the midst of his own retrospective, in a conversation with
Yanomami leader and shaman Davi Kopenawa last April 19.
ROSANGELA RENNÓ PRESENTS IN #RIOUTÓPICO A PANORAMA OF THE CITY, For the artist, who introduced Kopenawa to an audience of more than 300 people,
CREATED FROM COLLABORATIVE ACTIONS, WHICH GOES FAR BEYOND CLICHÉ “the role of art was originally the role of the shaman, but this was lost,” as to indicate
that ritualistic art relations ceased to exist in branded society the artist more as a
BY FABIO CYPRIANO decorator than a creator of symbolic images.
Progresso, Vitória, Morada dos Sonhos, Esperança, Novo Mundo, Maravilha e Paraiso Two decades of Cabelo’s work were seen in Light with Darkness, which took place
are not terms that, especially at the present time, may be close to any description in Espaço Cultural BNDES, in Rio, between March and May of this year. For Lisette
of the city of Rio de Janeiro. These words, however, are present in the carioca daily Lagnado, curator of the “anti-exhibition”, as she herself has defined, it was “20
life as names of neighborhoods, streets and villages, and are part of the mapping years of a creation that I consider indecipherable.”
carried out by the artist Rosângela Rennó to # RioUtópico [under construction] for In fact, more than an exhibition, Light with Darkness was an experience with elements
the Instituto Moreira Salles (IMS) of the “wonderful” city. drawn from pop and Afro-Amerindian cultures, where it was difficult to perceive the
One of Rennó’s most daring and complex projects, # RioUtópico led the artist herself limits of each work, in an integration that seemed in fact an immense penetrable,
to be a photographer who does not photograph to return to work with the camera. with several different niches , using here terms conceived by Hélio Oiticica. There
Part of the original idea was to ask residents of 50 sites listed by the artist to were corners with huge eggs, part of plots, others with different fabrics, places to
embrace the idea of utopia and take photos of their surroundings and send them sit, places to lie down.

to IMS. However, the proposal for collaboration needed to be improved. To this The very idea of expanded cinema, also used by Oiticica, is already reference in
end, workshops were held with more than 50 participants, organized, at first, in the title of the exhibition, by appropriating the concept of movie theater, after all
partnership with the Redes Redes para Juventude. a space of light with darkness. Many projections were displayed in every exhibition
Subsequently, through the activities of the Institute’s own education sector, five space, almost all of which could be seen simultaneously, causing a kind of vertigo,
youths were hired, becoming project enablers, going to approximately 50 chosen with no beginning, middle and end.
locations in a carousel system, also producing images. It was in this rather chaotic and somewhat hallucinogenic environment that Cabelo
“In # RioUtópico, Rennó works as an organizing voice which shares the vision and received Kopenawa with a rather fantastic account. He recalled that in 1992, during
calls for participation, even when she photographs herself: something rare to the the World Environment Conference, in the same building “of the BNDES, which
artist’s career,” explains curator and organizer Thyago Nogueira. Collaborations finances so many works that end with the Indians”, went to see a concert and
are constant in the career of the artist; much of her work relates to re-signifying ended up participating in a ceremony of aspiration of the yãkõana, the powder
photographs or even objects performed by others, usually a reflection on the used in Yanomami rituals. “I remember well the shaman’s embrace that provided
production and circulation of images in society. that experience, and for me it was only love,” said Cabelo. But the story gained
That was the case of A última foto (2006), for example, when Rennó handed mythical contours when he said that only on that day, April 19, when he went to
photographic cameras to photographers, asking them to portray Cristo Redentor the airport to fetch Kopenawa and told him that memory, he knew that he himself
in Rio, a city where she, from Minas Gerais, has lived since 1990. Both the images had embraced Cabelo.
and the cameras were then exposed, composing a panorama of the diversity of The presence of Kopenawa, beyond the personal history with the artist, did indeed
analog machines and photographic styles. In the last photo, Rennó still dealt with make sense there. For over an hour, he spoke about the difficulties of the forest
the paradigm shift from analog to digital, as well as discussing in the catalog of peoples, especially threatened by miners, and of the Yanomami who end up playing
the show the copyright issue, since the iconic image of Cristo Redentor belongs a role of resistance and, at the same time, the preservation of the Amazon.
to Rio’s archdiocese. “Pajé’s work is to protect, preserve mother earth”, Kopenawa said. “I am a teacher
When it comes to #RioUtópico, the procedure is radicalized, as much to get away from too, teacher of humanity. We do not use pencils, but we use our speech to teach