SER PÁSSARO SEM PODER VOAR
[BEING A BIRD WITHOUT THE POWER TO FLY]
Arlette Kalaigian, Claudio Souza, Corina Ishikura, Cris Canepa, Cyra Moreira, Denis Moreira, Dolly Michailovska, Erica Iassuda, Fabio Hanna, Heloisa Lodder, Juliana Baumann, Jussara Marangoni, Luciana Boaventura, Olavo Tenório, Rosa Grizzo, Rosana Pagura and Tuca Chicalé Galvan.
Curatorship
Paulo Gallina
Exhibition period: from 09/25 to 10/22/2021
“Firm, immobile, exposed to atmospheric phenomena to the point of being confused with them. Suspended in the air without any effort, without having to contract a single muscle. Being a bird, unable to fly. (…) Everything conspires for its existence, from the anatomical structure to the general physiology, passing through its history and that of all evolutionary choices over millennia”.
Emmanuel Coccia.
In this exhibition, we – the collective formed by the sum of artists, managers, producers, editors and curator – hope to encourage a dive into the human universe contained by the skin. After a nearly two-year quarantine, we all need a catharsis fueled by contact. However, perhaps before doing it (i.e. the catharsis), it would be good to calm down with what has been cultivated in the meantime. The artistic activity, here, is presented in the metaphor of the flight of these human birds that no longer know how to fly [following, with luck, some tradition that takes us back to Jump into the void by Yves Klein].
The exhibition itself is divided into four acts: death, the sensitive transformed into language, the return to reality and the mirror of the world. Respectively, the parts are placed in the atrium, exhibition room one, garden and exhibition room two.
In the atrium, there is a meditation on the secret end of all things: death or the return to inert matter. The final impediment, the greatest secret of all times, is presented both in the impediment crossed by Heloisa Lodder and in the delicacy of the installation by Arlette Kalaigian or the paintings by Fábio Hanna and Juliana Baumann.
In the exhibition room to which you have access [room one], the eye wanders. In its digression, it (i.e. the eye) behaves like the artist’s gesture. In this naturally speculative movement, the subject who observes [as well as the artist] creates meaning from both the set of lived experiences [therefore, personal and non-transferable], and from what is around. It is here that the senses of these observing subjects are stimulated in vain by images that are reluctant to become part of the world. Always returning to matter and the conformity built by the choices of another, an unknown. This process takes place in the search through technique [in this room there is a certain predominance of painting] and in warning about the dangers and pleasures that fantasy and imagination can promote.
In the garden space, we have works that elaborate Jean Baudrillard’s hyper-reality, reiterating that what is experienced is real, everything else is a stimulus validated by experience and conduct.
Finally, in the mirror room of the world, with its elaborate montage that puts the works in composition, it is expected to formulate a bridge between this self trapped inside the skin and this world, absolutely human, that is here, around, now. By crossing this deep path with us, let us find ourselves again in the light of the sun that will come. Though the night is darkest before the dawn, let us never forget Charles Bukowski’s Smiling Heart:
“Your life is your life,/ don’t let it be disguised in cold submission./ Be aware!/ There are other ways./ There is a light, somewhere./ It may not be much light,/ still, it overcomes the darkness./ Be aware!/ The gods will offer you chances./ Recognize them./ Take them./ You can’t beat death./ But you can beat death in life./ Sometimes./ And how much the more times you learn to do it,/ the more light there will be./ Your life is your life./ Know it as you breathe./ You are wonderful./ The gods wait to delight/ Through you, within from you.”
Paulo Gallina
¹. [The statement, which gives the title of this exhibition, was given to us by Emmanuele Coccia in his text The life of plants: a metaphysics of mixture. And it is Coccia who presents us with our epigraph.]
². Although some words have been deleted in the last period, the text is more or less as presented in this epigraph in: COCCIA, Emmanuele. The life of plants: a metaphysics of mixture. Florianópolis: Culture and barbarism, 2018.
³. A little quote here will hopefully make us understand this bird. Bluebird, by Charles Bukowski: “There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out / But I’m too hard on it, / I say, stay there, / I won’t let anyone see you. / There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants out,/ but I pour whiskey over him and inhale cigarette smoke/ and the whores and the bartenders/ in bars and grocery stores/ will never know he’s in there./ There’s a bluebird in my chest that wants out,/ but I’m too hard on him,/ I say, stay there,/ you want to break up with me?/ You want to fuck/ with my writing?/ Do you want to ruin the sale of my books in Europe?/ There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out/ but I’m smart enough,/ I only let it out some nights/ when everybody’s asleep./ I say , I know you’re there./ So don’t be sad./ Then I put him back in his place,/ but he still sings a little bit/ in there./ I don’t let him die completely/ and we sleep together,/ like that ./ With our secret pact/ and it’s good enough to make a grown man cry,/ but I don’t cry./ How about you?
