Curated by Silvio De Gracia (Videoplay – Argentina)
from 24th January to 28th February 2019
Artists: Ana Montenegro & Maurizio Mancioli, Baggenstos-Rudolf, Carlos Martiel, Janaina Carrer, Simone Moraes, Zierle & Carter and Vason
VisualcontainerTV welcomes the special south American’s selection focused on performance and the liquid environment made by Silvio De Gracia.
Curatorial Statement
Drifting bodies introduces a series of video-performances where artists
explore the human fragility in contact with different liquid contexts. Exploding the oscillation between the calm and the fury of the waters, these works reflect about the ephemeral presence of the human bodies challenging the nature perdurability.
Evocating and poetic actions show bodies that are floating, drifting, submerged, holding a dialogue inside the water, walking in the border between the land and the sea, fighting against the violence of the tempest. Lost bodies, motionless, trapped in the death or the dream, fascinated for the seduction of the depth and the void.
Bodies wander in the water, with the water, against the water, metaphorizing the drift in the insecurity of the life. Abyss where human being developing an intense and sublime immersion in the unpredictable rhythm of the water energy.
Video selection
Ana Montenegro & Maurizio Mancioli , Into the Void, 6’12” – 2017
Baggenstos-Rudolf, Balloons – 3’48”, 2006
Carlos Martiel, A donde mis pies no lleguen – 9’ 13”, 2011
Janaina Carrer, Dry and solver – 8’ 42”, 2014
Simone Moraes, The serenity – 2’ 45”, 2017
Zierle & Carter and Vason, At The Edge – 9’ 54”, 2011
Ana Montenegro & Maurizio Mancioli , Into the Void, 6’12” – 2017
A body floats, belly up, almost motionless on the water, the movement of the arms evoke a flight, a dance of small and useless gestures. It’s raining, it’s dark. The skin and the white dress contrast with the black background that announces a storm. There is no landscape. Action and thinking on the threshold of schizophrenia. A strategy of getting rid of the prison in which it holds. There is no more instinct for survival, only the emptiness, the depth.
Baggenstos-Rudolf, Balloons – 3’48”, 2006
In “Balloons” the artist duo focuses on the possibilities and the appearances of verbal and non-verbal aspects of modern communication.
Carlos Martiel, A donde mis pies no lleguen – 9’ 13”, 2011
The reality leads us in unexpected ways in which we can only delve through mental constructions and disposals. A body lies anaesthetized in a boat adrift on the waters of a river.
Carrer, Dry and solver – 8’ 42”, 2014
“Dry and Solver” is the latest video performance from the third stage of a series of works titled “Elemental”, which is based on procedures and Alchemy elements to investigate the natural changes of the body-mind. In Alchemy, it is believed that the objective of transforming heavy metals into gold was, in fact, a metaphor for the transformation of the alchemist himself. Every operation on the matter / object / body was also a spiritual
operation.
Simone Moraes, The serenity – 2’ 45”, 2017
The video portrays a cloudy morning in which the artist traverses the extension of a seafront following the drawing formed by the waves that retreat. As the artist distances herself along with her path, the image of her body becomes blurred and disappears in the mist.
Zierle & Carter and Vason, At The Edge – 9’ 54”, 2011
Urgent, raw, precarious, spontaneous and embodied this site-specific performance for camera video work is the result of an artistic collaboration between Alexandra Zierle, Manuel Vason and Paul Carter, created by the artists in December 2011 on the wild cliffs at Kynance Cove in Cornwall (UK) during their ‘Performance Transition’ residency slot at The Exchange gallery in Penzance. Experimenting with various media as ‘image’ itself,
this particular work organically developed out of an initial spirited atmosphere of play and improvisation at the edge in the cold, the wind, and the anticipatable rain at the veil of dusk, from which the artists immersed in the elements intently responded to the gale force winds with a critical, intense, symbolic and poetic relational action at the edge to keep the
lifeline alive. Performed by Zierle& Carter and filmed by Manuel Vason. Edited by Manuel Vason, Zierle & Carter and Jo Hellier.