"Por Pintar la Libertad de Colores" - installation detail, vynil on metal sheets. (click for image details)
Exhibition "Linea de Hormigas", A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro, 2007
Installation view (back: portion of "Por pintar la libertad de colores", center: "Linea de Hormigas", wall painting piece: "La ilha", by Diego Fernandez)
"Linea de Hormigas", 2007, in collaboration with Cristobal Lehyt. Wood, insulation tape, dimensions variable.
“Por pintar la libertad de colores” is a series of drawings based on two different kinds of “street drawings”. The first reference would be a local Rio de Janeiro street graffiti called PIXAZAO, which are small scale signatures done in a very organic way (the city has been basically taken over since the early 80's by this kind of sign). The second type is based on Chilean political street murals done in the 70's and 80’s by a group called BRIGADA RAMONA PARRA. I used found images that reference directly and sometimes less directly to this movement. My idea then was to produce a new group of drawings that would juxtapose these very different two contexts. They both share a lot (they are both marginal and collective based) yet at the same time they where and are forged by very different ideologies, one as a result and expression of rebellion, leisure, abstract and organic takeover... the other was part of a serious political propaganda that is today pure nostalgia.
"Linea de Hormigas" is a collaboration with Cristobal Lehyt. It is an improvised sculpture that was placed there as a unifying element (most of the pieces of the show had important drawing concepts and components). So this pure "drawing in space" became a spatial and visual channel. Also an homenage and a joke to Latin American and Brazilian modernism. It was built with wood covered with insulation tape... it had both a strong and improvised appearance.