Page 112 - ARTE!Brasileiros #38

ART AS RESISTANCE ENGLISH VERSION

IN THE CLASSIFIED SECTION of a Rio de Janeiro newspaper, The video is one of the most direct pieces on the show and serves to
among listings of cars and real estate, an advertisement published contextualize the process. The curator comments on the dilemmas
in 2016 differentiates from the others. With the sentence “I offer to formalize the artist’s works, which are mostly immaterial: “Anna
company,” a woman gives time for those in need of “moral has a whole production focused mainly on relationships. Our greatest
support, help cutting red tape, listening of crises.” All that asking challenge was transforming experiences into objects.”
nothing in exchange. Another alternative adopted was including 40 monocles with the
The ad is part of the project I Offer Company, which the artist phrases from the dialogues the artist kept with the participants. To
Anna Costa e Silva based in Rio de Janeiro presents at the Anna, this solution maintained the intimacy of the conversations: “I
Superfície gallery, in São Paulo. Interested in the art of the didn’t want to show the stories in completely exposed fashion. This
encounter, Anna met with 33 people to help in impossible tasks way (with the monocles) just one person at a time can look at them.”
– from organizing computer files to talking about love. Far beyond the final result, the artist’s interest lies on the encounters,
The exhibition, curated by Bernardo Mosqueira, is comprised which she describes as overwhelming. “At a certain level, the work
of the registers of these meetings. With a minimalist tone, in a existed for the 33 people and, in a different way, as traces of these
small, cozy room, are featured one video, photos, an appointment experiences,” she reflects.
book, two artist’s books and 40 monocles with phrases from
dialogues that resulted from the experience. 1 | ONE OF THE 40 MONOCLES PART OF THE EXHIBITION BY ANNA COSTA E SILVA
With a degree in Cinema, Anna is accustomed to exploring the
connections of theater and visual arts. She says that, during 2 | ADVERTISEMENT THE ARTIST PLACED ON THE CLASSIFIED SECTION OF THE NEWSPAPER
the 21 days she dedicated to the project, she had no idea of O GLOBO
what would happen. “I jumped in without a plan. I wanted to
know how each person lived their lives, what are these worlds I Offer Company
out there that I would never have access if not through this Through March 11, 2017
project,” she claims. Galeria Superfície
During the period of the experiment, the artist also baby-sat, Rua Oscar Freire, 240, São Paulo, SP
walked dogs and, of course, talked about people’s lives. Love, +55 11 3062-3576
for instance, was one an ever-present topic in the dialogues.
“I think everyone wants to talk about love, right?,” she asks. HISTORY OF EXHIBITIONS PANAMA | PAGES 68 TO 70
In one of the cases, Anna helped a woman who had ended her
belongings. “In many of these meetings there was a play between RESISTANCE AND
relationship organizing her home and removing her ex-boyfriend’s
When she recalls the conversations, she mentions the case of PERTINENCE IN PANAMA
the practical and the existential,” she ponders.
a girl from Rio Grande do Sul that impressed her a great deal.
Soon after their first contacts, the woman told she had been THE INCENDIARY EXHIBITION THAT IN 2003 RECONCILED RIVAL GANGS,
raped by her own father. While I listened to her, I could only BUT SPARKED CONFLICTS AMONG POWERFUL CHARACTERS AND ARTISTS
think, “My God, this is very serious, I have no background to
deal with this sort of thing.” BY JUAN JOSÉ SANTOS
Another case she recalls is that of a man who wanted to talk
about a specific project. It was a letter he had written to his FROM MARCH 20 THROUGH APRIL 20, 2003, the streets of
ex-boyfriend, using his own blood as ink. “He came up with a Panama City were “looted”, Henry Morgan-style, by a group of
mechanism to draw his blood and managed to write the letter artists/pirates summoned by Gerardo Mosquera and Adrienne
which, so far, he hasn’t sent,” says Anna. Samos.
In this process, the artist went through scary moments. On CiudadMULTIPLEcity was a street show, rebellious and confrontational.
the very first day, a person, who she classifies as psychopath, Problematic for the public authorities, who denied permissions and
sent messages inviting her to go to a motel. A man also tried even removed works that had already been previously authorized.
clutching her during a conversation. There were also protests by the public sector, which threatened to
“One day I met a guy at five in the morning and started thinking illegally remove works.
that it could be dangerous, but it turned out fine. On the The exhibition was deemed a nuisance to Panamanian authorities,
other hand, I also could be seen as a threat. After all, I was a who were intolerant to a set of artworks in the urban space.
complete stranger. I think the fact that I exposed myself was Undoubtedly, the fact that they were not being shown in a museum
also a guarantee for me to get close to people,” she claims. or a cultural center sparked this reaction.
The purpose of the artist was to create breaches in the everyday But the curators’ and artists’ intentions were different: following
life, proposing new forms of coexistence. In the beginning of the country’s recent and convoluted past, the idea was to inflame, pick a
project, Anna shot a call she made to the classifieds department fight or, at least, to make a satire of the local history, a reflection on
of the newspaper O Globo. On the video, the viewers can see the the city’s shared spaces and a chance to exercise collective thinking.

artist explaining the ad she wanted to place. Failing to understand “Even if the fire never penetrated the place, the bureaucratic
what the artist intended, the attendant asks: “But lady, what’s relinquishment, the endemic lack of governmental resources and
the intention?” She replies that there is not a specific purpose. overall disinterest in preserving history’s living features revealed
Impatient, the employee says that it will not be possible to place a space that looked like the result of a terrible catastrophe.” These
this sort of ad. words were written by Alberto Gualde, witness to Gustavo Artigas’s
The attendant’s behavior surprised the artist. “Her reaction artistic action, which simulated, with the assistance of firefighters,
was a metaphor to an entire system of beliefs and values we a fire in Panama’s City Hall.
are accustomed to. It was an aggressive response, as if offering Artigas was, together with Brooke Alfaro, Francis Alÿs & Rafael
company was something offensive, deemed untrustworthy,” Ortega, Ghada Amer, Gustavo Araújo, Artway of Thinking (Stefania
she reflects. Mantovani & Federica Thiene), Yoan Capote, Cildo Meireles, Juan

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