14 Sep 2011

Kunsthalle Lissabon Presents Mariana Silva: The organization of forms

Kunsthalle Lissabon is pleased to present, in its new space, The organization of forms, Mariana Silva's first solo show.

In A composition for two at two distinct moments (2011), the central piece of the exhibition, two video channels are overlapped on the same screen. One of the projections is the 1978 video of Yvonne Rainer performing Trio A, part of her 1968 minimalist piece The mind is a muscle. Trio A developed from pedestrian (in Rainer's own words) movements and is prone to be taught regardless of previous specialized training. Since Rainer's work at the Judson Dance Theatre, critical reception has focused on the democratic nature of Rainer's minimal choreographies, namely Trio A. The second channel presents a subtitle track based upon the 1976 research of historian Mona Ozouf on the parades of the French Revolution. It was through such parades that painter Jacques-Louis David conceived citizens' participation as an integral part of a new regime of citizenship brought about by the republic. Silva's gesture of superimposition thus brings together two instances of choreographed movement, that of the public parades developed by the painter of the French Revolution and Yvonne Rainer's piece Trio A, and by doing so, reflects upon the idea of a sensual enactment of citizenship.

Une affaire de creux et de bosses (2011) is a single screening which prolongs the exhibition at Kunsthalle Lissabon. It brings together a 30 minute-long HD video and the diffusion of a historical perfume, allowing for both a visual and olfactory experience. In the video, the camera pans through several views of the Louvre, in Paris, and more specifically, through its collections of Egyptian, classic, medieval and baroque statuary. The vistas are collected from a book of prints which depicts in three-dimensions (3D) the spaces of the museum's collections. Parfum à la Guillotine, developed with parfumier Lourenço Lucena for this single screening, is a recreation of the perfume devised to counteract a decrease in perfume sales caused by the French Revolution. Evoking the short-lived sixties' experiences of smell-o-vision, in which scents were released during the projection of a film, the artist intends to superimpose the oddity of a perfume created in the image of the guillotine to the unsettling touristic prints of the Louvre, tainted by the blue and red reminiscent of the first experiments with 3D technology. This event thus develops as a sort of mise en abîme of references to the revolutionary iconoclasm that founded the first museum in a royal palace and invented for itself the symbol of pillage in name of a visual history that the museum would then establish, crystalize and return to all democratic people.

Mariana Silva (Lisbon, 1983) lives and works in Lisbon. She has participated in several group exhibitions, namely 'To the Arts, Citizens!' (Serralves Museum, Oporto, 2011), 'For Love, not Money' (15th Tallin Print Triennial, 2011), 'Perpetual Interview' (Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art, Lisbon 2010), 'Into the Unknown' (Ludlow 38, New York, 2010), 'República ou o Teatro do Povo' (Arte Contempo, Lisbon, 2009), 'BesRevelação 2008' (Serralves Museum, Oporto, 2008). She was a resident at the 5th Sommerakademie, Paul Klee Zentrum, Bern in 2010, and at the iscp (International Studio & Curatorial Program), New York from October 2009 to March 2010.


Project financed by Secretaria de Estado da Cultura/DGArtes (Direcção-Geral das Artes) and supported by L'Parfumeur, Espaço Nimas e Video Data Bank, Chicago.