Page 97 - ARTE!Brasileiros #58
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patuás is, nonetheless, a contemporary Afro version of   photographs and prints made by photographers and   perpetrated by the colonisers and their executioners on   [PAGE 10]
               the loci memoriai, the places of memory of mnemonics.   artists, mostly travellers or emigrants, made in Brazil in the   the Black bodies, which can be found in textbooks in Brazil
               In this tradition, memoria rerum, memory for things,   19th century are printed. On some of these “patches” are   (producing an association that naturalises the relationship
               is joined with memoria verborum, memory for words.   images of azulejo tiles, representative of the Portuguese   between the “black body” and the “violated body”). Rather,
               The imagnines agentes, that is, agents of memory, are   colonial architecture and city (just as can be seen in   she chooses inaccurate stitching, to show the fragility of   [PAGES 11 ANd 12]
               placed in certain places to narrate histories imagetically   many works of another important Brazilian artist who   this body of people, who have been objecti”ed by slavery,
               (Yates, 1966). There is a movement in Paulino’s work of   develops the theme of colonial violence, Adriana Varejão).   photography, science and voyeurism.(14) The images of
               appropriation of elements of memory – of a memory   Paulino’s 2018 piece Musa paradisíaca [Paradisiacal   “enslaved bodies” in the 19th century present to us Black
               that is close, familiar, but also distant, associated with   muse] reproduces the same photograph by Marc Ferrez   bodies in these two forms only: work or suffering. Rosana   [PAGES 13 to 15]
               a rupture, a drift, of knowledge and a way of being in the   three times (“the most important of the photographers   Paulino chooses to make an assentamento, in the sense of,
               world that, in a certain way, the artist recognises as her   working in Brazil in the 19th century” Lago, 2001, 14),   a ritual of homage, of redressing, impossible but necessary,
               own. As in the words of Musa Michelle Mattiuzzi, Rosana   known as “Uma vendedora de banana” [A banana seller]   with the past that does not pass away. Heart, womb and
               Paulino seems indeed to “inhabit the ruins of coloniality,”   (Ermakoff, 2004, 116), alongside reproductions of three   roots do not restore life or heal wounds, but serve to shift
               she presents herself as someone who knows how to   “scienti”c” representations of botanical subjects, an x-ray   our way of approaching these phantasmatical images of
               “inhabit and revive the ruins of this Afro-Atlantic plurality.”  of a pelvis and a white patch with inscriptions in red capital   the past, allow us to begin a dialogue with the dead and
                 Photography has become a fundamental metaphor   letters of varying sizes, quoting the well-known carnival   open a veranda over the ocean, contextualising slavery
               in contemporary art and, in Brazil, it has been at the root   march “yES, NÓS tEMoS BANANA.” Here we see a touch   in the Afro-Atlantic world. Restoring roots to those who
               of the production of artists who deal with memory and   of irony in Paulino’s work, but one that is also sarcastic,   have been cut off from them, giving them ancestry and life,
               even more with oblivion. I recall Hélio Oiticica, with his   with regard to the clichés constituting “Brazilness.” When   even if it is one of survival [sobre-vida], is a delicate work
               Bólide Caixa 18 “Homenagem a Cara e Cavalo, from   sewing these “patches,” shards of history assembled   to which Paulino’s art has been dedicated in an original
               1966 or his famous seja herói, seja marginal from 1968.  by the artist, again she picks apart the structures of   and powerful manner.
               (13) Photography, especially analogue, has a moment   colonial imagery. performing what I would like to call an
               of “printing” (it is worth remembering that Rosana   “anarchiving” of the colonial archive. The photographs and   aline motta: refleCtions on a (mis)enCounter
               Paulino has a bachelor’s degree in and is a specialist in   colonial images of Black people frame them in an imagery   In the last two decades, Afro-descendant art in Brazil
               engraving; Lopes, 2018, 171). Photography re-updates other   that seeks to reproduce oppression. These images are   has sought to establish a current of memory that at the
               metaphors of memory, such as writing, a metaphor equally   cover-up images – Deckerinnerungen, according to   same time bridges the ocean to Africa and embraces
               fundamental in the aforementioned tradition of the art of   Freud. This anonymous woman photographed by Marc   the Brazilian territory in its long history of slavery (and
               memory with its idea of mnemonic inscriptions. After all,   Ferrez around 1885 was also framed by him in a double   never fully realized liberation). In the case of the artist
               photography is literally a writing of light. But it also refers   frame, next to another Black woman dressed as a “Bahian   Aline Motta from Niterói, for example, with her trilogy
               to the psychoanalytic view of our memory as layers, some   woman.” We are, therefore, from Bahian to the “samba   of video installations, this becomes clear. Her works,
               more some less conscious. The inscription of trauma has   mulatta,” at the source of a powerful construction of the   “Pontes sobre Abismos” (08:29, 2017), “Se o mar tivesse
               also been compared to the photographic !ash. Photography   image of the Black Brazilian woman, her body and her   varandas” (09:11, 2017) and “(Outros) Fundamentos” (15:47,
               as a portrait also has a corporeal and phantasmatical   behaviour. This cliché (photographic and in terms of social   2017–2019) present – through a voice-over narrative by
               element: the photographic portrait ambiguously literalises   role) goes up in smoke with Paulino’s stitched montage.   the author and images captured in Sierra Leone, Nigeria
               appearance and disappearance, presence and absence,   Another work with similar resources is A ciência é   and in several places of her origin in Brazil – the story of a
               the desire to see and the image fading. In her work/ game,   luz da verdade 3? [Is science the light of truth 3?], from   quest for fragments of the past with the aim of establishing
               Paulino also becomes the one who deals the cards in   2016. It is made up of three “patches” sewn together.   a “settlement” (to come back to Paulino’s image) in the
               the presentation of Black bodies. Like Eustáquio Neves   The two at the end spell out, in the same red letters as   present. Her works come about from a moment of rupture,
               and his portraits, she asserts herself as the agent of her   in the previously commented work, the sentence that   from the breaking of a “secret,” from a layer of hard
               images and no longer as an object represented, bereft   gives this work its title: Is Science the Light of Truth? In   silence that still kept its origin in the shadows in the
               of her own voice. The work manages, at the same time,   the centre we see a photomontage that superimposes   19th century, in the practice of an aristocrat’s son who
               to be extremely contemporary and to quote pasts that   two skulls, one above the other, onto an image of azulejo   raped her great grandmother. Her grandmother’s birth
               are more or less close. It is a hole in time; it creates a   tiling. The theme of science is recurrent in Paulino’s work   certi”cate lists only her mother’s name and the quali- “er
               metaspatiality and other chronotopes. Photography is   and largely refers to eugenicist doctrines (defended by a   “natural daughter.” From this discovery of repressed
               treated as a fragment, a shadow, the survival of a shipwreck,   Nina Rodrigues), as well as to some of the photographers   violence, from this negative origin, Aline’s work unfurls
               and it is around appropriated photographs and their copies,   and artists who were around in Brazil in the 19th century.   like a huge, swollen river, gushing but also over!owing
               cut-outs and inversions, that much of Paulino’s work is   Thus, her work Atlântico vermelho [Red Atlantic], from   with family photographs that, in her videos, literally !oat
               built. But it does so without romanticising some lost origin   2017, assembles (11) pieces of fabric, and in the upper left   along the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the rivers of
               or establishing some identity-based ontology. Rather, the   corner we have a famous anthropometric photograph   Brazil and Africa. In these works full of transparency,
               technical reproduction of the photographs deconstructs   taken by August Stahl.   water and mirrors, of surfaces that re!ect for us to re!ect,
               any essentialist aim. It is about making room for imagining   Paulino’s 2013 Assentamento [Settlement] series   the artist searches for the paths that can reconnect the
               alternative origins and narratives to those constructed by   returns to one of Stahl’s photo groups from 1865. The   broken threads of her family history and those that also
               colonial discourses.              three life-size photographs, recovering their human   connect the continents on either side of the south Atlantic.
                 In her 1997 series Bastidores, she sews the eyes, throat,   dimensions, were each cut into “ve strips and stitched   At the end of her work “(Outros) Fundamentos” we see
               mouth and forehead of photographic portraits of Black   back together irregularly. In the front photograph of the   scenes in the city of Lagos with people on canoes and
               women collected by her in her family albums. As in many   naked woman, Paulino inserts a painted heart, like an   on the riverside, carrying small mirrors in their hands.
               of the works by the aforementioned Rosangela Rennó,   external organ, from which red threads “of blood” run. In   The narrator says:
               these photographs are programmatically precarious,   the pro”le photograph, she inserts a picture of a baby in
               so as to identify effacements, losses, subtractions, but   the womb, but again as something external, transparent.   If belonging is “ction, can I point a mirror towards
               also to identify that these women are, at the same time,   In the photograph of the same character, always naked,   Nigeria and see Brazil? Is the opposite possible
               unique individuals and all those women who identify   with her back to us, the artist does not sew on the lower   too? Beyond the ocean, one points his “nger at
               with them. The act of the artist is always twofold: when   part of the photograph, corresponding to the end of   the other and asks: is it really you? What took you
               sewing the mouth and neck, she asserts herself as   her leg and feet, and instead sews a fabric upon which   so long?(15)
               an agent of speech, unpicking the stitches from her   veins have been stitched, resembling roots that branch
               mouth and that of those who admire her work. When   out, as if the portrait were growing roots. These three   ConClusion
               sewing the eyes, she establishes herself as an agent in   photographs are part of an installation of which stacked   As in Rubem Valentim’s “Manifesto Tardio,” Aline Motta
               the construction of images and of the counter-colonial   pieces of wood, as if awaiting a “re, are also a part. On the   also punctuates this temporality of “delay,” the après
               imagery, unpicking the stitches from her eyes and those   ground, next to the two “bon”res,” two small monitors show   coup, which, as we have seen, is nothing more than
               of those who see her work. When sewing the forehead   ocean waves breaking on the beach. It is also important   the temporality of trauma, with its characteristic delay.
               she asserts herself as a thinking agent and not as a   to remember here the double meaning of the title of the   The time of trauma is a time that passes through us,
               thought object dissected by science and crushed by   work: assentamento, which in Portuguese is the act of   which makes the slave trade, the violence of almost four
               servitude, unpicking the stitches from her brain and that   laying decorative tiles or !oor tiles, among other things,   centuries of slavery and the eugenicist and genocidal
               of her spectator. In a nutshell, she asserts: “I own my   and is an act of construction, therefore, which refers   policies against Blacks that exist until today part of
               body, the black woman is in charge of her body, this in   to the body of those who have been building in Brazil   the same present. This is a past that does not pass.
               a society that is still colonial, phallocentric, racist, which   since the 16th century, who have laid, among others, the   Contemporary Brazilian Black art – which I have tried
               oppresses as much black as female bodies or those that   azulejo tiles to which some of Paulino’s works refer. On   to present here from its dif”cult birth and which rose
               do not correspond to the cisgender standard.” In naming   the other hand, assentamento can also be a place that   up against so many effacements, repressions, deaths
               her work Bastidores [Backstage] she plays with the   receives the landless [settlement], the category of many   and incidents of violence – in a certain way dwells in this
               multiple meaning of the term: on the one hand, she clearly   Black people expelled from the work-force in Brazil, heirs   “delay” of which Aline speaks. To inhabit the delay always
               expresses the backstage of this society with her gesture   to the burden of the “liberation” of the slaves of 1888.   implies an urgency to speak, to register in”nite stories yet
               of sewing on the faces of these portraits. But bastidor   Lastly, in Candomblé, assentamento is a set of objects   symbolised, yet imagined, not yet translated into images.
               [also meaning rack or frame in Portuguese] also refers   placed in a speci”c place to honour an orisha deity. This   The works of so many artists mentioned here, as well as
               here to the weaving frame on which these photographs   is where the strength of the orisha is based [assenta-se   those not mentioned, are veritable hybrid constructions,
               were printed. Instead of sewing “well-behavedly” and   in Portuguese]. We can ruminate on how these meanings   marked by montage, by stitching, by being collected
               doing her weaving so as to ful”l the “feminine” role that   circulate in Assentamento. This work explicitly deals with   from shards and rubble, by being installations, graphic
               society imposes on women, Paulino shifts the frame,   the traumas, the wounds opened by slavery – wounds   or photographic prints, performances and theatrical
               breaks with its role as an instrument of gender control   that do not close. The word “trauma” comes from Greek   scenes. The strength of these artistic devices lies in
               and turns it into a device of her eminently political art.   and means wound. There is no suturing that could ever   being works of memory that create and open before us
                 More recently, the artist has been working with   stitch up the wounds of four centuries of slavery or the   new territories, help to erect new houses for us to live
               stitching together fragments of fabric, which I will call   violence of the slave trade. Paulino tells us about this   beyond homelessness and discomfort. Like pickaxes,
               “patches” to emphasise their element of fragmentation   violence, but without reproducing the famous images of   these devices break down walls of forced oblivion and
               and precariousness, in which some of the most iconic   Rugendas and Debret, which portrayed the torturous acts   silencing. As I stated at the start of this text, the impressive
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         Book_ARTE_58.indb   97                                                                                 25/03/2022   11:00
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