Ver(a)cidade
Translates as The Urban Scene, or The Urban Seen.
A collective exhibition that brought thirteen artists to the Caixa Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro, each one with their own interpretation of the urban scene. I chose to occupy the space in a way that bound the show’s two floors together, interacting with the most impactful architectonic elements in Caixa Cultural: the hall’s columns and the central stairway.
My participation can be seen as three different works, or as one with changes of medium and strategy: a drawn curtain behind the stairs, passers-by painted along the stairway itself, and an anamorphic landscape on the columns that only resolves from certain points of the upper floor.
I worked not only as an artist, but also as executive producer, accompanying every phase of the project’s realization.
Behind the stairs one would find what seemed to be black curtains with transparent areas, creating an oneiric drawing of Rio’s downtown architecture. The drawing builds a landscape where only the windows appear, as if it were a dark night and all the lights were on. Through the transparent areas one sees a second drawing behind the curtains: a stairway that leads to an old building with many other stairs and little secrets, inspired by Rio’s old architecture, Arabic moucharabiehs and Piranesi’s etchings.
Painted plastic, steel cable and tracing paper. 4.2 × 6.6 × 1.3 m, 2012.
On the second floor, an image made of drawings glued over the central columns. The drawings are anamorphic: from some points of view they gather into one landscape floating over the main hall, and from every other point they come apart again.
Photographic enlargements plotted on vinyl, over the columns. 42.6 m², 2012.
Along the central stairway I drew passers-by, taken from watching the day to day of downtown Rio. They were painted in gouache, so the images stayed vulnerable to the visitors who brushed past them.
Gouache on the stairway wall and handrail. Dimensions variable, 2012.
