Editorial
Article
Contemporary ecologies and colonial blemishes
Mateus Nunes
9 Mar 2023, 3:09 pm
The traditional art fair of São Paulo, better known as SP-Arte, reaches its 19th edition, reaffirming its commitment to the dissemination of visual arts. It is understood that the importance of SP-Arte in promoting the contemporary artistic scene concerns not only the presentation of the global art panorama but also the mission of making visible national artistic production.
In this sense, the fair is configured as a sort of X-ray of the multiplicity of artistic productions that have been moving the contemporary scene at the crossroads between local and international creations. Through this lens, thinking about SP-Arte’s diffuser content in the artistic context leads us to glimpse the ethical, aesthetic, and visual narratives proposed by different artistic communities, which may intersect or not in relation to subjects, themes, approaches, and visual methodologies.
By mentioning this specific crossroads space, I draw attention to the artistic production of Black authors, that is, the artistic creations of Brazilian diaspora artists and productions of African artists who are represented in this edition of SP-Arte by the international galleries Nil Gallery and Maât Gallery, both based in Paris and newcomers to the event.
A partir das relações da história com os nomes dados a seres naturais, do colonialismo histórico ao datacolonialismo, Giselle Beiguelman (VERVE) propõe uma revisão de nomes e formas de pensar as plantas no Brasil. Na série Botannica Tirannica (2022-2023), a artista questiona como se acostumou, a partir de um discurso cientificista opressor, chamar diversas plantas por nomes ofensivos a grupos minoritários, como judeu-errante, ciganinha, coração-de-índia, nigger-toe (castanha-do-Pará) e maria-sem-vergonha. A partir de robustos bancos de dados com fotos dessas plantas em sistemas de inteligência artificial, Beiguelman produz imagens e vídeos que propõem cruzamentos entre essas espécies a fim de reiterar a artificialidade dos preconceitos naturalizados e enraizados tanto na história quanto nos dias atuais, espelhando intolerâncias culturais sobre a natureza.
A artista ressalta que se privilegiam espécies que alimentam o extrativismo e o pensamento agricultor, enquanto demonizam-se plantas cujo controle é mais difícil e que não tem uma finalidade comercial, consideradas como ervas daninhas. Beiguelman reitera que os nomes preconceituosos geralmente são utilizados para identificar essas plantas que devem ser combatidas, e defende que “toda erva daninha é um ser rebelde”. Em novos trabalhos da mesma série, agora manipulando outras ferramentas de machine learning, Beiguelman produz imagens utilizando plataformas de inteligência artificial ao cruzar referências botânicas e ciborgues com trabalhos de naturalistas mulheres dos séculos 17 ao 20, invisibilizadas da história natural e da arte, expondo uma misoginia na própria produção científica.
It is valid to say that the presence of these international galleries that have dedicated themselves to promoting contemporary African production, which is so diverse and vibrant in the global context, reinforces the importance of engaging with the fruition and sharing proposed by other sensitive and aesthetic repertoires from different political and ethnic-cultural references.
Understanding that art as a form of knowledge is also a political phenomenon, within the contemporary Brazilian Black author’s artistic production, we perceive an artistic creation that engages in provoking critical, political, and aesthetic debates that make understandable the discussions engaged in traditional circuits of these agendas.
In other words, the artistic production of Black authors that engages in the elaboration of visual discourses around the debate of ethnic-racial relations and critical-reflective issues relevant to contemporaneity from the point of view of the Black diaspora’s social experience expresses and evidences, in a way, a kind of social radiography about the world. That is, drawing attention to these productions around themes, issues, and aesthetic-cultural repertoires organized in their poetics is to understand that there is an explicit political choice of these artists to produce artistic expressions that dialogue with society from this perspective.
Still within the context of Brazil’s verticalization, we can see that the poetic-political works of contemporary artists such as Moisés Patrício, Jaime Lauriano, Sidney Amaral (1973-2017), Mônica Ventura, Rosana Paulino, and Lia D. Castro rewrite historical and epistemological narratives, as well as critical and aesthetic debates, through their visual arguments proposed in their artworks.
These aforementioned artists touch on topics that discuss the political problem of racism, race, colonial legacy, cultural thinking of the Afro-religious universe, ancestry, issues related to black femininity, transphobia, colonialism, and the representation of blackness in art history. These artists engage in debates and themes related to historical issues from the complexity of intersectional issues, taking into account the social experience of blackness.
The subjects and themes taken up in the poetic-political works of these artists often take on an ethical-aesthetic composition that can be perceived through the use of Afro-referenced materiality, as well as through aesthetic-critical debates in convergence with the artistic expressions manipulated by each artist.
In relation to contemporary African artistic productions by Ghanaian artists Prince Gyasi (1995-), Isshaq Ismail (1989-), and Nigerian Austin Uzor (1991), represented by the Maât gallery, and the artists represented by Nil, such as Ethiopian artist Girma Berta (1990-), Ghanaian artists Isaac Ato Jackson (1994-), Caleb Kwarteng Prah (1994-) and renowned Egyptian artist Fathi Hassan (1957-), we can expect powerful and sophisticated artistic productions that also create openings in the art system, sparking critical-aesthetic and ethnic-racial debates in the intersection of art and politics that transcend local borders. Their creations propose dialogues with the world and the present moment through their artistic practices, themes, subjects, methods, subjectivities, and ethical-creative repertoire.
In this sense, it can be said that the critical-aesthetic complexity translated by each of the aforementioned visual artists sets in motion the heterogeneity of their poetics, highlighting political-visual radiographs that invigorate the spaces of intersection of creation provided by the contemporary dynamics of visual arts.
From the African visual X-rays at SP-Arte
Talented Ghanaian artist Prince Gyasi (1995) employs photographic practice to create a regime of powerful images that express the grandeur of the local Ghanaian population. In his poetic composition, the artist has been exploring the potency of colors to bring to the surface the pulsating, beautiful, and sensitive aspect that is rarely exhibited about marginalized communities in Ghana. Vitality and humanization are the key precepts that endorse Gyasi’s photographic practice. The artist offers the viewer new imagistic possibilities about the universe of Accra, the capital of his country. In this way, he challenges an economy of images that has always enclosed “Africas” in images of subordination and scarcity. Prince Gyasi sensitively restores another way of relating to African subjects and landscapes through his photographic production.
On the other hand, artist Isshaq Ismail (1989-) employs the language of painting and digital media to express his political-poetics related to social complexity, especially regarding sociocultural and political aspects around identity. The artist focuses on constructing portraits that represent expressive faces and figures that radiographically and provocatively distort, bordering on the grotesque. Isshaq Ismail’s artistic practice complicates the construction of imaginative spaces. His striking images, accentuated by a vibrant color palette, open spaces for sensitive eloquence, allowing for exploration of themes around resilience, power, joy, hope, and desire.
Following the perspective of African visual X-rays, Nigerian artist Austin Uzor (1991) has gained well-deserved prominence in the local and international art scene. To talk about Austin Uzor’s artistic production is to recall the “exquisite painter and draftsman.” In his production, the artist deals with issues surrounding the unknown, psychological spaces, and alternative realities. The visual narratives proposed by Austin Uzor evoke dialogues with themes related to the traumas caused by experiences of displacement – as observed and experienced by the artist from his witness-body.
The visual production of the young Ghanaian artist Caleb Kwarteng Prah (1994-) has stood out in the contemporary African art scene. His artistic practice expresses visual testimonies that bring to the forefront the Ghanaian cultural singularity through the articulation of his photographic compositions. Caleb Kwarteng Prah’s creations open explicit dialogues with the history of art through African visual radiographs. In other words, the artist mobilizes an aesthetic-creative gaze of the crossroads, a place that updates processes of cultural and symbolic system crossing.
As part of the Nil Gallery team, the Egyptian artist Fathi Hassan (1957) has a long trajectory in the art scene. The artist’s artistic practice moves between the languages of painting, photography, installation, and drawing. Fathi Hassan’s artistic production communicates a powerful visual grammar that brings visual clues of the experience of colonial domination to the forefront. Poetically, Fathi Hassan radiographs languages, symbols, faces, and objects that tell complex stories about the contact between subjects and cultures. His visual radiographs bring to the surface and make visible other cultural epistemes. The artist’s visual poetics is an invitation to critical-reflexive contemplation.
A insustentabilidade dos sistemas dominantes no trato com a terra é endereçada por Matheus Rocha Pitta (Athena) em Um campo da fome (2019-2022). A grande instalação permanente, composta por uma horta de concreto e barro cercada – com 30 canteiros retangulares e cerca de 9000 peças cerâmicas em formas de frutas, raízes e legumes – é situada na Usina de Arte, em Água Preta (PE). O artista propõe o trabalho a partir de uma tradição da Grécia Antiga, em que havia a delimitação de um pedaço de terra próximo à acrópole, destinada a aprisionar a divindade que remetia à fome. Caso alguém entrasse nesse campo cercado, a fome seria liberta e se espalharia pela cidade. Em paralelo, Rocha Pitta destaca Estética da fome, manifesto escrito pelo cineasta Glauber Rocha, que atesta que “a fome é o nervo da cultura latino-americana”.
O fato do Brasil ser um dos maiores exportadores de alimentos do globo, enquanto parte da população passa fome é no mínimo paradoxal. A volumosa presença das caixas de frutas no trabalho de Antonio Tarsis (Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel) reitera tanto a gigantesca produção agricultora no país – distribuídas desigualmente de modo a levar o retorno do Brasil ao Mapa da Fome da ONU no ano passado – quanto a uma crítica a uma imagem brasileira vendida ao exterior como um eldorado tropical, de tom fetichizante – como também o faz Paulo Nazareth (Mendes Wood DM). Os dois artistas questionam, portanto, de que forma podem se relacionar com a paisagem do próprio país em um senso de pertencimento, e de como são vistos em um contexto global por fantasias alegóricas que camuflam realidades vividas no cotidiano brasileiro e reiteram a imagem de que o Brasil é terra com passado colonial, produtora de alimentos para abastecimento externo.
As estratégias colonialistas quanto ao uso do solo privilegiam uma agricultura monocultora – da cana-de-açúcar colonial à soja contemporânea –, extrativista e voltada à exportação, que forçam determinados grupos minoritários à produção de certos tipos de insumos. Dalton Paula (Sé), em sua sequência de projetos que investigam o Atlântico Negro, analisa as raízes e os espinhos da produção do tabaco, do ouro e do algodão na América, sobretudo o trabalho de pessoas afrodiaspóricas escravizadas. As mazelas da produção de monocultura em terras invadidas é, portanto, um reflexo ecológico de uma imposição social que reitera o racismo nos meios de produção.
Em resposta a esses dilemas ambientais, uma série de artistas propõem possibilidades de novas ecologias. Diambe da Silva explora possibilidades fabulativas de novos seres, elevando aspectos estéticos e ornamentais da natureza. Trata da materialidade ao lidar com o bronze e com formas naturais reconhecíveis agora em novos arranjos, mimetizando outros seres ou criando novos integrantes de seu ambiente fabulado. Com esse processo criativo, são apresentadas criaturas que habitam uma natureza poderosa e autônoma, cujo poder sobrepuje o do ser humano e escape de uma ilusória situação de dominação.
Paralelamente, Gabriel Massan (HOA) cria ecossistemas em que rios obedecem a fluxos de vento diferentes das árvores, onde as forças de gravidade aplicadas aos corpos se diferem individualmente, como se cada entidade pudesse exercer sua singularidade em plenitude. Os trabalhos do artista incitam questionar se essa nova ecologia, habitada por novos seres e regida por forças rizomáticas, pediria um novo sistema ético e político. Suas obras instigam a refletir se, nesses mundos imaginados, existem ainda corpos periféricos ou desigualdade entre os seres.
As discussões sobre ecologias em lugares cujas culturas foram maculadas pelo colonialismo se expandem com o avanço dos estudos decoloniais, propondo críticas, revisões, fabulações e possíveis soluções. Na América Latina, um sólido corpo de artistas contemporâneos direciona suas pesquisas nessa direção, em resultados e processos plurais, como exemplificados no livro Eco-lógicas latinas (Act. Editora). Entrelaçando arte, ecologia e história – compreendendo essa última como ciência –, temas e imagens correntes nos debates sobre meio ambiente se interconectam com realidades sociopolíticas, culturais, econômicas e artísticas, partilhando estruturas múltiplas e heterogêneas.
Mateus Nunes (1997, Belém/PA) is a curator and researcher. He holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Lisbon and is currently pursuing postdoctoral studies in Art History and Architecture at the University of São Paulo and the Getty Foundation. He is a professor at MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo) where he teaches courses on contemporary art from the Pará region and Brazilian Baroque art. He also contributes to Brazilian and international art magazines. His main interest lies in cultural hybridities in the history of Brazilian art, particularly in the contemporary reverberations of art from the colonial period in the Amazon region, approached through the theory of image.
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