Dissenso e Destruição

Ana Lira, Danitza Luna e Felipe Rivas San Martín
14.06.2018 - 25.06.2018

Arte e Ativismo na América Latina – ano III (2018)

In this third year of the programme Art and Activism in Latin America, we propose to think action strategies as political tools, able to shake hegemonic discourses, most often seen as unshakable. Practices that originate from discomfort and disagreement zones, emerging in face of urgency to conjoin in the fight against institutionalized violence and social injustice – dissent.

These discontents evolve through aesthetic and political actions of and contestation, articulating the destructuring of dominance through gestures that reconstruct perception, opening up to new forms of political subjectivation – destruction.

In this gathering of latin american artists, it becomes evident how much we share social emergencies, beyond specific contexts, and the abyss between among our neighbour countries, considering the tiny interlocution that we establish between us. We therefore celebrate the encounter of Ana Lira (Brasil), Danitza Luna (Bolívia) and Felipe Rivas San Martín (Chile), made possible in this space and time.

These three artists and activists, whose practices collaborate in the dillution of the frontiers between art and activism, configurate today more than an exhibition, but a web where diverse fronts of articulations entangle  – developing network action strategies by means of collective researches.

Ana Lira asks: why do we activate politics mechanisms from a militarized language? The artist, who decides that she will no longer put herself in the target of police during her collective actions, proposes a detachment from belic practices, and the approach to invisibility as a place of articulation. Through collective agencying, flag and billboard productions and street interventions, the artist proposes a reflection on how much verbal demilitarization exercises and the maintenance of caring networks, can establish new means for political action.

The anarchist-feminist bolivian movement Mujeres Creando, here represented by Danitza Luna, proposes the graffiti “Nossa vingança é sermos felizes” (Our revenge is to be happy) as methodology for political activation of the symbolic field. Through a series of meetings with women for creative practices, named “Gráficas Feministas” (Feminist Graphic Press), this process produces confluences between diverse confrontations of chauvinism. The participants – many without prior experience with graphic production – expressed feelings of revolt through drawings and writings which resulted in 75 posters, united in a set of prints shared among the participants, and distributed free of charge.

Meanwhile, Felipe Rivas San Martin presents results of his research “Homosexual Data”, on the construction of the homossexual individual across time and of biommetrical data starting from two ‘studies’. The first, from 1938, would identify homossexuals (frequenters of the Tiradentes Square, at Centro da Cidade of Rio de Janeiro) from the triangular form of it’s pubian hair cluster, and the other, from 2017, via algorythms of facial recognition. Eighty years span and in this archive revision of past and present, the chilean artist reports the persistent outline and control of the homossexual body, inviting us to create our own (transviated) archive.

What is configurated here, through the convergence of these multiple discursive practices, is a platform that invites other views and voices to action and conversation, in search of sharing paths of convergence and dissonance that our diverse experiences have in common.

Guilherme Altmayer
curator

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To learn more about the artists and Art and Activim in Latin America – year III, click here.

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PICTURES GALLERY (horizontal scrolling)
Photos: Denise Adams e Frederico Pellachin

 

Strange Night: Care, Coexistence and Agency

Matheusa Passareli and guests
30.05.2018

Art and Activism in Latin America – year III

Intervention-act conceived by Gabe Passareli, Marta Supernova, Clarissa Ribeiro and Lorran Dias – in conversation with the life, works and poetics of Matheusa Passareli, a non-binary black artist murdered at the age of 21 in Rio de Janeiro in April 2018.

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PRESENTATION

How to create a space-mechanism for coexistence, that comprehends the accountability and care – in a non-romantic way –, as de-colonial practices to guilt and the patriarchy, acting as antibodies against a colonial wound intrinsic to society?

From this perception, how to cross the micro and macro-political endeavors for
1. A tensioning of the structures and colonialist impositions
2. Other forms of socialization and alterity, that comprenhend the border thinking as a demarcation agent and an awareness reminder of the difference between “Me” and “Other”?

What is designated to whom, when the social pain reveals atrocities of the historical processes, and we understand that subordination, domination and extermination are more than facts, they are legitimate continuous processes? How to position ourselves, without excluding our portion of social responsibility upon these continuous processes?

When we problematize the historical creation of symbols, icons, leaders and voices from social-midiatic movements, we decentralize the activisms and militancies, and we build a social agenda that crosses everyone’s paths. We invite you to envision your limits that guarantee your unity, in order to understand your connections to the whole. How to guarantee stability for LGBT lives in the borders concerning professional formation and their circulation in these segregated cities fed by a violent cis heteronormative culture?

The post-colonial world, in its global capitalist stage, with all its superficialities and time-space synthesis, is increasingly affecting public and individual mental health. Identity and representative crisis have been the focus of extensive debate in a country in which the colonial wound still endures in an extractive way since the 16th century.

The big challenge seems to find tools that stress the capitalist chains and make alternative pathways possible after the destruction of the current system. If the redistribution of violence in the anticolonial figth leads us to destructive processes of symbols and institutions, how to deal with what is to come? Or, what comes after after the end of the world?

A Strange Night of Care, Coexistence and Agency.

Lorran Dias
________

To construct our bodies from encounters. Extraordinary coexistence. Glorious moments. Not more, not less. Coexistence. How to produce confluences from the encounter with other bodies-intervention? To inhabit harmoniously is made necessary in contexts of extreme cruelty. The conflicts are necessary in moments of crisis,  together we will enable the tranformation. The encounter of mystery-bodies. Who looks upon us? Who takes care of us? Who accompanys us? Propositions of interventions aiming to the deconstruction of comfort. Encounter. We shall inhabit the same space and respect our differences. We shall not expel other bodies which approach us. Human vs trauma. Deconstruction of the imagetic limits of the body.  We will take over Despina as an informal space for care and intervention. For that, we shall take coexistence as an ethical, political and aesthetical apparatus.

We won’’t allow desperation
the objects connect us to emptiness
filled by the absence of the body
poetical crossings terminal
shouting is made necessary
i can’t shout
how to control myself?
order
you are the order
IT IS ALLOWED TO TOUCH THE BODIES
the skin is sensitive and it might hurt
the limits for coexistence
inferno
memory experience
the absence of the body fades the object

Gabe Passareli

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This exhibition was part of the third edition of Despina’s  Art and Activism in Latin America project, with the support from the Prince Claus Fund. For more information, click here.

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AGENTS
Alexandre Rodolfo de Oliveira, Aline Beatriz, Aun Helden, Amandla Veludo, Ana Lira, Anarca Filmes, Anthonio Andreazza, Arlindo Oliveira da Silva , Augusto Bráz, Atelier Gaia e Luta Antimanicomial, Baby Alien, Beatriz Lopes, Bianca Kalutor, Clarice Correa, Clarissa Ribeiro, Coletivo Seus Putos, Consuelo Bassanesi, Dani Gues, Daniel Santiso, Danitza Luna, Enantios Dromos [SP], Érica Supernova, Felipe Espindola, Felipe Rivas, Frederico Pellachin, Frozen2000, Gabe Passareli, Gabriel Massan, Garotas Digitais, Gilmar Ferreira, Guilherme Altmayer, Igor Furtado, João Marcos Mancha, Jorge Maragaia, Leticia Santana, Lyz Parayzo, Lorran Dias, Lucas Afonso, Marielle Franco, Mario Celso Neto, Marta Supernova, Matheusa Passareli, Max William Morais, Natasha Ribas, Pablo Ferretti, Patricia Ruth, Qaete, Roberta Maria, Tertuliana Lustosa, Thayná Oliveira, Thaysa Paulo, Tombo, Ventura Profana, Yuji Romar, Yuri Landarin.

Images and editing: Lucas Afonso
Editing and Post-production: Clarissa Ribeiro

PICTURES GALLERY (horizontal scrolling)
by Denise Adams

This same body

Carlos Martiel, Cristiano Lenhardt and Mariela Scafati
21.09.2017 - 20.10.2017

Art and Activism in Latin America – year II

The black, white, feminine, masculine, queer body gains violent, eloquent, plastic, festive or even mystic outlines in the propositions developed by Mariela Scafati, Carlos Martiel and Cristiano Lenhardt. These artists come respectively from Buenos Aires, Havana and Recife, cities that are so distinct and particular in their forms of cultural manifestations and their relationship with the colonial past, the current political instability and with a future filled with uncertainties.

In the heart of the XXI century, the plasticity attributed to men is taken to the limit of what is bearable in politics and nature, tensioning notions of the future and challenging social convention patterns, in a perverse power game that is inevitable in the course of the historical process fought by the West in its epic narrative of conquest, power and destruction.

In this context, the body is the minimum cell and maximum political organism, it is at the same time the instance of resistance, pleasure, pain and transcendance, capable of carrying all human history, be it individual or collective. The body is put to test – it demands and offers the dimension of what is possible and impossible in the daily battles of life, defying the very rules of our survival.

Mariela Scafati, during her stay in Rio de Janeiro, went in search of interlocution with other activists – feminists and transfeminists – to develop her practice of queer silk screen (a project she has been developing for many years) in collaboration with the collective which is organizing a street manifestation that will gain body in the end of the year at “Marcha das Vadias” (Slutwalk). In parallel, the artist presented performances and led workshops in which she explored the body (including her own) as a public platform for communication, understanding “fashion” and the t-shirts as political flagships and itinerant vehicles of ideas that need to be expressed, rejected or incorporated into the collective debate.

In her final action – A Vida se Impõe (“Life imposes itself”) -, Mariela presented a “fashion show” in which the word is inseparable from the body, its movements constituting the articulation of a political repertoire that calls the people to publicly manifest themselves. While the outfits with pony-tails bring an animality and give unity to men, women and trans people, the performances on the catwalk are followed by Scafati’s text change, an action that she articulates in a kind of Kamishibai Japanese theatre through words. Humor and irony gain strength in the artist’s works – which mobilizes bodies that speak (or opt for silence), bodies that exist and have to be recognized in their physical, aesthetical and political integrity. Life is the grand political experience, coexistence is the great strategy of survival and the body is a party!

Carlos Martiel, Cuban artist who lives between Cuba and New York, developed three performances throughout his residency in Brazil. Giving continuity to an artistic research – that parts from his own body to question the manner in which we relate with the black race and its past of physical and economical domination – at Despina he also investigated the indigenous issue in “Lamento Kayapó” (“Kayapó Lament”), a subject constantly put to second plan by Brazilian political agenda (even by the left); the servile aspect of black labour in “Fonte de Energia” (“Energy Source”); and the violence practiced by the State in its constant attacks to this ethnicity – in the name of the fight against crime and the preservation of social order in “Bala Perdida” (“Stray Bullet”).

His performances take our pain tolerance to a limit, as well as our capacity of observing, dealing and coexisting with the atrocities routinely committed against marginalized, vulnerable and neglected groups by public power and affluent sectors of society. In this sense, the plastic and graphic aspect of his actions ensure that contents sublimated by the collective debate are ineradicably recorded in our short and selected memory so that they become images impossible to shove away from our puerile political conscience, which shapes combative and inflammed speeches – despite the violent and atrocious reality imposed on the everyday life of the more vulnerable sectors of the social body.

In “Fonte de Energia” (“Source of Energy”), Martiel becomes an artist absent from the vernissage, reproducing the invisibility of the blacks in Brazilian society, by assuming the role of a servant who offers snacks to the public while they celebrate the opening of a new exhibition. In the act of hiding himself from the public behind a wall, and allowing only for his black hands to be seen holding a tray, the artist confronts us with the daily relation that the country establishes with its black population, neglecting the individualities behind the labour force that moves our country and the world, transforming the ordinary act of consumption into a perverse and embarrassing activity.

In the context of political discussions on the body (or the bodies) proposed in this second year of Art and Activism at Despina, Cristiano Lenhardt turns the key of the political speech – casting a new gaze towards the body, seeking to incorporate other shades to a usually unidimensional debate – that has its most concrete expression in the carnality of the individual, treating the body as the only possible dimension to speak about life. While thinking about the affections that move our bodies and the spiritual dimension of lives that go beyond absolute materiality, Lenhardt signals the emotional charge that mobilizes and orients our individual and collective search for happiness or for a sense of meaning to our precarious existence.

In a musical performance – “Declaração” (“Declaration”) – which combines bodies and images into a collective action, the artist seeks to attain a spiritual “nirvana” that connects body and soul, that gives voice to the unnamed urges of human species, relativising genres and corporealities, constituting an astral battle so utopic as detached from earthly and finite things, commodities that are manipulable by market, speech, medias and other spheres of power.

Bernardo José de Souza
curator

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To learn more about the artists and Art and Activim in Latin America – year II, click here.

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PICTURES GALLERY (horizontal scrooling)
by Denise Adams and Frederico Pellachin

 

Reply All

Bex Ilsley, Cristiana Nogueira, Eduardo Montelli, Jonas Arrabal, José Nibra, Julia Arbex, Kasumi Dean, Kimberley Robinson, Laura-Anne Taylor, Leo Robinson, Luciana Miyuki, Mollie Milton, Nica Aquino, Nina Orthof, Rafael Adorján, Raquel Nava, Raquel Versieux, Samantha Evans, Tiago Sant'Ana, Wes Foster
27.04.2017 - 24.05.2017

“Reply All” is the second part of a collaboration project, which started in 2016 at the Manchester School of Art (MSA) in England. After winning the Marcantonio Vilaça Prize for curatorship, Raphael Fonseca went for a three month residency at the MSA, where he organized a project entitled “Reply all”. The curatorship consisted of inviting ten undergraduate or graduate artists from the university to dialogue with the same number of artists from Brazil and to work in pairs. During the month of July, the group spoke virtually through e-mails, messages and video meetings, thinking together of ways of creative collaboration, either by formal affinity or by thematic interest. In August, at the Grosvernor Gallery (the exhibition space of the MSA), an exhibition was shown, which brought the results of this experience.

Arriving at Despina, “Reply All” will function as a return to the same collaborative process, with the purpose of producing new works. The central difference now is that the Brazilian-based artists will be responsible for installing the works at Despina’s exhibition space (after a month of virtual dialogue). These new works don’t need to be similar to those previously presented in Manchester.

Participants

  • José Nibra (MA Photography) + Jonas Arrabal (Rio de Janeiro)
  • Nica Aquino (MA Contemporary Visual Culture) + Luciana Miyuki (São Paulo)
  • Samantha Evans (BA Fine Art) + Cristiana Nogueira (Macapá)
  • Leo Robinson (BA Fine Art) + Tiago Sant’Ana (Salvador)
  • Mollie Milton (BA Fine Art) + Raquel Versieux (Crato)
  • Wes Foster (BA Photography) + Rafael Adorján (Rio de Janeiro)
  • Bex Ilsley (BA Fine Art) + Eduardo Montelli (Porto Alegre)
  • Kimberley Robinson (BA Fine Art) + Nina Orthof (Brasilia)
  • Kasumi Dean (BA Fine Art) + Julia Arbex (Rio de Janeiro)
  • Laura-Anne Taylor (BA Fine Art) + Raquel Nava (Brasilia)

Info

“Reply all”
Curator: Raphael Fonseca
Artists: Bex Ilsley, Cristiana Nogueira, Eduardo Montelli, Jonas Arrabal, José Nibra, Julia Arbex, Kasumi Dean, Kimberley Robinson, Laura-Anne Taylor, Leo Robinson, Luciana Miyuki, Mollie Milton, Nica Aquino, Nina Orthof, Rafael Adorján, Raquel Nava, Raquel Versieux, Samantha Evans, Tiago Sant’Ana, Wes Foster
Opening: 27 April, at 7 pm
Exhibition continues until 24 May
Visiting times: Tuesdays to Fridays, from 11 am to 7 pm
Where: Despina
Rua Luis de Camões, 2 – Sobrado
Centro – Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Free admission

Credit of the image
José Nibra and Jonas Arrabal

Pictures Gallery (horizontal scrolling)
(by Rafael Adorján)

Bison Caravan

Hilarius Hofstede, Berend Strik, Rob Birza, Valentijn van der Heide, Femi Dawkins, Noah Latif Lamp, Janine van Oene, Fleur Stoltenborgh, Tanja Ritterbex, OPAVIVARA! (Collective), Bernardo Ramalho (Collective) , Fabia Schnoor, Cabelo, Paulo Vivacqua, Vincent Rosenblatt, Paula Villa Nova, Ricardo Castro, Thiago Facina, Anitta Boa Vida, Anna Costa e Silva, João Penoni, Rodrigo Garcia Dutra, Marcio Resende Mendonça, Manoel Martins Neto, Jorge Costa, Pedro Rangel Almeida, Ernst Daniel Nijboer, Marc Kraus, Natália Brescancíni, Mariana Soares Leme, Anyi Lorena Nino, Maria Palmeiro, Matheus Passareli, Gian Shimada, Marcio Resende Mendonça, Daniel Gnattali, Guga Ferraz
10.03.2017

Bison Caravan is a social sculpture formed by works of art that resemble the image of a bison and travel the world. Where the “flock” stops and rests, an exhibition and a festival take place.

Local and international artists are invited to create works of art collectively. These works must represent or be related to the image of the bison.

The bison is a metaphor for the connection of art with nature, resonating in the theories of Joseph Beuys, a German artist who coined the concept of “social sculptures”.

The caravan has already passed through Denmark, France, Holland, Poland, Mali and Canada, incorporating works of more than 300 artists.

Bison Caravan travels on an unpredictable track where works of art are united by  artists from different continents; they unite at the same time that they destroy boundaries and separations created by human history.

The project was created by the Dutch artist Hilarius Hofstede and is partially funded by Mondriaan Fonds. Given its nomadic character and the dialogue between culture and nature, Bison Caravan contributes to current policy debates on (i)migration and sustainability.

How it works? During the Bison Caravan Rio 2017, local artists are invited to form a “flock” along with a group of Dutch artists. The idea is to create works inspired by the image of the bison and to donate them afterwards, so that they become part of a universal collection. These works produced can be never sold, reinforcing the unlimited power of art, which goes beyond the limits of politics, economics or religion. Bison Caravan is an autarchic foundation. After having traveled the world, the collection will eventually be donated to an Amerindian cause.

Between 7 and 9 March, the collaborative process between Dutch and Brazilian artists takes place at the Despina, where participants can meet and work on the development of the works. All this process culminates in the presentation of the results in a multidisciplinary event on 10 March, open to the public.

Artists
Hilarius Hofstede, Berend Strik, Rob Birza, Valentijn van der Heide, Femi Dawkins, Noah Latif Lamp, Janine van Oene, Fleur Stoltenborgh, Tanja Ritterbex, OPAVIVARA! (Collective), Bernardo Ramalho (Collective) , Fabia Schnoor, Cabelo, Paulo Vivacqua, Vincent Rosenblatt, Paula Villa Nova, Ricardo Castro, Thiago Facina, Anitta Boa Vida, Anna Costa e Silva, João Penoni, Rodrigo Garcia Dutra, Marcio Resende Mendonça, Manoel Martins Neto, Jorge Costa, Pedro Rangel Almeida, Ernst Daniel Nijboer, Marc Kraus, Natália Brescancíni, Mariana Soares Leme, Anyi Lorena Nino, Maria Palmeiro, Matheus Passareli, Gian Shimada, Marcio Resende Mendonça, Daniel Gnattali, Guga Ferraz.

Programming – Bison Caravan Rio 2017

04/03 (4-8 pm): Post-Carnival Paleolithic with Jacarandá Art Club at Vila Aymorés,  Glória.

06/03 (5-8 pm): Bison Caravan/Social Sculptures Seminar at Casa França-Brasil, Centro.

07-10/03 (1-5 pm): Collaborative Residency at Despina, Centro.

08/03 (9-11 pm): Música da Alma Festival (Mulher Búfalo Branco) at Bar Semente, Lapa.

10/03 (8-11 pm): “Bison Caravan Brazil Epiphany” Exhibition, at Despina, Centro.

Info

Bison Caravan Rio 2017
Mini-Residency + Final show
From 7 to 10 March, at Despina
Final show: 10 March, at 7 pm
Rua Luis de Camões, 2 – Sobrado
Centro – Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Free admission

More information
http://bisoncaravan.com

Partners

parceiros

Gazua #946

Adriano Motta, Alexandre Colchete, Oliver Bulas, Pedro Victor Brandão, Zé Carlos Garcia
31.03.2017 - 20.04.2017

Gazua # 946 is the second exhibition action of the Gazua platform, which will be open to the public on March 31st, within the SAARA NIGHTS # 13 programming.

Gazua comes as a platform which brings together artists and people involved in other production areas.

The goals of Gazua are to promote rapid access to exhibition spaces and unconventional spaces in Rio de Janeiro and to develop channels to materialize various projects.

The artists involved in Gazua are Anton Steenbock, Rafael Perez Evans and Pablo Ferretti.  All of them have studios at Despina, which serves as a spot for drawing up and implementing proposals.

Artists participating in this second edition: Adriano Motta, Alexandre Colchete, Oliver Bulas, Pedro Victor Brandão and Zé Carlos Garcia.

Info

“Gazua #946”
Artists: Adriano Motta, Alexandre Colchete, Oliver Bulas, Pedro Victor Brandão and Zé Carlos Garcia
Opening: 31 March, at 7 pm
Exhibition continues until 20 April
Visiting times: Tuesdays to Fridays, from 11 am to 7 pm

Where: Despina
Rua Luis de Camões, 2 – Sobrado
Centro – Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Free admission

Pictures Gallery (horizontal scrolling)
by Anton Steenbock

 

 

 

o terceiro mundo pede a bênção e vai dormir

Ana Matheus Abbade André Parente Bárbara Wagner Cristiano Lenhardt Daniel Lie Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster Guerreiro do Divino Amor Guga Ferraz Hélio Oiticica José Agrippino de Paula Priscila Fiszman Raphael Tepedino Rogerio Sganzerla Traplev Vivian Caccuri Walter Smetak
30.05.2017 - 21.06.2017

Works and documentation 

Ana Matheus Abbade
André Parente
Bárbara Wagner
Cristiano Lenhardt
Daniel Lie
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
Guerreiro do Divino Amor
Guga Ferraz
Hélio Oiticica
José Agrippino de Paula
Priscila Fiszman
Raphael Tepedino
Rogerio Sganzerla
Traplev
Vivian Caccuri
Walter Smetak

Curator: Victor Gorgulho
Opening: 30 May, at 7 pm
Exhibition continues until 21 June
Visiting times: Tuesdays to Fridays, from 11 am to 7 pm
Where: Despina
Rua Luis de Camões, 2 – Sobrado
Centro – Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Free admission

***

Credit of the image
Cristiano Lenhardt
Guaracys, 2016
super 8, 10′

The bodies are the works

Andiara Ramos, Ana Matheus Abbade, Anitta Boa Vida, Biancka Fernandes, Bruna Kury, Camila Puni, Carlos Motta, CasaNem, Coletivo Xica Manicongo, Eduardo Kac, Evelyn Gutierrez, Fabiana Faleiros, Fabio Coelho, FROZEN2000, Gabriel Junqueira, Indianare Siqueira, Katia Flávia, Kleper Reis, Lampião da Esquina, Luana Muniz, Lyz Parayzo, Maurício Magagnin, Mayara Velozo, Matheusa Passareli, Nathalia Gonçales, Odaraya Mello, Raquel Mützenberg, Ricardo Càstro, Tertuliana Lustosa, Turma Ok, Uhura Bqueer, Vagner Coelho, Ventura Profana & Jhonatta Vicente, Victor Arruda, Vinicius Rosa, Vítor Franco, Wescla Vasconcellos e Xanayanna Relux.
27.06.2017 - 04.08.2017

In 1970, at the opening of the 19th Modern Art National Salon at the Museum of Modern Art, MAM-RJ, the artist Antonio Manuel, undressed and catwalked naked through the space, presenting his own body as an art piece. Even though he was not selected by the jury, it remained as a protest against repressive actions of the military dictatorship – “an experimental exercise of freedom”, according to art critic Mário Pedrosa. Since then, many were the narratives created around “the body is the piece” – although very few of them mention that the artist performed side by side with another semi nude body: that of Vera Lúcia Santos, a black woman.

Meanwhile, across the street, the Public Entertainment Censorship Division, explicitly prohibited the participation of transvestites in theatre performances and carnival balls, amongst other repressive actions which were executed in order to guarantee the preservation of moral and good customs – reactionary values that are the foundation of the “christian Family”. At the same time, writer Cassandra Rios, had thirty six of her books censored and she was severely persecuted. The TV show ‘Denner é um luxo’ (“Denner is a lux”) was cancelled because, according to an oficial document – “it is toxic for the youth and lacks strength due to total absence of masculinity.”

Since then, a lot has evolved, but not so in many cases. In this encounter, we gather bodies that are consistently controlled by a dictatorial regime that never ceased to exist. Dictatorships that gain new forms, protected by the fallacy of a democracy that serves the white patriarchy. Bodies crossed by normative practices of a class-ridden, racial, patriarcal, chauvinistic, homo-lesbo-bi-trans-phobic society that insists in controlling our affections, pussies and arses.

Therefore, this meeting proposes a dialogue between some propositions of the 1970’s and 80’s and a generation of artists and activists in Rio de Janeiro today – working upon and re-thinking the idea of body- art pieces and art pieces-body as a political tool to destabilize norms and hegemonic discourses. The title of the exhibition, which pluralizes the name of the art piece to bring about this debate, provokes us to set an eye all the bodies made invisible by history – including those bodies not here represented by the way history is told to us.

An invitation for navigation among naked bodies, chronologies of freedom, newspapers, magazines, YouTube channels, street posters, nail boosters, manifests, paintings, banners and posters, necklaces, post-pornographies piracy, cordeis, body practices, self-defense techniques, naturism practices, performances and encounters for affection exchanges.

Through propositions that invokes the thought of dissent as powerful representations of aesthetic resistance – within a movement of (re)visiting oneself at the same time singularly and collectively – past and future make themselves present, in polimorphic proposals that confront and violate normative speeches as a decolonizing tool of one’s body: micro political actions of configuration of astray subjectivities.

Hurry up, please, it’s already late!

Guilherme Altmayer and Pablo Leon de la Barra

This exhibition was part of the second edition of Despina’s  Art and Activism in Latin America project, with the support from the Prince Claus Fund. For more information, click here.

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EXHIBITION OPENING PROGRAMME

Performance with Vitor Franco – Canal TransPosição.
Occupation Sertransneja with “Cordel” readings (popular narrative verse typical of the Brazilian northeast) and “quadrilha” (typical brazilian dance influenced by French Square dance) led by Coletivo Xica Manicongo.
Bankinha de pornopirata (Pirate-porn) with Bruna Kury.
Alimenta Docuvenda: salty snacks by Anitta Boa Vida and Odaraya Mello.
Pi Kombucha Tropical / donations reverted for the Programme PreparaNem.

EXHIBITION PROGRAMME

Jul 1st 10:30 am
Muay Thai workshop with basic Thai self-defense principles. With masters Vagner Coelho and Fabio Coelho.

Jul 4th 4 pm
Performance: “Maiêutica”, with Raquel Mützenberg, at Largo de São Francisco. Female subjectivities: on the capacity of rebirth, of re-born.

Jul 4th 7:30 pm
Post-pornography: Despina Cine Clube (Despina Movie Club). Curated by Andiara Ramos, Nathalia Gonçales. Chat- Debate with Kleper Reis and Érica Sarmet.

Jul 25th 7 pm
Night of the naked bodies: naturism. Cine Clube Despina screens “A Nativa Solitária” (“The solitary native”), about Luz del Fuego, with Guilherme Altmayer. “Fuxicu e ioga do cu, liberdade radical” (Intimate Yoga and radical freedom) with Kleper Reis.

Jul 27th 7 pm
RAZOR: Manicure show with Ana Matheus Abbade, Uhura BQueer, Vinicius Pinto Rosa, Ventura Profana & Jhonatta Vicente, Frozen 2000, Gabriel Junqueira, Ricardo Càstro.

***

INFO

Exhibition “The bodies are the works”
Curators: Guilherme Altmayer and Pablo León de la Barra
Participants: Andiara Ramos, Ana Matheus Abbade, Anitta Boa Vida, Biancka Fernandes, Bruna Kury, Camila Puni, Carlos Motta, CasaNem, Coletivo Xica Manicongo, Eduardo Kac, Evelyn Gutierrez, Fabiana Faleiros, Fabio Coelho, FROZEN2000, Gabriel Junqueira,  Indianare Siqueira, Katia Flávia, Kleper Reis, Lampião da Esquina, Luana Muniz, Lyz Parayzo, Maurício Magagnin, Mayara Velozo, Matheusa Passareli, Nathalia Gonçales, Odaraya Mello, Raquel Mützenberg, Ricardo Càstro, Tertuliana Lustosa, Turma Ok, Uhura Bqueer, Vagner Coelho, Ventura Profana & Jhonatta Vicente, Victor Arruda, Vinicius Rosa, Vítor Franco, Wescla Vasconcellos e Xanayanna Relux.
Opening: 27 June, 7 pm (Exhibition continues until 4 August)
Visiting times: from Tuesdays to Fridays, from 11 am to 7 pm
Where: Despina
Free admission
Image credit: Eduardo Kac – Porn Art Manifesto

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PICTURES GALLERY (horizontal scrolling)
by Raquel Romero-Faz e Frederico Pellachin

 

In the Heat of the Battle!

Crack Rodriguez, Jesus Bubu Negrón, Luciana Magno
28.10.2016 - 25.11.2016
 Art and Activism in Latin America – year I (2016)

The Art and Activism in Latin America Project was conceived under the sign of the tropics as a means for expressing the artistic ideas and practices rooted in a continent so dissimilar and at once so similar in its ongoing struggle between colonial history and the regularly renewed promise of a redemptive (utopic?) future, between the forces of economic and cultural domination and the dream of greater political independence and universal democracy.

By relativizing not only the cultural bonds common to all Latin American countries but also the differences inherent to its distinct geographies and colonial histories, this project establishes a platform for discussion and action, a space for exploring new artistic strategies to grapple with the collection of dilemmas and political crises being faced locally, regionally and even globally.

Therefore, Despina and the Prince Claus Fund promoted unprecedented encounters with artists whose political concerns form the essence of their work. For this year I, three artists were invited to take part in a special residency programme, to live together in Rio de Janeiro and to individually and collectively make art, pursue studies and develop strategies that involve, occupy and expand the many notions of public space.

“In the Heat of the Battle” consists of a set of pieces especially developed by Jesus Bubu Negrón (San Juan), Crack Rodriguez (San Salvador) and Luciana Magno (Belém) during the two months they lived together in Rio de Janeiro. Highlights from their audiovisual, installation and performance works include public expressions conceived in response to the heated political atmosphere currently galvanizing debate throughout Brazil.

Jesus Bubu Negrón, finding inspiration in Rio’s fanfare orchestras and Carnival floats leads an orchestra exploring “deafness” and “muteness” which characterize the lack of information transparency and the contempt for voices of minorities in contemporary Brazil and Latin America. To capture this mood, he directs the drums and trombones to drown out the wind instruments and “batucada”, producing a clear mismatch between the tension of the musicians’ movements and the absolute lack of musicality. The Puerto Rican artist also addresses the informal labor market – the street vendors – inviting discussion about our culture of consumption and disposal, and survival strategies in a market that disposes of people and their labor force.

Crack Rodriguez’ work stems from the protests and demonstrations that inflamed confrontations between the police, students and teachers in Brazilian cities during the 2016 public-school occupations and that have been recently aggravated by Provisional Presidential Decrees 746 and 241, which respectively overhaul the country’s high school curriculum and restrict government spending on education. Using student desks as a sculptural, symbolic and performative element, the Salvadorian artist has designed a movement of collective fall that symbolizes the toppling of vertical power structures in educational institutions.

Luciana Magno’s art is a direct criticism of Brazil’s current political system, occasioning the formation of an acronym that effectively represents no-one and reflects an absolute lack of commitment to an ideologically clear political agenda. Amidst the turbulent city elections, concurrent with the impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Roussef and the graft investigations known as “Operation Car Wash”, the Belém artist launched the “Brazil Anarchic Libertarian” party, or BLA party. Party members moved around the city – visiting polling stations and performing on the streets – spreading their indecipherable message and onomatopoeic slogan of BLA-BLA-BLA, a reference to political hot air and to the letters of the anarchic party itself.

Although the art and performances predominantly occured in the public sphere, which is the core element of the residencies and discussions in this first year of Art and Activism in Latin America, Despina’s exhibition space included videos of the performances, pieces left over from street productions and sculptured works and installations that referenced the group’s exploration and studies during their two-month residency in Rio de Janeiro.

By relativizing the role of art – of art’s usual allegiance to material production and therefore to the circulation of objects that hold both symbolic and commercial value, this project encourages a discussion on the dematerialization of art and a more widespread dissemination of art in non-institutional settings.

Bernardo José de Souza
curator

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To learn more about the artists and  Art and Activism in Latin America – year I, click here.

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PICTURES GALLERY (horizontal scrolling)
by Frederico Pellachin

 

Coisa Pública

Ana Costa Silva, Ana Matheus Abbade, Anitta Boa Vida, Coletivo Cotidiano & Mobilidade, Grupo Poro, Letícia Parente, Mayra Martins Redin, Neil Beloufa, Regina Parra, Traplev
20.09.2016 - 01.10.2016

Curated by Bernardo Mosqueira and Bernardo José de Souza, with the collaboration of Alexandre Ponzi, Caetano Vidal, Fernanda Sarkis, Isabella Lescure, Ludimilla Fonseca, Marina Marchesan and Monica Klemz, this project is a curatorial reflection on the relationships that constitute the public sphere, and aims to address the political and cultural aspects that characterize the collective experience.

The street – a politically oriented field, a territory for power and creation – is where we propose a path of experiences which will allow us to go through and reframe public affairs.

As someone who – when faced with a dead end – , climb the wall to see what is on the other side, the gallery is seen as a gateway – we trespass it to achieve what’s out there. And to overcome the walls erected, we rethink and induce human activities in the city through artistic processes.

Hence, the exhibition and the urban spaces expand and merge, allowing us to explore the mapping of the public sphere for the (de) construction of a place for discussion and dialogue.

In the gnarled and noisy urban environment non-places and silence multiply . For something to happen, it is necessary to use communication, suggest meetings and think artistic practice as a symbolic production area and as a platform to investigate and plan the plots of the social mesh.

Coisa Pública, then, demonstrates the political and social implications and disruptive force of artistic projects that call upon the approach and rapport, reflecting transience and spatial reorganization. A show built to reveal unprecedented touchpoints and map new ways to move and transpose, to drift and divert.

ARTISTS *

Anna Costa e Silva
Ana Matheus Abbade
Anitta Boa Vida
Coletivo Cotidiano & Mobilidade
Grupo Poro
Letícia Parente
Mayra Martins Redin
Neil Beloufa
Regina Parra
Traplev

* Confirmed so far

Opening: 20 September, 7 pm
Closure: 1 October, 3 pm
Where: Despina | Largo das Artes

Rua Luis de Camões, 2 – Sobrado
Centro – Rio de Janeiro, RJ

Coisa Pública was conceived during the course “Contemporary Curatorial  Practices”, led by curators Bernardo Mosqueira and Bernardo José de Souza at Despina | Largo das Artes, during the months of June and September 2016.

Pictures Gallery (horizontal scrolling)
by Frederico Pellachin and Marina Marchesan