Português
When proposing an art exhibition in such a symbolic building as Copan – designed in 1951 by the architect Oscar Niemeyer and with a final project totally changed– in a situation of earnest abandon that looks suspended in time, it seems inevitable to establish frictions in the confluence between art and architecture. In fact, in suggesting the architecture of the space as a deflagrating element for an artistic reactive action, one has the motive for the process construction of actions and situations that may dialogue with the abandoned and imprisoned space in which its ghostly condition lays. On the other hand, this is not about exultation to the space, not an eulogy to modern architecture. This could put in danger the very condition of the works there proposed.
Consequently, one can grasp the necessity to corrupt the lethargy of such vast area, which was inactive for years. This seems to be the immediate way for an active art, even if it is only through ephemeral strategies. The group of fourteen participant artists is then invited to deconstruct that fragmented space, in order to find their own intercepting point. New pieces and existing works, but dislocated from their original contexts, tend to accommodate themselves in that empty space that refers to the urban empty areas that exist in a city.
For this proposal the show counts with the participation of Adriano Costa, Amália Giacomini, Carmela Gross, Cristiano Lenhardt (in collaboration with Amanda Melo and Manuela Eichner), Daniel de Paula, Eduardo Coimbra, Eduardo Frota, Guilherme Peters, Luiz Roque, Marcelo Gomes, Nazareno Rodrigues, Paloma Bosque, Rogério Sganzerla and Vitor Cesar.
In a way, to deal with this context in suspension, the modern euphoria that the building symbolizes, the proposed artistic debate should punctuate some urgent questions that revisit this heritage without the weight of a former tradition. In some cases, it wouldn’t be too much to incite a debate between the distinct temporalities of architecture and art, promptly certified by the materiality and the way it behaves. It is important to declare that this is not a generational exhibition, but a collective exhibition where the space and its cultural condition subverted by the artistic practice, are an open narrative field. Combined with this, there’s also the historical load of the place and the difficulties to deal with the memory of an inconclusive situation, already in ruins, accentuate the magnitude of such a challenge.
In part, due to the perplexity of a place that before they reach any maturity already turned to its own ruins, interrupting a process that becomes cyclical when it is not able to establish the next step, like a melody that repeats itself forever, the artists create a great deal of their gestures, and offer us different interludes.
No wonder that the very year the building is open, 1966, as one of the last galleries in downtown Sao Paulo that completed the circuit of modern spaces in the Republica region, Rogério Sganzerla will make use of the cinematographic language to tell us about an artistic option constituted by the possibility of experiences in the city. In “Documentário” (1966), he presents us this big palimpsest the city is, always mutating, and offering the same cyclical form mentioned before. Moreover, it was about the greatest statement of our modern architecture that, paradoxically, coincided with its decline.
The space is exquisitely contaminated by the hope of something that would be real in the future and that is announced in the works. The prelude spins in “Ear More Blue” by Dave Brubeck, theme that closes Sganzerla short, reinforce the condition of open moment also able to improvising. At the same time the nostalgia of that context raises the previous movement of the melody, only by new ways that the eventuality of art deflagrates. Suggested in the title of the exhibition, the idea of “do” in a past tense that in Portuguese is not conditional, removes any condition of the speech. It becomes an ally for a permanent movement against any conformism or fatality.
When proposing an art exhibition in such a symbolic building as Copan – designed in 1951 by the architect Oscar Niemeyer and with a final project totally changed– in a situation of earnest abandon that looks suspended in time, it seems inevitable to establish frictions in the confluence between art and architecture. In fact, in suggesting the architecture of the space as a deflagrating element for an artistic reactive action, one has the motive for the process construction of actions and situations that may dialogue with the abandoned and imprisoned space in which its ghostly condition lays. On the other hand, this is not about exultation to the space, not an eulogy to modern architecture. This could put in danger the very condition of the works there proposed.
Consequently, one can grasp the necessity to corrupt the lethargy of such vast area, which was inactive for years. This seems to be the immediate way for an active art, even if it is only through ephemeral strategies. The group of fourteen participant artists is then invited to deconstruct that fragmented space, in order to find their own intercepting point. New pieces and existing works, but dislocated from their original contexts, tend to accommodate themselves in that empty space that refers to the urban empty areas that exist in a city. For this proposal the show counts with the participation of Adriano Costa, Amália Giacomini, Carmela Gross, Cristiano Lenhardt (in collaboration with Amanda Melo and Manuela Eichner), Daniel de Paula, Eduardo Coimbra, Eduardo Frota, Guilherme Peters, Luiz Roque, Marcelo Gomes, Nazareno Rodrigues, Paloma Bosque, Rogério Sganzerla and Vitor Cesar.
In a way, to deal with this context in suspension, the modern euphoria that the building symbolizes, the proposed artistic debate should punctuate some urgent questions that revisit this heritage without the weight of a former tradition. In some cases, it wouldn’t be too much to incite a debate between the distinct temporalities of architecture and art, promptly certified by the materiality and the way it behaves. It is important to declare that this is not a generational exhibition, but a collective exhibition where the space and its cultural condition subverted by the artistic practice, are an open narrative field. Combined with this, there’s also the historical load of the place and the difficulties to deal with the memory of an inconclusive situation, already in ruins, accentuate the magnitude of such a challenge.
In part, due to the perplexity of a place that before they reach any maturity already turned to its own ruins, interrupting a process that becomes cyclical when it is not able to establish the next step, like a melody that repeats itself forever, the artists create a great deal of their gestures, and offer us different interludes.
No wonder that the very year the building is open, 1966, as one of the last galleries in downtown Sao Paulo that completed the circuit of modern spaces in the Republica region, Rogério Sganzerla will make use of the cinematographic language to tell us about an artistic option constituted by the possibility of experiences in the city. In “Documentário” (1966), he presents us this big palimpsest the city is, always mutating, and offering the same cyclical form mentioned before. Moreover, it was about the greatest statement of our modern architecture that, paradoxically, coincided with its decline.
The space is exquisitely contaminated by the hope of something that would be real in the future and that is announced in the works. The prelude spins in “Ear More Blue” by Dave Brubeck, theme that closes Sganzerla short, reinforce the condition of open moment also able to improvising. At the same time the nostalgia of that context raises the previous movement of the melody, only by new ways that the eventuality of art deflagrates. Suggested in the title of the exhibition, the idea of “do” in a past tense that in Portuguese is not conditional, removes any condition of the speech. It becomes an ally for a permanent movement against any conformism or fatality.
Diego Matos – Curator