universidarte critical page, 2003
By Denise Carvalho – Página Crítica is a monthly column on the UniversidArte website, written by contemporary art critic and curator Denise Carvalho. The objective of the column is not only to reflect on aesthetic and social issues in contemporary art, but also to identify a critical role in artistic language. Contemporary art goes beyond academic and formalist traditions, but does not deny its roots, redefining processes and concepts, and showing a constant re-reading of aesthetic codes. Whether local or global, she identifies with subjective and social positions, and her proposal goes far beyond a simple representation or the mere possibility of becoming a market product.
Denise Carvalho is an art critic for American magazines such as Sculpture, Flash Art, NKA – Journal of Contemporary African Art, and others, and an independent curator, having organized several multimedia exhibitions such as “Fairy-Tale,” at the Center for Metamedia, in the Czech Republic in 1999, with 26 artists from all over the world, focusing on the subversion of linear structures in the visual arts; Hybrid Dwellings, at the National Gallery in Bialystok, Poland, in 2001; and RAW, at the Smack Mellon cultural space in New York in 2003. His education includes master’s degrees in Art History, Anthropology, and Cultural Studies. Denise Carvalho is a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies and teaches at the University of California, Davis. She has lived and worked in the United States for almost 20 years, 17 in New York and the last three in California.
Angela Freiberger: Redefining the Space of the Body
Angela Freiberger’s sculptures deal with three spatial dimensions, one of the fixed space of the sculpture, around which the spectator makes his path of observation, the other of the mobile space of architecture as an extension of the sculptural object, and a third that unites the object to the performative movement. The beginning of this conjunction between sculpture, architecture and performance was in the series of containers, started at the end of the 1990s. The original concern was to add lightness to the marble of the containers, using the architectural negative space to the positive form, and this was a sculptural concern. The contact of the artist’s body with the form, despite being casual and instinctive and can even be interpreted as a tendency of a sensorial nature, of touch, it is also part of a contemporary vocabulary that focuses on trends towards the inclusion of the body in the architectural experience as a critique of a purely contemplative art. Although, in Freiberger’s work, this trend dynamizes two strands of aesthetic posture: one that questions the position of the body as an extension of the art object, thus implying the possibility of the subjective side of the body to the object of the work, and another that identifies the importance of traditional, even archaic, language in contemporary work. This second language is seen through marble’s references to traditional figurative sculptures and funerary objects such as amphorae, vases, and Greco-Roman vessels. This reference to offerings linked to death contrasts with the performative tendency that emphasizes the living and changing body. in Freiberger’s work, this trend dynamizes two strands of aesthetic posture: one that questions the position of the body as an extension of the art object, thus implying the possibility of the subjective side of the body to the object of the work, and another that identifies the importance of language traditional, even archaic, in contemporary work. This second language is seen through marble’s references to traditional figurative sculptures and funerary objects such as amphorae, vases, and Greco-Roman vessels. This reference to offerings linked to death contrasts with the performative tendency that emphasizes the living and changing body. in Freiberger’s work, this trend dynamizes two strands of aesthetic posture: one that questions the position of the body as an extension of the art object, thus implying the possibility of the subjective side of the body to the object of the work, and another that identifies the importance of language traditional, even archaic, in contemporary work. This second language is seen through marble’s references to traditional figurative sculptures and funerary objects such as amphorae, vases, and Greco-Roman vessels. This reference to offerings linked to death contrasts with the performative tendency that emphasizes the living and changing body. thus implying the possibility of the subjective side of the body to the object of the work, and another that identifies the importance of traditional, even archaic, language in contemporary work. This second language is seen through marble’s references to traditional figurative sculptures and funerary objects such as amphorae, vases, and Greco-Roman vessels. This reference to offerings linked to death contrasts with the performative tendency that emphasizes the living and changing body. thus implying the possibility of the subjective side of the body to the object of the work, and another that identifies the importance of traditional, even archaic, language in contemporary work. This second language is seen through marble’s references to traditional figurative sculptures and funerary objects such as amphorae, vases, and Greco-Roman vessels. This reference to offerings linked to death contrasts with the performative tendency that emphasizes the living and changing body.
The series of Carrara marble containers with titles such as Woman Washing the Soul, Woman in a Stone Garment, Woman Carrying the Place of the Head, Man Ray’s Violin, and Woman Holding the Place of the Fingers, all made in 1999, translates a work by correspondence between sculpture and performance. In this series, too, there is a correspondence between the drama of the theater in the titles of the works and the freezing of the image in the photographic documentation. One of the questions in this regard is the reproducibility of the work as a photographic or video document, which most often occurs as a possibility in the reproduction of the performative moment. Unlike the theater, in which the performative is experienced as a spectacle, Freiberger’s artistic performance is situated in the transitory and casual moment, giving a highly feminine dimension to her fragmentary language. However, when it comes to the freezing of images in photography as a document of the work of art, the transitory appears with a permanent image, implying the importance of the contemplative and reflective look of formalist aesthetic principles. This freezing of the photograph’s gaze also exists in the temporal context of the performance, which is slow and reflective. This intertextuality of different discourses in contemporary art is centralized by the factor of conflict, tension, and the negotiation of non-negotiable aesthetic aspects, which are indispensable for a constant reading of the new, the local, the immediate, and the experimental, in an art mature and of quality, without discarding formalistic discourses that legitimize the autonomy of artistic dialogue in society. when it comes to the freezing of images in photography as a document of the work of art, the transitory appears as a permanent image, implying the importance of the contemplative and reflective look of formalist aesthetic principles. This freezing of the photograph’s gaze also exists in the temporal context of the performance, which is slow and reflective. This intertextuality of different discourses in contemporary art is centralized by the factor of conflict, tension, and the negotiation of non-negotiable aesthetic aspects, which are indispensable for a constant reading of the new, the local, the immediate, and the experimental, in an art mature and of quality, without discarding formalistic discourses that legitimize the autonomy of artistic dialogue in society. when it comes to the freezing of images in photography as a document of the work of art, the transitory appears as a permanent image, implying the importance of the contemplative and reflective look of formalist aesthetic principles. This freezing of the photograph’s gaze also exists in the temporal context of the performance, which is slow and reflective. This intertextuality of different discourses in contemporary art is centralized by the factor of conflict, tension, and the negotiation of non-negotiable aesthetic aspects, which are indispensable for a constant reading of the new, the local, the immediate, and the experimental, in an art mature and of quality, without discarding formalistic discourses that legitimize the autonomy of artistic dialogue in society. implying the importance of the contemplative and reflective look of formalist aesthetic principles. This freezing of the photograph’s gaze also exists in the temporal context of the performance, which is slow and reflective. This intertextuality of different discourses in contemporary art is centralized by the factor of conflict, tension, and the negotiation of non-negotiable aesthetic aspects, which are indispensable for a constant reading of the new, the local, the immediate, and the experimental, in an art mature and of quality, without discarding formalistic discourses that legitimize the autonomy of artistic dialogue in society. implying the importance of the contemplative and reflective look of formalist aesthetic principles. This freezing of the photograph’s gaze also exists in the temporal context of the performance, which is slow and reflective. This intertextuality of different discourses in contemporary art is centralized by the factor of conflict, tension, and the negotiation of non-negotiable aesthetic aspects, which are indispensable for a constant reading of the new, the local, the immediate, and the experimental, in an art mature and of quality, without discarding formalistic discourses that legitimize the autonomy of artistic dialogue in society.
The intertextuality between specific discourses of sculpture, painting, photography and performance is translated by the extension of iconographic meanings through the ages, such as the tattoos on the artist’s body that refer to Man Ray’s photographic work “The Violin of Ingres” (1924), which in turn also references the painter two centuries before this one, thus connecting present and past, neoclassical and modern art. The Dadaist and surrealist relevance of Man Ray’s work in Freiberger’s sculpture and performance is not limited to the iconographic reference to the shape of the f’83 tattooed on the artist’s own body, but in the use of the conjunction between negative and positive used by Man Ray in photography through “rayography”, continuous photography technique or photogram on high sensitivity paper resulting in a partial development or solarization of the image in which the negative is juxtaposed with the positive. This concept is translated through the fragmentation of the positive and negative of the sculptural form, presenting sculptures of the sculptures, or using the idea of substitution between inside and outside, form and mass. The artist’s own sculptural body as a living sculpture translates a reinterpretation of performance with Dadaist roots, breaking academic principles focused on sculpture, uniting the gaze with the interactivity of the body, the object with the subjectivity of the immediate moment. or using the idea of substitution between inside and outside, mold and dough. The artist’s own sculptural body as a living sculpture translates a reinterpretation of performance with Dadaist roots, breaking academic principles focused on sculpture, uniting the gaze with the interactivity of the body, the object with the subjectivity of the immediate moment. or using the idea of substitution between inside and outside, mold and dough. The artist’s own sculptural body as a living sculpture translates a reinterpretation of performance with Dadaist roots, breaking academic principles focused on sculpture, uniting the gaze with the interactivity of the body, the object with the subjectivity of the immediate moment.
The languages between painting, architecture, and sculpture also occur in the circular shapes engraved inside or outside the containers, as is the example of a spiral drawn in the marble dust in the deepest part of the piece Lavabo da Alma (1999), which is the form of the artist’s belly, which in space is inverted as a container. Here, male and female iconographies are also interposed, as well as the inside and outside of the body (skin and organs, viscera and fluids), yin and yang, fragment and whole, sculpture and architectural space. . The masculine and feminine can even be interpreted in relation to the physical condition of the marble, in terms of sedimentation, its purity and unity, or its fragmentation and oxidation.
Freiberger’s sculptures become body envelopes in pieces such as Casa de Banho (2001), in which the sculpture is the body’s reference in the bathroom space. The installation and performance consists of a bathtub, a bidet and a footbath, which have sculpted marks of the artist’s body. On the bidet, you can see the marks of buttocks in low relief, on the footwash, the mark of two feet, and in the bathtub, the marks of an arm and a leg. The pieces are made of pink marble from Portugal, giving the marble a feminine look. The foot-washer and the bidet were acquired by the collector João Sattamini in loan with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Niterói. The theme of the woman in the bath is seen in countless works of modern and classical art, such as Renoir, Degas, Courbet, Bonnard, Gauguin, Cézanne, Picasso, and others. However, in Freiberger, the woman’s performative presence is transitory, focusing precisely on the darker aspects of the sculptures, such as references to pain, loneliness, abandonment, and even death. In these clean-looking sculptures of impeccable sculptural quality distributed throughout the gallery’s vast space, there is a sense of emptiness and loss, like a memento mori to a woman’s ‘live’ body. The question of the ambiguity between death and life in Freiberger’s work can also be seen in the installation of numerous amphorae or vases throughout the architectural space or in the colored liquids that resemble body fluids placed inside containers. In the video Sora (1998), the artist bathes in gooseberry juice that is poured into a metal bathtub. and even to death. In these clean-looking sculptures of impeccable sculptural quality distributed throughout the gallery’s vast space, there is a sense of emptiness and loss, like a memento mori to a woman’s ‘live’ body. The question of the ambiguity between death and life in Freiberger’s work can also be seen in the installation of numerous amphorae or vases throughout the architectural space or in the colored liquids that resemble body fluids placed inside containers. In the video Sora (1998), the artist bathes in gooseberry juice that is poured into a metal bathtub. and even to death. In these clean-looking sculptures of impeccable sculptural quality distributed throughout the gallery’s vast space, there is a sense of emptiness and loss, like a memento mori to a woman’s ‘live’ body. The question of the ambiguity between death and life in Freiberger’s work can also be seen in the installation of numerous amphorae or vases throughout the architectural space or in the colored liquids that resemble body fluids placed inside containers. In the video Sora (1998), the artist bathes in gooseberry juice that is poured into a metal bathtub. The question of the ambiguity between death and life in Freiberger’s work can also be seen in the installation of numerous amphorae or vases throughout the architectural space or in the colored liquids that resemble body fluids placed inside containers. In the video Sora (1998), the artist bathes in gooseberry juice that is poured into a metal bathtub. The question of the ambiguity between death and life in Freiberger’s work can also be seen in the installation of numerous amphorae or vases throughout the architectural space or in the colored liquids that resemble body fluids placed inside containers. In the video Sora (1998), the artist bathes in gooseberry juice that is poured into a metal bathtub.
The reference to urine can also be purely conceptual, as in the installation Coleção de Penicos (2001), which was shown in an exhibition at the Centro Cultural Oduvaldo Vianna Filho in 2002.
In it, the reference to chamber pots is discussed through the interaction between the installation of a series of ancient Roman chamber pots in marble from Portugal and the film The Leopard, by Luchino Visconti, showing a scene from the film in which the character played by Burt Lancaster enters in a urinal. Freiberger created the series of pots based on the movie scene and the pots are replicas of what you see in the scene. In the exhibition, the scene is reconstructed together with a similar architectural space, in which the spectator reproduces the actor entering the urinal. The chamber pots were also purchased by the João Sattamini collection. The film narrates the revolts that led to the changes in power with the fall of the aristocracy and the rise of the bourgeoisie in southern Italy in 1860. The urinal signifies the real space in a historical moment in which everything is apparent.
Another performance in the same cultural space called O Banquete (2002) also references surrealist cinema. Films such as A Comilança (1973) by Marco Ferreri with the Spaniard Rafael Azcona, and the film O Charme Discreto da Boguesia (1972) by Luis Buñuel, are examples of the act of eating as a subversion of moral rules. In Freiberger’s performance, a model dressed in a voille apron kneels in a fetal position on a banquet table, joining the marble plates and platters and several scattered peaches on the table. Around the table, spectators participate in the feast by eating with their eyes. Twenty minutes later, the model picks the peaches on her apron and offers them to viewers. The performance reminded me of a text by Rubem Alves about the film by Gabriel Axel, A Festa de Babette (1987) in which the author talks about the pleasure of looking when he walks through the fair, comparing the look of the hunter to that of the tramp. He says, “I alternate the hunter look with the wanderer look. The wandering gaze does not look for anything. He walks around on things. The wandering gaze takes pleasure in things that won’t be bought and won’t be eaten. The hunting look is at the service of the mouth. They look at the mouth to eat. But the wandering gaze, it eats. We say: eat with your eyes, it’s true. Wandering eyes are those who eat what they see. And they feel pleasure.”1 Eating with one’s eyes is also a specialty of the visual arts, used as a tool of power. The wandering look of the spectator eats without possessing, eats the object of desire whether it be art or a woman’s body. comparing the gaze of the hunter to that of the tramp. He says, “I alternate the hunter look with the wanderer look. The wandering gaze does not look for anything. He walks around on things. The wandering gaze takes pleasure in things that won’t be bought and won’t be eaten. The hunting look is at the service of the mouth. They look at the mouth to eat. But the wandering gaze, it eats. We say: eat with your eyes, it’s true. Wandering eyes are those who eat what they see. And they feel pleasure.”1 Eating with one’s eyes is also a specialty of the visual arts, used as a tool of power. The wandering look of the spectator eats without possessing, eats the object of desire whether it be art or a woman’s body. comparing the gaze of the hunter to that of the tramp. He says, “I alternate the hunter look with the wanderer look. The wandering gaze does not look for anything. He walks around on things. The wandering gaze takes pleasure in things that won’t be bought and won’t be eaten. The hunting look is at the service of the mouth. They look at the mouth to eat. But the wandering gaze, it eats. We say: eat with your eyes, it’s true. Wandering eyes are those who eat what they see. And they feel pleasure.”1 Eating with one’s eyes is also a specialty of the visual arts, used as a tool of power. The wandering look of the spectator eats without possessing, eats the object of desire whether it be art or a woman’s body. The wandering gaze takes pleasure in things that won’t be bought and won’t be eaten. The hunting look is at the service of the mouth. They look at the mouth to eat. But the wandering gaze, it eats. We say: eat with your eyes, it’s true. Wandering eyes are those who eat what they see. And they feel pleasure.”1 Eating with one’s eyes is also a specialty of the visual arts, used as a tool of power. The wandering look of the spectator eats without possessing, eats the object of desire whether it be art or a woman’s body. The wandering gaze takes pleasure in things that won’t be bought and won’t be eaten. The hunting look is at the service of the mouth. They look at the mouth to eat. But the wandering gaze, it eats. We say: eat with your eyes, it’s true. Wandering eyes are those who eat what they see. And they feel pleasure.”1 Eating with one’s eyes is also a specialty of the visual arts, used as a tool of power. The wandering look of the spectator eats without possessing, eats the object of desire whether it be art or a woman’s body. 1 Eating with one’s eyes is also a specialty of the visual arts, used as a power tool. The wandering look of the spectator eats without possessing, eats the object of desire whether it be art or a woman’s body. 1 Eating with one’s eyes is also a specialty of the visual arts, used as a power tool. The wandering look of the spectator eats without possessing, eats the object of desire whether it be art or a woman’s body.