Things with no Names (2015) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Things with no Names
August 21 to September 27 2015
"Current art, today's production, elaboration in process that practices what is known that art can be and is challenged to be beyond or within the limits of that territory, renewing it by its own practice. Festival, an ancestral model of meeting, sharing and spending of energy whose recent imagery converges to the intensity of music festivals of the 1960s and 70s, scenes of expression of attitudes and ideas without restrictions to styles or categories, based on socializing, experimentation and in freedom. Things without names, objects, elements, forms or fragments that do not agree with established categories, nor conform to ready speeches: acts that do not fit into a verb.
The Current Art Program now constitutes a Festival. Relying on the logic of accumulation - of works, of texts, of ideas - and of living among different people and ways of doing and thinking, each of the curators invited three artists to occupy an exhibition room and build a show from different thoughts about things without names. Using the exchange between these 15 participants, it is proposed that the works, gathered in the same space, are always subject to complete, to unfold, to transform in the course of the exhibition.
In addition, several authors were invited to write texts, comments or essays on this open process that incorporates the unpredictable and improvisation, which will be made available to the public during the exhibition. In this inaugural edition, the broad motto chosen to be interpreted and declined is an expression that points precisely to what resists definitions. "Things without names" is a provocation to which each agent can react freely with answers or new questions. It also allows us to bring up a range of concerns, such as the difficulties of defining borders, the possibilities of revealing the unspoken, and even the limitations of language itself. In all cases, it is a question of working the imprecise, the unusual, the strange and the unfinished, in a curatorial process guided by doubt.
Research and Curation Department
Paulo Miyada, Carolina Mologni, Julia Lima, Priscyla Gomes and Olivia Ardui"
Things with no Names (2015) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
In this inaugural version of the exhibition, the broad theme chosen for the artists to interpret and reject centers around expressing that which resists definition. “Coisas sem nomes” (Things without Names) provokes each participant to respond freely with answers or new questions. It also allows a whole range of concerns, such as the difficulties in setting borders, the possibilities for revealing the unsaid, and even the limits of language itself, to come to the surface. It always entails working with the unclear, the unusual, the strange, and the incomplete in a curatorial process characterized by doubt.
What if the Dusty Lenses Break?
April 2 to May 10 2015
"We are the sum of what we desire with what we inherit, even if involuntarily. As far as thought is concerned, our legacy is replete with atavistic reflections of logical, scientificist reason, based on artificial polarities and innumerable relationships of chance. Even in the seemingly harmless details of our culture, we see the oversimplifications that make our world understanding.
Among these is the privilege of vision as a way of access in the sense of the real and in the elaboration of its truths. This preponderance of the gaze, though often misrepresented, still guides and directs our apprehension of the world and construction of thought, perpetuating the certainty that lenses - our devices, techniques, and logical systems - work and should always work. It is, of course, an illusion. Things will probably collapse even if our theories prove that this is impossible. The reality is more and less than our lenses allow to see and it is fundamental to renew the doubt about our machines of certainty.
The exhibition ""what if the dusty lenses break?"" brings together artists who deconstruct, promote fissures and raise questions amidst scientific convictions. Each of the three artists cracks their own lenses and problematizes a certain device. Marcone Moreira, through procedures of appropriation and ethnographic observation, compares models of circulation of products and people, as well as occupation of the territory. Thiago Rocha Pitta, by adherence and synergy with the tectonic and changeable nature, reestablishes the protagonism and becoming proper of the landscape, usually considered as an indifferent and passive means. Eduardo Berliner attributes to the images, the supports and the artistic invoice choices and resistances, by intuitive and resilient insistence, letting them direct both the discourse and the form of the works. Thus, artists - who present more recent developments of their respective research - propose alternatives to established forms of knowledge.
Research and Curatorial Department Paulo Miyada, Carolina Mologni, Julia Lima, Priscyla Gomes and Olivia Ardui
What if the Dusty Lenses Break? (2015) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Through synergy and adherence to the tectonics and volatility of nature, Thiago Rocha Pitta counters our usual perception of it as indifferent and passive and restores the constantly transforming landscape to center stage.
What if the Dusty Lenses Break? (2015) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Through processes of ethnological observation and appropriation, Marcone Moreira compares the way products and people move around and occupy the terrain.
Conversation with Marcone (2015) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
What if the Dusty Lenses Break? (2015) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Through his intuitive and resilient focus, Eduardo Berliner endows his images, media, and artistic output with choices and strength, allowing these to orient both the discourse and the form of his work.
Conversation with Berliner (2015) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Modern Fears
March 26 to May 4, 2014
"The traumas caused by the modernization process may seem distant, but they remain present, with new facets, pressing every aspect of contemporary life.
The alienation of the subjects before the results and meanings of their work; the sovereignty of the supposedly objective values of scientific and economic progress; recognition and discomfort before the psychic needs of individuals; terror in the face of any irreducible differences - these are some of the impasses that have been accentuated by the growth of large cities and the accelerated process of industrialization. All of them are to some extent the result of the frustration of individuals who look astonishingly small in the face of systems of regulation and ordering, masses and crowds, identity narratives, and ideological projects.
For all these impasses remain latent in our daily lives, often accentuated by the speed, opacity and crisis of contemporary techniques and institutions.
There are artists who are motivated by these discomforts and, if they do not solve them, they collaborate so that they remain palpable, despite the collective euphoria that tries to cover them. Often these artists prefer to deviate from allusions to the modernist avant-gardes, remaining faithful to the impasses they have tried to confront and, of course, have not been able to sublimate.
Luiz Roque, Matheus Rocha Pitta and Nicolás Robbio exemplify this attitude. Each in its own way, they refer to the anxieties and fears with which we continue to live. This exhibition is, therefore, a sample of this contemporary production that, despite the hurried diagnoses, is interested in acting in its time and exercising with the public new senses for old and persistent problems. A production that manages to make this attempt.
All of these impasses are simmering away in our daily lives, often heightened by the pace, turmoil, and lack of transparency in modern methods and institutions.
Modern Fears - Luiz Roque (2015) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Modern Fears (2014) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Modern Fears - Nicolás Robbio (2015) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Modern Fears (2014) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Modern Fears - Matheus Rocha Pita (2015) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Strangely Familiar / Unheimlich
March 12 to April 28 2013
Strangely Familiar / Unheimlich (2013) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Each language has its own shortcuts for expressing ideas and emotions. In Portuguese, for example, we pride ourselves on the word "saudade," for a feeling tinged with affection and painful yearning which, in other languages, can only be expressed by combining the concepts of absence and melancholy. Portuguese does not, however, have a word for "unheimlich," which means "uncanny" and is a word coined by Freud and discussed in his 1919 essay, "Das Unheimlich" (The Uncanny). With no direct Portuguese translation, the word means something that lies somewhere between strange and familiar; something that feels ever so immediate and yet appears from a threateningly unrecognizable context.
Strangely Familiar / Unheimlich (2013) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
Although the term was originally intended for psychoanalysis, our analysis of the word takes us beyond this field. At the heart of the term, we realize that the uncanny is nothing more than a broader meaning of the ambivalent word "heimlich" (domestic, familiar). In other words, what is protected within the intimacy of the home is also what is hidden from outsiders. When what has been stored away from sight unexpectedly emerges, it creates the "unheimlich" effect.
Strangely Familiar / Unheimlich (2013) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
The theme of this exhibition is to try to bring people closer to this concept by taking them along routes that lead around works by a thought-provoking group of artists.
Strangely Familiar / Unheimlich (2013) by Instituto Tomie OhtakeInstituto Tomie Ohtake
In their recent work, and each in their own way, Alice Miceli, Mariana Manhães, Rodrigo Matheus, and Thiago Honório reorganize the polarities at play in understanding the feeling of "unheimlich." While it is difficult to define, it echoes some sort of memory in us all.
Research and Curation Team: Paulo Miyada, Carolina Mologni, Julia Lima, Priscyla Gomes, and Olivia Ardui
