CARNAVAL
this was the beginning and still is so:
graphic annotations
DRAWING
as a starting point and programmatic annotation of a new phase:
from the very
beginning the fluent expressionism preceding the CARNAVAL-masks which were revealed at the exhibition OPINION 65:
beginning of a trail in which
DRAWING is planning up and gathering up of raw material used in a raw state: according to him, it is memory and projection: the cigarette which burns expressionist colored smoke which ends up in the drawing as a photodecal from childhood: another which projects decals from photo-CARNAVAL: annotation and anticipation: the core-spine of what explodes afterwards in the form of greater projects: not to consider them for this reason any lesser: they will continue to emerge and must do so:
they are a pre-view:
[…] just as the envelopes, for example, seem to continue opened in the prevision of projects being born: there’s something in the pencil checkered form on the black cardboard, the dotted perforations which outline the envelope contract and withdraw revealing the black mirror behind (which in fact is only noticed when the observer moves about and cannot be seen when he is right in front of it): wouldn’t this drawing be already an anticipation of the mollusks and of the CARNAVAL- groups?:
DRAWING
a beginning and a continuous flow which feeds the secluded activity of projecting: to feed projects which will release that which is at the same time most particular and at hands reach: the delights of confinement still in its original cradle of the evolution of brazilian “modern art” it can be said to be “modernistic”: the concept of modernity is always linked to that of the formal “new”: portinari painted academically and then wove a “cubist” patchwork on the “background” and on the “figure” – tarsila, on the other hand, a real painter, created her works immersed in a kind of modernistic – anthropofagic mannerism, which far from being considered a fault in her work, presents itself even today, as the best example of the “modern movements” pre-concretism here (with the exception of the volpi “case”) – the brazilian formal decorativism, the conscience of it, are inherent in our creations; healthy; even with an artist who always excelled in conscience and structural objectivity, as did lygia clark, in her initial phases (neoconcretism and its consequence: the bicho which means animal: sculptures made of aluminum geometrically cut and linged together so as to be manipulated by the spectator into different positions) possessed this strong modernistic dosis – vergara takes this impulse of decorating to the last consequences, in these works; cutouts, like stage settings for a caligarian environment – foliage-landscapes – cutouts-to cutout-trim-unite- brown paper, cardboard – to create the module : a rectangle formed by two squares of which the diagonals make furrows; one side unfolds at the “double” of the rectangle, making the 4 diagonal furrows which meet at the center of the whole unit; the diagonals and the meeting of the squares are force-furrows; these furrows are articulations as strong and resistant as the material : with big clips they can be brought together forming systems, ensembles, built up structures : freely, as if the square were (and it is) the open field for the game; to the decorative; joyous game; these modules synthesize all of vergara’s attempts and propose others – they- re the middle of the road not an ( or the) end; medulla and bone; entrails of space; toy.
vergara didn’t go berserk, nor did he make you or I flip out, but he wants us to think, to love trough his work without drama or schemes, happy and vital as going to the beach, having an ice cream, dating, strolling through open spaces, absorbing the significations to which is submitted everything he wants to express, significant object which is not pleasant but communicative – communicatingobjectsign, the open structure, only possible way of giving, recreating, swallowing, eating the “message”, that not only he, but all of us could and should create, creation for action –
vergara builds unrefined boxes, of pure cardboard, cardboard flag, flagmonument, greenyellow brasília, cardboard, which fits together in the box, and shade, in the light, in the smell – factory – dry, dream dwellings, to share the pre-sale manufactured material, before it is thrown to the beasts live, dry, the structure is each time more open – to the touch, the thought, the imagination which bites, demolishes, builds up brazil, outside and far away from conformity because it assumes a live structure where orthodoxy is excluded because it has been born dead – the artist lives and gives and the multiplication of flags are thought to think or to open hiched spaces, settings as unexpected as events can be – of internal nature and the world.
[favor confirmar com o tradutor se é HICHED mesmo]
vergara of the bubble drawing, of the first expressionist entrails, talent of color-line-space, he wants the golden crib (brazil) to become transformed in time and space because he knows that to “apply the message” doesn’t make it: the message (massage) is also a structure, but open structure , a live thing if one is alive
[não entendi; em português está apenas mensagem]
the super -drawings grow from the caligarian box-structure-settings : they spread out on the ground, drawing and cutting themselves out : cheap paper foliage : bushing and straggling : they invade on their turn, the setting – collecting the brazilian nooks and corners which the academical theoreticians cannot do : non- cultural sensitive brazil – everything will have to fatally flow into more general structures, into propositions which grow in ambition: into something which is more important than galleries or museums : which can survive without them – the awareness that this face, to be a face, must be exportable, just like the americans did (warhol, for example, more than oldenburg, who sums up more of an “american-image” – warhol really created what could be called the american-face) – to bring out what must be brought out, what is of interest – vergara wants to be the vigilant conscience of these instan (ces) (ts), in a more general way than fashion and form: the place and time are his to build : and both are fundamental here : the search for time-space lost in jungle under development : the questions, the answers, the queries : their validity : from where to approach the concept of value? neither “art” nor “culture” are of importance here : much more : behavior as a live form of the creative options – lively, vigilant : a conscience.
vergara wants to build a moment as a block : the moment brazil – the face – even if to do it he must hold on to the leftovers, the old propositions, which appear to form this block : his ease for drawing, decorating, cutout, enriching the environment, etc.; there is no interest here for anecdotic “messages” without efficiency: there is an ambition to create this block-face-brazil absorbing everything, leaving out certain estheticist modesties; here lies his coherence : to go to the end, with no leftovers.
vergara leads this decorativism to decoration: they’re beautiful: environmental unfolding of the “panels” of yesterday, a kind of thing of which brazil is champion in quantity: banks, industry, headquarters: varig´s are being built : metal plates which become concave mirrors and reflect the setting : they grow, they become transparent : these experiences are linked directly to something effective to the setting-use, seem to enrich his propositions : which in him are always fundamental instances : the creation of a brazil-face (without any nationalist constipations) : summary (without culturalism) of yesterday, of now, of what must be: the search for pleasure in doing, playing, decorating.
Page 34
AT THE CARNAVAL:
behavioral inversion:
ostentation of feminine
sexuality which becomes
disguised in aggression the hand
which opens the silicon breasts
the heads with the CENTRAL
station clock on the puddle of
beer cans people seen though
the weft of the garage door on
the street: the parade and the
silent spectator that take turns
the word POWER written on
the black of the body’s skin
ALBINO´S BEACH COSTUME PARTY
Page 39
IN THE COSMOGRAPHY RECORDED ON PAPER:
blank masks-heads waiting foran identity:
masks and purpurine snails and the spaceblocks on paper:
urbis/sub-urbis concentration broken weft: the checkered weft which
breaks up in the mask
the inverted brazils in the breaking up of the
weft-drawings
THE TROPICALIZED VAN DONGEN OF THE CARNAVAL AD:
the very crazy-eyed mulatto girl
Page 40
CHAOS AND GROUP FORMATION:
the camera shot on the out-of-focus focus by the swing
of the body by the skirt, by the gestures of hands and the
feet-and-legs in the samba dancing crowd the forming of
the “bloco” : bloco-identity
Page 41
FEET
PANORAMIC VIEWS OF THE DANCING BODY
WIGS AND HATS
HEAD – IDENTIY:
from the adhesive make-up
to the silicon transvesting
VERGARA ON THE CARNAVAL STREET:
the individual head costume
collective tap-tapping feet
Page 43
the head
the mask: the head cutout that is left
open to receive the mask
to mask oneself: to chose an identity
the snails:
on the infinite white of the paper
the snails (which repeat the general beat: equal in all)
group themselves in signs culminating with
from the photos of the CACIQUE STREET CARNAVAL
to the sign notations of the snails:
the joint process of this vergarian trajectory.
Page 44
CACIQUE DE RAMOS
EQUAL DIFFERENT
VERGARA with the CACIQUE: from the experience of
going out with the “bloco” to the
photos in which the camera
is the ey -camera and not the eye-man: vergara
does not shoot what the eye sees but uses
the camera in a snoopy way the focus is adjusted mechanically
according to the distance from the camera to the object and not by the eye of the
photographer: it swings and moves with the dancers: it looks up from underneath
VERGARA-CACIQUE
equal in all
all different
Hélio Oiticica