While I'm writting this post I'm experiencing a reality of transit. At the moment I'm doing a residency at Baró Galeria in São Paulo since the 2nd of April. Curiously, although I was brought up in the outskirts of São Paulo, in a small town called São Caetano do Sul, and spent the last years of my teenagehood and first years of my adult life in São Paulo, the city seems as a distant relative that you hven't seen in a while: you recognize it although you feel you don't really know it.
This is probably one of the most creative situations, and at the same moment quite oppressive, to come back to a city you know so well now as, not just a tourist, but an artist in transit.
It is normally in these situations where different outcomes burst into the work in an unexpected way.
The residency has started just about a week ago, but the new ideas and procedures are establishing. As for those of you how follow the posts in this open journal, some might have noticed how I'm quite fascinated by my work tables and studios and how they configure in slightly different ways in distinct moments. Above is an images of the process endeavoured in these first days.
The idea of being in transit isn't new for me, althought it allways seems to catch me by surprise. Thinking of this process, it reminds me of a recent experience I had at BAB (Bienal Anual de Búzios) curated by Armando Mattos, in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.
Armando is quite a curious figure, as an aquarius, I'd say he's very keen to his star sign being quite a visionary and a radical in the best sense that these words bare. He is an artist, originally from the city of Rio and moved to Armação dos Búzios, where BAB happens, that for the last 6 years has put his own money into this project that he created for bringing artists from around the country and sometimes the world to experience the city and create freely with neither market, intitutional or public demands. It's quite a thrilling adventure, and in the end of 2013 was my second time in the project (the first was 2011), and I cane across unfoldings of my work that I would never have expected. Being so detached from any kind of demand, the artist feels free and the works grow. I myself experimented with my own poetics and rhetoric different outcomes and mediums. As surprising to me as it was I worked with grafitti for the first time, and the final works made me even more enthusiastic about the process. Bellow you can see some of the public works I created in Búzios.
Lately I have been seing with a detached point of view how these processes work on the procedures of an artists too. I coordinate Largo LAB, which is a weekly meeting with the artists in residence at Largo das Artes to speak about their works, processes and questions. "Largo", as we kindly call the institution, is quite an unusual intitution in the environment of Rio de Janeiro's art scene. It's a space bursting with creativity having an institutional gallery space, studios (where I work myself), residency programmes and courses. Every resident that shows up, as myself when in that situation, I see growing and taking huge leaps in their productions. These are the kinds of spaces and enterprises that artists need and deserve, to create free of restrains and drinking from different and excentric waters!
Congratulations to all you, either people, intitutions, galleries etc, such as Armando Mattos, Baró Galeria and Largo das Artes, that endeavour this amazing idea of putting artists in transit to get the best out of them!
www.barogaleria.com
www.largodasartes.com
www.babbienal.org
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