SP ARTE 2020 VIEWING ROOM Choque Cultural Catalogue

 

Shock generating light

 

The set of works and records presented here on this site for SParteVR  2020 represents the diversity and strength of new contemporary languages in the face of a world in revolution. Choque Cultural has been researching the demands, criticisms and inspirations coming from new generations for more than fifteen years and proposing new experiences and approaches that reach these new audiences and issues. Through a cohesive group of artists and their innovative artistic projects, Choque has conquered new markets formed by investors with purposes that incorporate the social values that best portray our time: inclusion, representativeness and collaborative participation. Alê Jordão, Coletivo BijaRi, Daniel Melim, Jaca, Mariana Martins, Narcélio Grud, Rafael Silveira & Flávia Itiberê, Sérgio Adriano H and Tec form a very diverse team, but with purposes consistent with the dynamism of the current world. The virtual exhibition presented here exposes objects and concepts that form a powerful and cliché-free amalgam. Narratives that incorporate the most diverse experiences and influences coming not only from the history of art, but also from the mundane and full of future environments found in the streets and internet. The artists have in common, in addition to the vision in tune with the present / future of which we are talking, the media ambiguity derived from the permanent experience with new languages, techniques and supports, from urban to digital art, from tattoos to drones-video, from miniatures to mega-murals.

 

 

 

 

 

“Neon Bubble” is a neon sculpture housed inside a transparent acrylic dome with a mirrored bottom. This combination of materials multiplies the visual effect of the sculpture and creates an optical illusion that magnifies the reflection of the illuminated neon. It is a work that can be installed outdoors, in a garden, for example.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Robocop” is a headmade that resignifies a homemade vacuum cleaner, which uses a sign to deviate from the furniture in the house. Without eliminating its real usefulness, which is cleaning, Jordão appropriates the automaton object to build his interactive mobile sculpture, which represents a compass that renames the cardinal points with the letters F,U,C and K.

 

 

 

 

 

“DREAM-MERDA” is an interactive object formed by glass bricks with engraved letters. The set forms the anagram DREAM / MERDA, depending on how you articulate the letters to form the words. Despite being best known for works in neon, the essence of his research is the word, which in this work appears unplugged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Carro-Verde” is part of a series of urban interventions aimed at transforming abandoned cars into flower boxes, that is, transforming waste into urban furniture. The piece presented here is a version with optical graphics – typical of the current phase of BijaRi – and refers to issues of green urbanism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Oppression / Emancipation” is a painting in which Melim discusses the widespread manipulation of the female image in consumer society. This is a recurring subject in the artist’s research, alongside other issues related to human rights. In the current phase, Melim has appropriated distortions, repetitions, glitches and other “digital defects” in his stencil painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this painting Melim explores the typical graffiti’s sarcastic humor. “Street Art Cook Book” reveals the artist’s engagement with the stencil art and his experience with great names of his generation, especially in London, where Melim participated in several projects, including the famous Cans Festival, organized by artist Banksy and in which, Melim exhibits his installation side by side with himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this piece, Melim initiates a new coloring experience that refers to the lick-lambs and popular graphics used in advertising and cheap publications of the 70s and 80s, mainly. Although the artist uses exclusively the stencil technique (cut-out and pouchoir masks), the images reproduce the distortions and irregularities typical of rudimentary off-set, silkscreen, xerox and letterpress prints.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Primavera” marks the strength of the duo formed by Flávia Itiberê and Rafael Silveira. The work is a drawing made by Silveira and embroidered by Itiberê, a delicate but striking object. The couple started producing the already long series of embroidery about five years ago and the resulting works have as much personality as Silveira’s oil paintings. The images and icons created by Silveira have the autonomy to be represented in multiple media without losing their identity. With the embroidery of Itiberê, they gain an exuberant and dense drama that ties itself to the tangle of colored threads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Imagens Ilustrativas”  is a painting in which the most characteristic elements of the artist are present: a collection of iconic figures located in ironic situations. On this canvas, Jaca paints slowly and accurately delineates each element creating a composition that dialogues curiously with the superflat of Murakami.

 

 

 

 

 

“Salva-Sad” has a very intricate composition and an abundance of graphic contrasts. It is a painting with generous layers in which elements overlap with fine and precise lines, humanoid-geometric figures, sequence plans common to “comics”, in short, a rich profusion of graphic references that originate in the context of popular printing and vernacular writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Flooded San Francisco” is a sculptural object produced with Lego toy pieces and colored and molded resin. The image represents the city of Los Angeles flooded by some future catastrophe, a consequence of the climatic changes resulting from global warming. The work is a critique of consumerism that takes humanity to that extreme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Flooded New York vs Lego” is a sculptural object from the “Global Warming” series. The work alludes to the consequences of global warming and relates them to widespread consumerism in contemporary society. The image of New York City is an assemblage produced with plastic pieces (Lego toy pieces) inserted in glazed and polychrome resin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Esperançar” is a photograph that records an installation made in Fortaleza, Ceará, by the artist Narcélio Grud in 2020. The installation is formed by a metallic structure that supports a piece of clay roof. There are three similar buildings on a 90 square meter plot that forms between the mangrove and the dunes of Praia do Futuro. A criticism of the unscrupulous real estate speculation taking place in the region.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Roda Dhamma” is a sound and interactive sculpture, in which small metallic spheres run inside tubes and hit plates that emit sounds of musical notes. The sculpture has a design that refers to Duchamp’s wheel and discusses the audience’s participation in the creative process that occurs after the work is installed and is manipulated by the public.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hourglass” is a category of work that happens at the intersection between painting and sculpture. The painting is contained within a supposed frame that is deformed to the point of creating an hourglass figure. Silveira’s research radicalizes issues raised by surrealists, such as Dali and Magritte.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Insight” is an oil painting from the extensive series of “desretratos” by the artist Rafael Silveira. In this work, the painter presents a figure formed by intricate symbolic images, typical of his imaginary, which meander through the canvas creating a deep-rooted dreamlike vision that takes us to surprising places in its upward movement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this object-book “História da Arte” Adriano expresses eloquent indignation against the strategies of power based on the repetition of false truths. Through works full of irony, sarcasm and acid humor, the artist unveils the real meaning of popular expressions and words whose meaning is distorted by structural racism, such as the word NEGRO, which even today, in Portuguese-language dictionaries, is associated with evil and terror.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photograph – from the “Palavras Tomadas” series – is associated with the video and the same title: BLACK. Adriano’s current research is deepened in the search for his place in the world, in the city, in history and the understanding of his body, as the source of the concerns and certainties that motivate his artistic practice.

 

 

 

 

“Brexit Al Sur” is a painting in which the artist uses time to discuss the issue of urgency. We live in a world where everything seems urgent, including the very survival of the planet. In this work, Tec decided to record a video (in time lapse) where the living gesture was recorded, the speed of all the action, like a performance painting, in which time is the starting and ending point.