Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Associação Cultural Videobrasil and SP-Arte present Nada levarei quando morrer, aqueles que me devem cobrarei no inferno [When I die I will take nothing, those who owe me I will charge in hell], an exhibition organized in a partnership with both institutions. It will open on April 6, 2017, Thursday, at 7 p.m., at Galpão VB. The show presents works by Caetano Dias, Claudia Andujar, Miguel Rio Branco, Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima, Rodrigo Bueno, Rodrigo Braga, Runo Lagomarsino, and Virginia de Medeiros and will be part of the SP-Arte program, which will be held from April 6 through 9 at the Biennial Pavilion.

For Solange Farkas, Videobrasil’s diretor and curator of the exhibition together with Gabriel Bogossian, the project SP-Arte at Galpão VB consolidates their partnership, which was established in 2015 and presented at Associação’s headquarters the site-specific work titled Agridoce [Bittersweet], by South African artist Haroon Gunn-Salie. “Now, we have expanded our. The project enables different gazes regarding the work of these artists while contributing to the expansion of the Festival by including Galpão VB, among its parallel exhibitions, with well-established names in the art circuit.”

To Fernanda Feitosa, this is a meeting that echoes SP-Arte's objectives for 2017. “Strongly established as a Festival, we will involve the city in art even further in this edition. An energetic partner, Associação Cultural Videobrasil – active for over 20 years – is the best translation of what we must know in terms of the contemporary production that dialogues with video, the finest representation of our artistic engagement.”

Nada levarei quando morrer, aqueles que me devem cobrarei no inferno will be held at Galpão VB through June 17, 2017. Admission is free of charge.

+ about the exhibition

A witty observer of the culture of his time, the Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini sought to produce, in his films and texts, a critique of the then ongoing social transformations in Italy and a record of certain cultural practices that, according to him, were disappearing. In The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964), for instance, Pasolini filmed with non-actors, many of whom were peasants from Southern Italy—historically the poorest region of the country—, simultaneously paying a sort of tribute to popular Catholicism and making a record of the mask in the face of the ordinary man that is marked by the work in the fields. “They are images of bodies and dissenting cultural practices in relation to the then new hegemonic forms emerging in Italy’s heterogeneous cultural context,” explains Gabriel Bogossian, co-curator of the exhibition.

The exhibition Nada levarei quando morrer, aqueles que me devem cobrarei no inferno absorbs this thought and places it in the Brazilian context. Here, urban populations and indigenous peoples remain threatened either by urban renovation projects that do not consider the need for social inclusion or by developments in infrastructure that make traditional modes of living not viable. In this universe, works by Caetano Dias, Miguel Rio Branco, and Virgínia de Medeiros, on the one hand, and by Claudia Andujar, Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima, Rodrigo Bueno, Rodrigo Braga, and Runo Lagomarsino, on the other, come into contact for they all address a trance—which may be either spiritual, emotional, or erotic—sex and death, from a critical and heterodox perspective. For Bogossian, “the symbolic repertoire, a result from the dialogue proposed by these artists and its relation with non-Western religious practices, form a place of resistance for modes and ways of living that continue to exist, insisting on affirming their strength and, above all, their differences.”

Whereas the Italian filmmaker’s thought on a disappearing cultural heritage is the exhibition’s point of departure, its title—Nada levarei quando morrer, aqueles que me devem cobrarei no inferno, after Miguel Rio Branco’s work—reinforces the idea of death, which is also present in one of Claudia Andujar’s works, Casulo humano (rito mortuário). “Death represented in Claudia’s work is integrated with the natural cycles of life, and not only of human life. This might be what we want to create at Galpão VB: a multispecies place where beings from various worlds and universes coexist, almost like a sort of abode of spirits,” he said.

+ about the works and the artists

CAETANO DIAS | Feira de Santana, Brazil, 1959

The relations between body and identity and memory and belonging are some of the artist’s main research axes; he works with video, video installation, film, photography, installation, and performance. He was awarded at the 16th Sesc_Videobrasil Contemporary Art Festival (2007) with a residency at the Le Fresnoy, in Tourcoing, France. Some of the collective exhibitions in which he took part are Do Valongo à Favela, Museu de Arte do Rio de Janeiro (2014); the 3rd Bahia Biennial (2014); and the 29th Panorama da Arte Brasileira, at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (2005). He lives and works in Salvador.

Uma

video, 2005

Uma is based on a chance event and is comprised of a single shot with no cuts, like the subjective view of a voyeur; it shows a man and a woman hugging each other in the water, at a beach. The choreography of those two bodies suggests that, at broad daylight and in front of everyone, they are making love—the "uma" [a quickie] to which the title refers. The voyeur-like and ironic camera follows them until they both get out of the water and the woman, who looks tired, sits on the sand.

CLAUDIA ANDUJAR | Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 1931

Since the beginning of her career, Andujar has been interested in themes and groups that are outsiders in the dominant culture—from patients of a psychiatric hospital to people who participate in séances—, depicting the vital power of the photographed characters. Her activity as photojournalist first took her to visit the Carajás tribe and, in 1971, to be in touch with the then recently-contacted Yanomami people. Her production is recognized worldwide and is part of the collections of the most prominent museums in the world, such as the MoMA, in New York; the Maison Européene de la Photographie, in Paris; and the Instituto Inhotim, in Brumadinho, Brazil. She has published Marcados (2009), A Vulnerabilidade do Ser (2005), and Yanomami (1998), among others. She lives and works in São Paulo.

Catrimani

slideshow with selected images from the book Amazônia, 1971-1972

Casulo humano (rito mortuário Yanomami), da série Casa

photograph, 1976

Published for the first time in the book Amazônia—in partnership with George Love and currently out of print—this set of images record a fragment of the forest in its human, animal, and vegetal complexity. The sequence projected in a slideshow records a Yanomami group in a playful moment in the forest. Differently from what is seen in the artist’s most famous series, here the bodies before the camera create delicate images in which the Yanomamis play and talk, as if sharing a familiar space. Casulo humano, in turn, show part of a Yanomami death rite, in which the body is placed in a sort of cocoon attached to a wooden structure in the forest, where it remains until it is entirely dry to then be cremated; the ashes are mixed into a porridge to be eaten by relatives.

CLAUDIA ANDUJAR | Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 1931

Biographical note above.

GISELA MOTTA AND LEANDRO LIMA | São Paulo, Brazil, 1976

With a BA in Arts from FAAP, obtained in 1999, Motta and Lima have been working together since then, developing research exploring different technologies in works where concept and technique are determined together and often place the relation with the audience in the forefront. They have participated in various collective shows in Brazil and abroad, such as the 1st Bienal Fin del Mundo, Argentina (2007); the 10th Havana Biennial (2009); and A Arte e a Ciência: Nós entre os extremos, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake, in São Paulo (2015). Some of their individual exhibitions are In.Situ.Ações, at MAMAM no Pátio, in Recife (2011); and Sopro, at CCBB, in Rio de Janeiro (2012). They live and work in São Paulo.

Yano-a (Wakata-ú – Terra Indígena Yanomami)

video installation, variable dimensions, 2005

Yano-a was developed based on the appropriation of a black-and-white photograph of a burned Yanomami hut, taken in 1976 by Claudia Andujar. The artists sought to update the moment in which the image was recorded by analogically re-creating the moment of the fire and the heat refractions based on the projection of the photograph through a layer of water. In a different composition, a projector adds to the original image the animated record of flames from the photograms that documented the fire, which places us exactly in the moment the hut burns down.

MIGUEL RIO BRANCO | Las Palmas de Gran Canária, Spain, 1946

Miguel Rio Branco’s work includes paintings, photographs, films, and installations, often in the limits between these languages. His works present a violent and fragmented world that take the audience to somber areas of the social fabric and of human subjectivity. His works are shown in the international scene since the 1980s, and are included in the collections of different institutions, such as the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo; the Instituto Inhotim, in Brumadinho; the Centre Georges Pompidou, in Paris; and the Stedelijk Museum, in Amsterdam. He has published Dulce Sudor Amargo (1985), Silent Book (1998), and Maldicidade (2014), among others. He lives and works in Araras, Brazil.

Nada levarei qundo morrer, aqueles que mim deve cobrarei no inferno 

video, 1970-1980

Concluded in 1986, but containing material produced since 1979, Nada levarei quando morrer, aqueles que me devem cobrarei no inferno includes photographs and audiovisual excerpts produced by Miguel Rio Branco in the Maciel district, in the Pelourinho area, in Salvador. The images depict the everyday life of local bars and brothels, as well as its residents and clients. Among fragments of this scenario, the title-sentence appears, written in lipstick on a mirror, at the end of the film.

RODRIGO BRAGA | Manaus, Brazil, 1976

Reinventing the still-life genre, Braga creates images and situations by mixing materials such as leaves, stones, bones, flesh, and carcasses of animals that defy the common perception of what’s natural and what’s cultural, of what’s real and what’s built. Some of his main exhibitions are the 30th São Paulo Biennial (2013); Extreme, at the Maison Européene de La Photographie, in Paris (2010); and More force than necessary, an individual show held at the Flanders Fields Museum, in Ypres, Belgium (2010). He lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.

De natureza passional

video, 2014

Mentira repetida

video, 2011

Sem título (pedra e tronco)

photograph, 2012

Although they were not conceived as a set, the three works brought together in this exhibition are representative of part of Rodrigo Braga’s production, which has been coherently and systematically reflecting on the relations between nature and culture in photographs and video performances. De natureza passional and Mentira repetida, in which the artist performs in the woods, relate to the forest as a possible place of foster and shelter, whereas Sem título (pedra e árvore) records a moment of the slow and silent encounter between a rock and a trunk that grows over it.

RODRIGO BUENO | Campinas, 1967

Working with installations and objects using different materials, such as iron, wood, and other organic elements, Bueno reflects about urban memory through the city’s residues. His practice includes offering workshops and collaborative activities, in addition to coordinating the studio Ateliê Mata Adentro. His individual exhibitions are A Ferro e Fogo, at Galeria Marília Razuk, in São Paulo (2016) and a solo project at ArtBo, in Bogota (2016); he also participated in the collective shows Transparência e Reflexo, at the Museu Brasileiro da Escultura, in São Paulo (2016); and Cruzeiro do Sul, at Paço das Artes, in São Paulo (2015), among others. He lives and works in São Paulo.

Emboaçava (lugar de passagem)

site specific, variable dimensions, 2017

The site specific Emboaçava is the only work commissioned for the exhibition. It places a piece of the Mata Adentro studio inside Galpão VB. Using various elements from his artistic repertoire, such as iron bars from demolished houses and different elements of São Paulo’s flora, Bueno explores the past of Vila Leopoldina, district where Galpão VB is located, and its original role of protecting the then emerging city of São Paulo against invaders. The title of the work is a reference to the place near the current Ponte dos Remédios bridge, where it was possible to cross the Tietê river by foot.

RUNO LAGOMARSINO | Lund, Sweden, 1977

The son of Argentines exiled in Sweden, Lagomarsino explores in his installations, sculptures, photographs, and videos alternative perspectives regarding power relations in their historical dimension, often based on a reflection about the permanence of colonial heritage in contemporary Latin America. He has presented in solo exhibitions at Nils Stærk, in Copenhagen, Denmark (2011 and 2013); and at The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, in Stockholm, Sweden (2012), among other institutions, in addition to having participated in collective shows at the Museu Reina Sofía, in Madrid (2014); at the Guggenheim Museum, in New York (2014); and the 52nd Venice Biennial, in Italy, (2011). He lives between São Paulo and Malmö, Sweden.

We all laughed at Christopher Columbus

slide projects on MDF, 2003

Untitled

photograph, 2012

La découverte de la Terre

installation, variable dimensions, 2017

One side and the other

poster, 2014      

Part of a large set of works in which the artist critically addresses the role of museums based on a postcolonial perspective, these four works refer to the importance of these institutions as holders of the assets produced by colonialism and, consequently, in the consolidation of European Nation-States. In these works, the materials and images used by the artist—mainly gold and an excerpt of The First New Chronicle and Good Government (1612–1616), which is a key text to reconstitute what Inca culture was like—evoke the perverse simultaneity of the cycles of economic and cultural plundering.

VIRGINIA DE MEDEIROS | Feira de Santana, 1973

In her artistic practice, which mainly involves the use of video and installation, Virginia de Medeiros appropriates documentary strategies to re-think the modes of interpreting the other by using anthropological and ethnographic research strategies. She participated in the 32nd Panorama de Arte Brasileira, at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (2011); in the 2nd Luanda Triennial (2010), in Angola; and in the 27th São Paulo Biennial (2006). In 2009, she was awarded the Rede Nacional Funarte Artes Visuais prize (2009). She lives and works in São Paulo.

Cais do corpo

video, 2015

Cais do corpo

digital impression, 2015

Cais do corpo

digital impression, 2015

Shot during the final stages of the most recent "revitalization" of Mauá Square, in Rio de Janeiro’s waterfront, Cais do corpo is a sort of record of the last days of the prostitution universe that existed in the area since the 1930s. Critically addressing urban design projects that result in the gentrification of different areas of cities with no social inclusion plan, the work considers the performativity of the bodies of prostitutes as a social and political practice in which eroticism and resistance are, sometimes plainly, combined.

FACT SHEET

WHAT: exhibition Nada levarei quando morrer, aqueles que me devem cobrarei no inferno | WITH WORKS by Miguel Rio Branco, Claudia Andujar, Virginia de Medeiros, Runo Lagomarsino, Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima, Rodrigo Braga, Caetano Dias, and Rodrigo Bueno | CURATORS: Solange Farkas and Gabriel Bogossian.

WHEN: opening – April 6 (Thursday), 7 p.m. | visitation: through June 17, 2017.

WHERE: Galpão VB | Associação Cultural Videobrasil – Av. Imperatriz Leopoldina, 1150, São Paulo/SP, Brazil.