Group Show: Against The Wall

 Galeria Vermelho is presenting the group exhibition Contra a Parede [Against the Wall], which caps off the gallery’s 2011 schedule and features works by André Komatsu, Cadu, Carmela Gross, Chiara Banfi, Cia. de Foto, Daniel Senise, Detanico Lain, Dora Longo Bahia, Guilherme Peters, Fabio Morais, João Loureiro, João Nitsche, Lia Chaia, Marcelo Cidade, Marilá Dardot, Marco Paulo Rolla, Maurício Ianês and Nicolás Robbio.

The group show Contra a Parede involves works that relate directly with the walls of the exhibition space. In these installations, paintings, videos, photographs and performances, the walls of the exhibition space interfere directly in the construction and temporality of the artworks, questioning the idea of the neutrality of the white cube inherited from modernism.

This is what occurs in Desvio de Poder 1 [Diversion of Power] by André Komatsu, installed in Vermelho’s hall 1. In the installation, Komatsu inverts the idea of the completed artwork and presents a wall of concrete blocks constructed on top of a large spot of white paint. A similar procedure appears in Novo [New], a work that is part of Marilá Dardot’s Nova Pintura [New Painting] series, where Dardot appropriates words and phrases used in store window displays and applies them on transparent surfaces, revealing not only the surface of the wall but also the stretcher bars that hold the work.

An installation created by Carmela Gross in 1997, Feche a Porta [Close the Door] is composed of six steel chairs. Gross takes these large-scale, hinged, stark objects lacking any sort of finishing, removes them from the floor and installs them directly on the wall, thus altering their normal function.

Hundreds of raindrops made of cement and glue invade the exhibition space in the installation Toró by Lia Chaia. Installed on the wall and on the floor of the white cube, Toró reveals the interior of the architectural structures, suggesting the clashing between the concrete of the urban metropolis and nature.

For his part, Nicolás Robbio presents the installation Sem Título [Untitled] that suggest a prohibited space. This installation, similar to a wooden sawhorse demarcates a region of fragility and constant risk. Mil [Thousand], by Daniel Senise, stacks up paper blocks reSembling clay bricks but made with the paper taken from art exhibition catalogs and invitations to vernissages.

In the installation Mal Dito, Maurício Ianês creates a play on words inscribed directly onto the wall. A similar procedure appears in the work Equivalências [Equivalences] by Cadu. The installation is activated by a movement sensor that draws an arc on the wall. Every day the position of the tip is changed, generating a new drawing every day.