- Zipper Galeria

“Would you agree with Smithson that you, Dennis, and Mike are involved
in a dialectic between the outdoors and the gallery?
Oppenheim – I think that the outdoor/indoor relationship in my work is
more subtle. I don’t really carry a gallery disturbance concept around with
me; I leave that behind in the gallery. Occasionally I consider the gallery
site as though it were some kind of hunting ground.”1
Território de Caça [Hunting Ground], a collective exhibition featuring 11
artists that brings the Zip’Up project 2011 season to an end, sprawls
across Zipper Galeria drawing on the words of Dennis Oppenheim in
a discussion with Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson (1938-1973),
in an interview for Avalanche magazine, in 1970. From the key trio that
established the concept of land art in the contemporary age, this 2011
show brings much more of their ideas, writings and concepts than a
somewhat literal transposition of works that intervene on nature.
The legacy of land art, earth art and environmental art is, therefore, related
to addressing expanded scales, the dissolution of borders and limits,
the clash with the unknown, the formulation of types of registration, the
creation of varied mappings and the understanding of essential thoughts
and experiences, among other paths.
“Because I think art is concerned with limits and I’m interested in making
art. You can call this tradition, if you like”2, Smithson says in regards to
the supposed dichotomy between outdoor works and pieces exhibited
in a white cube. “Personally, I don’t want to carry on with the analogy
between gallery and flood plains. I think the only important limitations on
art are the ones imposed or accepted by the artist himself”3, adds Heizer.
The exhibition also endeavors to acknowledge the importance of
Brazilian works such as Cildo Meireles’ 1969 effort Arte Física: Clareira
(Caixas de Brasília) [Physical Art: Clearing (Boxes from Brasilia)], a set
of photographs, map and two boxes. “In these works, that involve
procedures of performance and land art, the artist questions man’s
relation with the idea of territory, proposing new geographic boundaries
between the States, or delimiting provisional areas in different regions of
the country”4, highlights Heloisa Espada in the essay Cidade-Bandeira.
Also referred to are Fronteiras (Frontiers), Sonia Salzstein’s project that
entailed interventions by artists such as Nuno Ramos and Angelo Venosa
in various locations around Brazil, which began in 1998; Nelson Felix’s
series and works, such as O Grande Budha (The Great Buddha) (19852000); Hélio Oiticica’s (1937-1980) experiments such as Contra-Bólide
(Counter Bolide) (1979), and others.
On show
A pinkish wispy presence of light flickers behind a tree trunk against a
snowy backdrop. The photograph from São Paulo artist Estela Sokol’s
series Secret Forest was produced during her art residence in Austria.
Here we can witness the development of spatial thoughts outlined earlier
by Sokol, such as in Crépusculo (Twilight), when a piece of wood painted
black also lets a purple “light” shine through, or in Polarlicht, also produced
during her stay in Europe, in which an orange, organic line is embedded
into a white Alpine field.
The reinterpretation of the landscape and the exploratory character
of the contemporary artist, in constant transit, are two axes that
connect Sokol’s work to that of Mariana Tassinari, whose art displays
the minimalist and serial influence of a Donald Judd, for instance. The
repetition of regular colour structures and their
insertion in foreign lands are part of Tassinari’s
numerous series. Computer-assisted chromatic
alterations to photographs of the Jordanian sky
indicate new procedures now adopted by the
traveler-artist. However, Campo em Branco
(Field in Blank or Field in White) makes use of
the minimal “movement” of marker balls found
on high voltage power lines. Such displacement
can only be perceived by means of continuous
recording of the horizon through the artist’s
camera, while the artist herself, in intense
movement, is immersed in an nonstop flow of
image construction.
The Minas Gerais artist João Castilho,
meanwhile, scatters small-scale, trace actions
with mounds of stones in various places. “Under
the dead light of the Passaic afternoon the
desert became a map of infinite disintegration
and forgetfulness”, signals Smithson, in an
excerpt reproduced by the artist in the small
publication included in the Peso Morto (Dead
Weight) series. “For me, matters of land art are
more closely related to matters of the vision,
time and entropy than ephemeral or permanent
landscape interventions”, says Castilho.
Tacuarembó. This unusual word that indicates
the name of the town which could be pointed
to as the geographical centre of the Pampas,
initially covering the Rio Grande do Sul lowlands,
is prepared in the form of lettering, semi-buried in
the typical land of the region. A structure created
just like the famous “Hollywood” indicates
a somewhat wild, untamed counterweight,
an impression highlighted by Paisagem com
Ondas (Landscape with Waves), an audio piece
by Camargo that acts as an amalgamation of
regional sounds and quite violent echoes of a
continuous wind.
Felippe Moraes, in the video Dos Templos (Of
the Temples), uses a more surreptitious strategy
in capturing the surroundings. Resting a mirror
on the grass, the device records the slow
waves of a blue sky dotted with white clouds of
varied shapes and sizes. One of the most trivial
perceptions is given another meaning through
the slowing down of time (and the video can
also be interpreted as an audiovisual tribute
to Hydra’s Head, the installation placed in the
Niagara River by Nancy Holt, in 1974).
“NASA intends to begin a new phase of
Mars missions this week.”5 The introduction
to a report from 20 November 2011 in a
daily newspaper seems to bear a timeless
characteristic, exposing the human craving to
venture and discover something that is, a priori,
inaccessible and far-off. A Lua (The Moon), a
print created by Fernanda Barreto that draws
on a 1966 publication, that is, Armstrong, Aldrin
and Collins’ Apollo 11 pre-mission, that landed
on the moon in 1969 – excels in revealing an
insight combining naivety, fantasy and alienation
in the face of the diverse and unknown. A Lua is
closer to Steve McQueen’s Once Upon a Time,
than to the National Geographic.
The other Barreto piece on show, Confluência
(Confluence), is an intervention in adhesive vinyl
on one of the glass doors of the gallery. The
curved circling, extracted from Google Earth
images, creates a water course made up of
multiple territories. In a way, this is not so far
removed from the (unperformed) experiment
of Sculpture to Be Seen from Mars, by Isamu
Noguchi (1904-1988), a 1947 project that
intended to create a human face on a sand
surface.
Hubble, a photographic series by Manoel Veiga,
also relies on an appropriation procedure, this
time of the powerful telescope which gives the
work its title. “The series is related specifically to
my painting that deals with physical phenomena
(diffusion, gravity, etc.) that are also present
on the large, cosmological scale, thus the
certain visual similarity. Also note that the way I
construct space in Hubble is very similar to that
of painting, it came from painting, and created
a new fictitious landscape/space using the
cosmos itself as raw material”, he explains.
Felipe Cama’s work draws heavily on the
friction between contemporary mediations.
In After Turner ‘Chichester Canal’ (Street
View), the São Paulo-based artist makes use
of available tools – Google Street View, that
enables extensive incursions around the globe
just by clicking through the web – to carry out
exploratory actions, even without physically
visiting the destinations. The Chichester Canal,
immortalized in a canvas by Turner (1775-1851),
is located following Cama’s intense virtual
navigation. The magnified image registering the
present moment of the landscape previously
portrayed by the British painter, together with
the map placed immediately below, becomes
an ostentatious chart of the circulation and
isolation of our times.
Two three-dimensional works feature in
Território de Caça. Das Erosões: Máquina I
(Erosions: Machine I) is a machine created
by Raquel Versieux that imitates the erosive
movements of nature and, through a skillful
construction with two chairs and containers
that hold earth collected from roadsides, brings
tension to the controlled exhibition hall and by
frequently leaking water, reframes the meaning
of the art site.
And Maura Brasil continues the works with Mar
Aberto: Ensaio de um Processo (Open Sea:
Essay on a Process), presented in the group
exhibition Ateliê Fidalga no Paço das Artes,
and Arrebentação (Wave Breaking), where she discusses the status of
photographic representation though inspired interventions in nature.
The site-specific installed in the exhibition room that housed the six
previous contributions of the Zip’Up project underwent several stages of
development. A photographic print of a small, shallow stretch of a beach
is placed in the sea itself, at the mercy of the sun, waves and sand. The
artist records this gesture of detachment and incorporates the installation
in the gallery. Now the image of the action is placed on an easel, and is
again corroded by the seawater, but this time through a device that drips
the salty water rhythmically, without any frenzy, on to the photograph.
The disintegration of the matter generates a somewhat pictorial, cloudy
green residue, in a poetic and far-from-stable result.
Finally, Shirley Paes Leme has a project that lights up the most recent
works presented in Território de Caça. Formas Lúdicas no Espaço (Playful
Forms in Space) (1979-1982), presented only in Uberlândia (MG), where
it was produced, and in the USA, was a permanent, open-air installation
on a public space covering 12,000 m2, composed of 30 large structures,
using wood and sisal rope. Toys that resemble the “Penetrables”, nets,
tunnels and varied equipment gathered since the artist’s childhood
memories, who lived in the rural region between Minas Gerais and Goiás,
and the outdoor games the children played there. A place that could
have been remarked on by Mário Pedrosa (1900-1981), an “experimental
exercise of freedom” (talking about Antonio Manuel’s work). The exhibition
presents the original documentation of Formas Lúdicas no Espaço, such
as ground plans, photographs and sketches, shedding light on a littleknown project by a Brazilian artist always focused on interaction between
the spectator and the work, nature and artifice, tangibility and thought.
Mario Gioia
A graduate from the ECA-USP (São Paulo University School
of Arts and Communication), in 2011 he curated the exhibition
Presenças (Zipper Galeria), inaugurating the Zip’Up project,
aimed at new artists (which has also included the exhibitions
Já Vou, by Alessandra Duarte, Aéreos, by Fabio Flaks, Perto
Longe, by Aline van Langendonck, Paragem, by Laura Gorski,
Hotel Tropical, by João Castilho and the collective exhibition
Território de Caça, with the same curatorship). In 2010,
he presented Incompletudes (Galeria Virgilio), Mediações
(Galeria Motor) and Espacialidades (Galeria Central), as well
as providing critical reviews for Ateliê Fidalga no Paço das
Artes. In 2009, he curated Obra Menor (Ateliê 397) and Lugar
Sim e Não (Galeria Eduardo Fernandes). He also worked as
a reporter and editor of arts and architecture in the Ilustrada
supplement of the Folha de São Paulo newspaper from 2005
to 2009, and is currently writing for several publications,
including the magazines Bravo and Trópico and the UOL
online portal, as well as the Spanish magazine Dardo. He is
the co-author of Roberto Mícoli (Bei Editora) and belongs to
the Paço das Artes team of critics.
1. FERREIRA, Glória e COTRIM, Cecilia (org.). Escritos de
Artistas – Anos 60/70. Rio de Janeiro, Jorge Zahar, 2006, p.
276
2. FERREIRA, idem, p. 279
3. FERREIRA, ibidem, p. 279
4. ESPADA, Heloisa (org.). As Construções de Brasília. São
Paulo, Instituto Moreira Salles/Sesi-SP, 2010, p. 19
5. GONÇALVES, Alexandre. Nasa vai enviar jipe-robô para
Marte. O Estado de S. Paulo, caderno Vida, 20.nov.2011, p.
A31
Thanks to the galleries Ímpar, Leme, Mendes Wood and Nara
Roesler.
Rua Estados Unidos, 1494
CEP 01427 001
São Paulo - SP - Brasil
+55 [11] 4306 4306
www.zippergaleria.com.br