Press Release

Primeira e Última, Notas Sobre
O Monumento [First and Last,
Notes On The Monument]
September 20 — December 17 2010
Exposição nos 1º e 2º
Press Release
The history of the monument is inextricably linked with the history of sculpture. It is also part and
parcel with the history of the winner. In their criticism of these relations, the artists have
constructed some of the most interesting works in the last 50 years.
This exhibition is not interested in proposals for new monuments per se, but in the critical reading
that the artists have been making of sculpture and of the monument. Artist Marta Minujín, who
pioneered the work of deconstructing iconic monuments beginning in the 1970s, presented her
Obelisco deitado [Reclining Obelisk] at the First Bienal Latino-Americana (São Paulo, 1978)
stripping away the verticality and solidity from the monument’s archetypical image. More than 30
years later, the same image reemerged in the work of Tonico Lemos Auad, but here without the
materiality of the object and in the transformation of the terrace of a gallery into a grassy field.
Primeira e última, Notas sobre o monumento [First and last, Notes on the monument] marks the
transition between the historic space where Galeria Luisa Strina operated for more than three
decades and its new installations, now being inaugurated. It thus proposes an homage to the
gallery’s past, while also pointing to its future – in this temporal movement that is characteristic of
the monument’s construction.
Modern sculpture saw the incorporation of the pedestal as part of the work itself, opening the way
for sculpture’s nomadic condition. The base is the world. This principle appears in Erika Verzutti’s
infinite column, a mention to Brancusi and made of starfruits. Other artists are interested in using
the pedestal itself as a sculptural body to be investigated, as Marcius Galan is doing in his work in
progress.
As could not be otherwise, sculpture plays a central part in this exhibition: Gabriel Sierra has
created a work that occupies virtually all of the gallery’s new space, proposing a kind of urbanism
for it, a path-design within the curatorial project; Alexandre da Cunha has revisited the concrete
monument on the basis of appropriation, collage and re-signification of urban fixtures; Pedro
Reyes’s sculpture proposes an effort of construction aimed at destruction – circularly – as in the
myth of Sisyphus.
In the work by Giuseppe Gabellone, the sculpture appears exclusively for the camera: once it is
photographed, it will be destroyed, its materiality remaining only in the image. Matheus Rocha
Pitta’s proposal would be inglorious, were it not ironic: remaking the Wall of China, out of paper
and in miniature scale. The works by Carlos Garaicoa are small sculptures in paper where the old
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and the new (not so new) come together and clash. Laura Lima has created an inverted pedestal, a
space to be “worn” by the spectator, a gala article of clothing for the inauguration.
Robert Kinmont, a yet little-known historic artist, presents a series of photographs documenting an
action carried out in 1967, where the body is overlaid to the landscape in shots of verticality and
concentration, a solitary monument. In Tardiology (1968—69), Hitoshi Nomura investigates the
decadence of the monument, induced by the passage of time and the elements, in an act that
orchestrates sculpture, performance and photography.
Bernardo Ortiz works with drawing on the border between facsimile and the document, bringing
together series that allude to a stroll through the city, but also an analysis between real space and
abstraction. In the drawing of Matías Duville, we see what is nearly a representation of land art: a
negative, entropic space, between construction and the ruin, between the natural landscape and
that created by man.
The work by Claudia Andujar, one of the most active photographers over the last 50 years in
Brazil, functions within the exhibition as a kind of connecting thread: aerial images of São Paulo
that show the city from a certain distance, transforming it into a deceptive reality; images of a
deserted (post-apocalyptic? still under construction?) Brasília that we hardly recognize, consisting
mainly of land and sky; the photo of a Yanomami funeral rite.
Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato witnessed the 20th century discreetly from his open-air studio in the
outskirts of Belo Horizonte. A nearly invisible artist in the history of Brazilian art, he is fundamental
for the construction of this exhibition. His paintings portray an imaginary Brasília; a housing
complex in the suburbs (for the minimalists, a reinvention of the monument); paired sculptures by
Amílcar de Castro and Franz Weissmann; an automobile cemetery. Monuments captured from a
distance.
Photography appears recurrently in the exhibition, whether in the documentation of anonymous
roadside monuments in the work by Pedro Motta, or to compose narratives of great events in
history, as in the image by Mauro Restiffe of Obama’s emblematic inauguration ceremony; or in
less great historical developments, such as the semi-abandoned modernist building depicted in the
work by Jonathas de Andrade.
The photographic documentation of the work Tiradentes: Totem-monumento ao preso politico
[Tiradentes: Totem-monument to the political prisoner] (1970) by Cildo Meireles refers to a
crucial moment in art history, where the artist leaves the institution to make a monument
consisting of an ephemeral action with a long-term impact: the burning of animals. A brutal
criticism of the Brazilian military regime and its practice of arresting and imprisoning those who
opposed it.
The video by Deimantas Narkevicius revisits the history of the 20th century, reinstating it as a
farce. We see the taking down of a statue of Lenin, in Vilnius, which in the edited video looks like it
were being seen for the first time, rather than the last.
There is moreover a discrete homage to Lygia Clark, an artist who brought about an indelible
revolution in our notion of space, by the inclusion of one of her Bichos [Animals], transforming the
gallery’s office into an exhibition space.
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Les statues meurent aussi [Statues also die, 1953] a milestone in the genre of film essays, codirected by Alain Resnais and Chris Marker, is a manifesto against colonizers’ appropriation of
African art, a symbolic death of the statues.
The hypothesis of this exhibition is that the monument is an attempt to forestall the passage of
time and forgetfulness and, in the last analysis, our own disappearance – in this sense, the
monument would be almost a metaphor of the artwork. There is also something erotic in this
desire for permanence after death. But this same desire points to the possibility of an imminent
end, either as a transformation or as ruin. For every beginning there is an end.
Alain Resnais & Chris Marker, Alexandre da Cunha, Bernardo Ortíz, Carlos Garaicoa, Cildo
Meireles, Claudia Andujar, Deimantas Narkevicius, Erika Verzutti, Gabriel Sierra, Giuseppe
Gabellone, Hitoshi Nomura, Jonathas de Andrade, Laura Lima, Lorenzato, Lygia Clark, Marcius
Galan, Marta Minujín, Matheus Rocha Pitta, Matías Duville, Mauro Restiffe, Pedro Motta, Pedro
Reyes, Robert Kinmont e Tonico Lemos Auad.
Curated by Rodrigo Moura Opening: 19 September 2010, from 12PM to 5PM.
From 20 September to 17 December 2010 Visiting hours: Monday to Friday, from 10AM to 7PM;
Saturdays from 10AM to 5PM.
GALERIA LUISA STRINA Rua Oscar Freire 502, Cerqueira César 01426-000 – São Paulo SP,
Brasil T 55 11 3088 2471 F 55 11 3064 6391 Rua Padre João Manuel 755, Cerqueira César
01411-001 – São Paulo SP, Brasil [email protected] www.galerialuisastrina.com.br.
Link
www.galerialuisastrina.com.br/exposicoes/primera-ultima-2010
+ Info
Galeria Luisa Strina
Rua Padre João Manuel 755
Cerqueira César 01411-001
São Paulo SP Brazil
Phone: +55 11 3088–2471
Fax: +55 11 3064–6391
[email protected]
www.galerialuisastrina.com.br
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