Maria Thereza Alves
dal 6/2/2009 al 27/2/2009
Segnalato da
6/2/2009
Maria Thereza Alves
Galerie Michel Rein, Paris
Constructed Landscapes. Alves's art is based on an ecological line of thinking. It broaches ecosystems through the dynamism of equilibria brought about by the diversity of species. It sets up investigative procedures, calling first and foremost for its own incorporation in the specific landscape, human and territorial alike, that it deals with.
Constructed Landscapes is Maria Thereza Alves's first solo show at galerie Michel Rein.
"The Ecosophy of Maria Thereza Alves.
Maria Thereza Alves's art is based on an ecological line of thinking. It broaches
ecosystems through the dynamism of equilibria brought about by the diversity of
species. It sets up investigative procedures, calling first and foremost for its own
incorporation in the specific landscape, human and territorial alike, that it deals
with. Archaeological methods are applied for the artist's major projects Seeds of
Change and Wake, which reveal a secret cartography of globalization through the
shifting movements of plants in travellers' clothing and the ballast jettisoned
from merchant vessels. By establishing her research alongside scientists, Maria
Thereza Alves asserts the possibility for artistic activity to develop a line of
thought about life, issuing from a combination of perceptible and cognitive
knowledge. An ecosophy, in the sense in which Félix Guattari conceived of the
ethical-cum-political articulation between the three ecological chords: the
environment, social relations, and human subjectivity. What is involved, for her,
are the conspicuous processes of forms of life. By highlighting a poetics of
diversity, which dodges the powers and injunctions of territorialization.
The migration of plants is connected to the history of globalization, echoing the
thwarted migration of people. The plant market is one of the borderline places
acting as a junction between first and third worlds.
What is the Color of a German Rose? expresses the paradoxes of this exploitation. In
a video with mellow sounds and colours, a mixture of educational programme and
commercial demonstration, a young woman shows us a succession of flowers, fruit and
vegetables, while a male voice-over informs us of their place of origin. A geography
of world trade is thus drawn up, based on the availability of everyday consumer
goods in a European city. From the supermarket shelf to the still life buffet, we
have the expression of the consumer orgy invented by capitalism, cocking a snook at
the ecological side-effects of this kind of daily traffic on the world's surface.
Resembling a piece of ironwork, the sculpture Through the Fields and into the Woods
brings together so-called European plants which, needless to say, are not all
European. "The work is kind of a 'barrier' to presumptions of 'known' history which
assumes identity to be linear", we are told by Maria Thereza Alves. On this level of
consistency we find an assembly of plant depictions forming a landscape conceived as
vernacular, and yet imported from other cultures. The questioning of notions
ordinarily accepted as defining cultural identity is one of the on-going themes of
the critique constructed by the artist. The sharp edges of the plants climbing over
this door between two worlds challenge the present-day restriction of people's
right to freedom of movement. Plants circulate so much and so well that they are
turning the world into a "planetary garden", but human beings, for their part,
depending where they hail from, do not have the same freedom.
A determined desire to criticize colonial structures underpins Maria Thereza Alves's
research. She uses the methods of ethnographic and anthropological inquiry,
re-applying them to western cultures and civilizations. The persistence of European
ethnocentrism is thus brought to the fore. For the video Male Display Among European
Populations, an Amerindian ethnologist questions an Italian man about the daily
rituals and beliefs which prompt him to touch his testicles out of superstition. The
ethnologist's polite curiosity refers to the condescending eye cast by dominant
cultures over peoples they designate as "other" and "different". The ironical mirror
effect produced by this reversal principle calls for a broadening of our
understanding of humanism, by entering into "the mutations of plurality allowed as
such", as we are invited to do by Edouard Glissant. It is the artist's struggle to
"gradually contribute to 'unwittingly' admitting to human groups that the other is
not the enemy, that what is different does not cause me to erode, that if I change
on contact with the other, this does not mean that I am diluted in him", as we are
taught by the thinker of creolization.
The Fair Trade Head project starts out from a recent current event in France, when
the Ministry of Culture prevented the city of Rouen from returning to the Maori
community in New Zealand a head held in the collection of its Museum of Natural
History. In response to this support of the trade in human remains by the
government, the artist invents a Fair Trade Head programme, for which European
citizens can choose to gave their head as a symbolic replacement. From the
heritage-conscious and neo-colonial logic of the State there issues the relentless
logic of the artist's project, proposing as she does the simple and radical
application of the basic principle of equality.
Art is a place for bringing to light various paradoxes which underwrite contemporary
culture. An experiment with new social relations based on an ethical responsibility
striving to put an end to the archaic and destructive practices of the western
world. An invitation to go beyond the binary split of nature and culture. To grasp
the ordinary, shared history that links humans and non-humans. To understand the
humanity of the animal. As in the video Bruce Lee in the Land of Balzac, where a cry
which may be that of a wild cat or a karateka rises up in a landscape shrouded in
wintry fog. A French cultural scape, that of La vallée du Lys, redefined by the
cinematographic spectacle of the Asiatic martial arts. Grappling with these
disjunctive cultures, the mystery of the cry summons up an original state of
co-existence between humans and animals. By calling to mind the ambiguity of the
concept of "human nature". Animals are humans like the rest."
Pascal Beausse
Maria Thereza Alves, a Brazilian artist living in Europe, has recently exhibited in
the Guangzhou Triennale, Manifesta in Trento, and the Prague Biennale.
Discussion with Maria Thereza Alves, Unpredictable Paths / Chemins imprévisibles
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 7pm - free entrance
"In Situ & In Vivo", a series of talks organised by Pascal Beausse
Fondation d'entreprise Ricard - 12 rue Boissy d'Anglas -75008 Paris
opening feb. 7, 2009
Galerie Michel Rein
42 rue de Turenne - Paris
Tuesday-Saturday 11am-7pm
Free admission