Page 110 - ARTE!Brasileiros #38

ART AS RESISTANCE ENGLISH VERSION

TWO YEAR AGO, the then director of Museu de Arte do Rio, In the work Razão/Loucura (Reason/Madness, 1976), Cildo Meireles,
Paulo Herkenhoff, conceived a show that stemmed from the who redone it especially for the exhibition, even broke some bamboo
hypothesis that there was a thin line between sanity and rods by tensing them. The work is a diptych. In Reason, there is a
madness, sense and dissent, or even nonsense. key tied to a chain out of the reach of a padlock. In Madness, the
By his invitation, Tania Rivera, psychoanalyst whose doctorate chain goes beyond the padlock and is therefore able to open it.
thesis in Belgium was about psychosis, conducted, over these Another axis to consider the exhibition was the importance of
two years, a research that puts in contact works produced by discussing the segregation of the artist who is a psychiatric patient
psychiatric patients and pieces of established artists whose regarding the market. “The idea of why Clovis (patient and artist at
production refuse to follow the orthodox representation or the studio Gaia) would be segregated for being a poor psychiatric
question what is called insanity. patient.” To him, his sculptures are living. On the image, the
The corollary to this trajectory is the exhibition Places of
Delirium, on show through July 16. The show features over sculpture has the topology of a car, although to Clovis it is not.
150 works, among installations, performances, paintings, To the artist, “the car is a heart.” The Studio Gaia is run in Museu
sculptures and drawings, including works by Fernando Diniz, Bispo do Rosário, where patients occupy a space for creation and
Raphael Domingues and Geraldo Lucio Aragão, from Museu do earn an income from the sales of the pieces. Luiz Carlos Marques,
Inconsciente (Museum of the Unconscious), created in 1952, at another patient at Gaia, shows his work in notebooks and talks
the former National Psychiatric Center, in Engenho de Dentro, about the work as a provocation. “See, it (the notebook) starts
by psychiatrist Nise da Silveira, who considered schizophrenia in a way and then spins, and you see the same images upside-
one of the “innumerable states of being.” down,” he explains. “It is a turned page, a provocation.” Drawings
What is delirious about art and what reflection on art there and works by students and patients from the French educator
is in madness were topics directing the research. Another Fernand Deligny, who influenced authors such as Gilles Deleuze
focal point was attempting to break the confinement of the and Guatarri, dialogue, along the hall’s diagonal axis, with the webs
psychiatric patient’s pieces and discussing their representation by the artist Carlos Bevilacqua. The videos by the psychoanalyst
in parallel to the art exhibited in the traditional circuits of Miriam Chnaiderman, Dizem que Sou Louco (They Say I’m Crazy),
galleries and museums. produced in 1994, and by Dora Garcia, Maioria Desviante – de
“Art always seems to escape the norm, that is, the routine and rules Basaglia ao Brasil (Deviant Majority – from Basaglia to Brasil,
that limit our shared reality. It opens windows in the everyday life 2010), show the attention and vastness of the research.
and invites us to build new worlds,” elaborates the curator. “The Works by Lula Vanderley, Leonilson, Ana Linnemann and Laura Lima
intention is to suspend the limits between the normal and the
so-called ‘insane.’ Art and madness have in common the strength are side by side with the sculptures by Clovis, Luiz Carlos Marques and
to transform reality,” she adds. “I wound up selecting pieces by Fernando Lima, patients from Gaia and Belém’s Psychosocial Support
Bispo do Rosário, for instance, connected to his production with Center (CAPS). Reason, intention, expressionism, images from the
boats. On the sea, we need boats so we don’t sink,” she says, neo-concretism and constructive delirium emerge contaminated.
making an association of the word “mar” (sea) and the initials of All on the same boat, they move us and let in a breath of fresh air
the museum where the exhibition is being held (MAR). to the idea of inclusion.
Tania recalls that boats are frequent in the imagery of madness,
as in excerpts that Foucault dedicated to his A History of Insanity 1 | O MAR VAI VIRAR SERTÃO (THE SEA WILL TURN INTO SERTÃO, 2016), BERNARDO DAMASCENO,
in the Age of Reason, a study on the rejection and persecution of WOODEN BOATS, MINIATURE PERFUMES, TULLE, LAVENDER ESSENCE. COLLECTION OF THE
the “non-equal.” “It is for the other world that the madman sets ARTIST
sail in his fools’ boat; it is from the other world that he comes
when he disembarks. The madman’s voyage is at once a rigorous 2 | TOP, VÓS HABITANTES DO PLANETA TERRA, EU APRESENTO SUAS NAÇÕES/ A HISTÓRIA
division and an absolute passage. In one sense, it simply develops, UNIVERSAL E VINTE E UM VELEIROS, BOTH BY ARTHUR BISPO DO ROSÁRIO. RIGHT, SHIPS,
across a half-real, half-imaginary geography, the madman’s MAURICIO FLANDEIRO. BOTTOM, SEM TÍTULO, BY CLOVIS, CARDBOARD, TAPE AND PAPIER MÂCHÉ
liminal position on the horizon of medieval concern – a position
symbolized and made real at the same time by the madman’s 3 | ULTRAULTRA, FOR THE OPEN HOUSE SERIES, JOSÉ BECHARA. SCULPTURE/CUBES AND
privilege of being confined within the city gates: his exclusion OBJECTS, VINYL PAINT ON BALSA WOOD
must enclose him; if he cannot and must not have another prison
than the threshold itself, he is kept at the point of passage. He is 4 | REASON/MADNESS (1976/2017), CILDO MEIRELES. BAMBOO, METAL CHAINS, PADLOCK AND
put in the interior of the exterior, and inversely A highly symbolic KEY, COLLECTION OF THE ARTIST. OPPOSITE, DETAILS OF THE WORK
position, which will doubtless remain his until our own day, if we
are willing to admit that what was formerly a visible fortress of 5 | BOW AND ARROW “ORFA”, NO DATE, ARTHUR BISPO DO ROSÁRIO, WOOD, STRING, LINE
order has now become the castle of our conscience,” from the AND THREAD
edition of Editora Perspectiva S.A. 1978 (Foucault, p. 17, 1972).
Side by side to the boats of Arthur Bispo do Rosário (1911-1989)
– a psychiatric patient diagnosed as schizophrenic-paranoid and 6 | PÁGINA VIRADA CADERNOS DE DESENHO, LUIZ CARLOS MARQUES
was an inpatient for 50 years at the Colônia Juliano Moreira,
in Rio de Janeiro, and has left an invaluable oeuvre, today in 7 | TOP, DE ONDE EU TE VEJO VOCÊ NÃO ME OLHA (2016), CARLOS BEVILACQUA, WOOD,
the Museu do Inconsciente – is the installation by Bernardo STAINLESS STEEL AND QUARTZ. OPPOSITE, L’ARACHNÉEN EDITORIAL, CARTES ET LIGNES
Damasceno, o Mar Vai Virar Sertão, a wordplay with his original D’ERRE – TRACES DU RÉSEAU (2013), BOOK BY FERNAND DELIGNY, 22 X 28,5 CM
work O Sertão Vai Virar Mar, exhibited at Dragão do Mar, in
Fortaleza. Together, the works refer to the sentence “O sertão Places of Delirium
vai virar mar e o mar vai virar sertão” (“The sertão will turn into Through Jun 18
sea and the sea will turn into sertão,” credited to the religious Museu de Arte do Rio
leader Antonio Conselheiro. The former’s delirium and the latter’s Praça Mauá, 5, Centro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
fantasy meet in the same conceptual language. +55 21 3031-2741

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