FUTURO DO PRETÉRITO - Mendes Wood

Futuro do Pretérito (The Time Out Of Joint) presents works by Cristiano Lenhardt, Leticia Ramos, Luiz Roque and Michel Zózimo, artists of the same generation, born and raised in Rio Grande do Sul, and whose works explore the relationship between fiction and science, often flirting with the science fiction genre.

The abuse of an outdated aesthetic in art direction of Cristiano Lenhardt’s movies, made at an age when digital effects are the epitome of the world entertainment cinema, does not bring us to the idea of a low budget production or the fetishism of analog media, but forces us to retrieve the memory of old science fiction movies – the future through the lens of the past, what would have been if fiction had predicted assertively. Cristiano seems to want to forge futures, but reveals almost ironically the illusions present in this utopia, exposing its fictional structures, which in turn are associated to certain aesthetic of outdated tricks that end up ignoring the present and connect the future directly with the past.

Also playing with the timelessness of the narrative, Luiz Roque presents films that could have been rescued either from the past or from the future. The objects shown here – smoke, tower, gold – belong to a certain future imaginary, while the quality of the images remind us of the curdling of the movie by time, the noise produced by old cameras. However, the choice of the use of film does not happen in opposition to digital media, to recover the airs of the past, but by the density of this analog media, by the possibility of working the image as a sculpture. Luiz Roque sculpts the image layers exacerbating their plastic properties and benefits from the established “place of the landscape” to create a communication channel with the spectators. Sometimes he portrays natural landscapes with artificial elements, sometimes artificial landscapes with natural elements, but always describing landscapes and panoramas to illustrate the issues at discussion; as in Filme Dourado (Golden Movie), where the body is treated as a landscape – the hand that explores that strange body as if entering an unknown landscape for the first time. Here, as in a neo-noir movie, the artist retakes the aesthetics of a retrofit future where science and poetry seem to collide.

Deconstructing the territories in time and eliminating the temporality of spaces, Letícia Ramos convinces her public of the fable created by herself and leads them into her own fiction, transporting the public to another dimension and convinced them of the dangers wonders of the adventure – such as the possibility of finding dinosaurs in a desert in Chile, or sunk submarines in an expedition to reach the Arctic Circle. As a prank taken seriously, the artist creates science around fiction created by her. When she builds her own apparatus -hand-crafted in the artist’s studio/lab and developed exclusively for her expeditions- prepared to explore her own fiction, Letícia proposes a fable planted within reality. She researches, sets out methods and uses scientific laws that give legitimacy and truthfulness to the narrative proposed, as children who invent plausible rules to believe the game themselves. The artist’s works presented in this show function as a research portfolio that reveals the steps of an expedition she carried out, as if to prove a scientific theory and conclude, for instance, the existence of a fictional universe.

The artist Michel Zózimo makes fiction about science itself. By seizing booklets and manuals of the fifties and sixties, Zózimo makes use of the poetic dimension of scientific experiments when overtaken by time as a basis to create new realities. In scientific-fictional experiments, the artist uses elements of scientific language, referring to methods that conform strictly to the principle of universality and procedures from the observation of reality. By seizing materials loaded with poetic aura – provided by the passage of time – the artist retakes the sensitive qualities of subject (discarded by the more rigorous science) and thus, suggests new reality configurations, revealing the portion of poetry inherent in science. If the subjective fantasy paved the way for science, Zozimo strives to return the lyrical character of this branch of knowledge to its existence. In the artist’s poetic, poetry is the essential and determining element in the invention of reality.

Cristiano Lenhardt was born in Itaara – RS, in 1975, now he lives in Recife – PE. He learned about sensitivity with Susan Gruber at Universidade Federal de Santa Maria. He studied at Torreão. He shares work and life with Grupo Laranjas (Orange Group), A Casa Como Convém (The House as It Should Be) and Força Tarefa (Task Force). Cristiano Lenhardt’s works use different media and procedures: videos, presentations, observations, photographs, drawings and prints. By his practice, the artist places himself in the world, scares himself and hides beneath the stage to have a solo show. His tool-shields (pieces of paper or any cloth, lamps, projectors, lenses, sounds and prolonged glances) gradually help him discover, question and build, through action, a series of understandings that deal with how we live, how we respond to life, how we accept life and how we assume life. These manifestations occur by attraction and transformation of materials and symbols. He is interested in working with what he has on hand, with the lack; he is interested in discovering the doses. He is concerned with the miracle and the accepted illusion of depth when we see the surface of the plane/canvas. A sum of projections holds an infinite space. The projection of the one who looks and the projection of the image. The project is located in this infinite; the drawing is the contact principle between the infinite and understanding.

Letícia Ramos (Santo Antônio da Patrulha, 1976) studied Architecture and Urbanism at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and Cinema at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado, FAAP. She is an artist, photographer and video maker. Her research focus is the creation of specific artistic photographic apparatus to capture and reconstruct movement and its presentation on video. Her work is based on research on image formation and technologies to record movement. Her works have been shown in important exhibitions and galleries, such as the Tate Modern in London, 16th Videobrasil in Sao Paulo, and Laboratório de Arte Alameda in Mexico. In 2009 she was selected for the award RUMOS de Artes Visuais of the Instituto Itaú Cultural and she presented her work throughout Brazil including the Museu de Arte Moderna, Salvador, Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, and the Imperial Palace, Rio de Janeiro. In 2090/2010 she held the solo exhibition ERBF Estação Radiobasefotográfica, within the exhibition program
of Centro Cultural São Paulo. In 2010 she won the Marc Ferrez Award – FUNARTE, for photographic creation with the BITACORA project, which culminated with the artist’s participation in the residence “The Artic Circle”, aboard a sailboat in the North Pole. She also developed the project Escafandro (Diving Bell) in the residence La Bande Video – Quebec – Canada, where she also had a solo exhibition. Recently the artist has been selected for the CCSP 2012/2013 Program of Photography.

Luiz Roque (Cachoeira do Sul, 1979) lives and works in Sao Paulo. He works with movies, video, photography and projects involving neon light. His work has been shown
individually at places like the Paço das Artes (Temporada de Projetos, São Paulo, 2008) and Ateliê Subterrânea (Porto Alegre, 2009) and in collective shows like “Abre Alas 6” (A Gentil Carioca, Rio de
Janeiro, 2010) and “Video Links Brazil” (Tate Modern, London, 2007). His video “Projeto Vermelho” was aired on the 12th. Biennnial de L’image en Mouvement (CIC, Geneva, 2007) and was included in the selection LÚCIDA, an overview of the Latin American video art shown on the Argentine television (channel (à) in 2007). In 2010 he participated in the inaugural show of Fundação Vera Chaves Barcellos, “Sussurros & Silêncios” (Viamão, RS) and “Constructions Views: experimental film & video from Brazil”, at the New Museum (New York). He recently took part in “Ano Novo” at Galeria Silvia Cintra (Rio de Janeiro) and the 17th. VIDEOBRASIL at SESC Belenzinho in Sao Paulo. He is one of the artists selected for the program Rumos de Artes Visuais 2011-2013 of Instituto Itaú Cultural in São Paulo.

Michel Zózimo (Brazil, 1977) lives and works in Porto Alegre. He is an artist-researcher and teacher. In 2010, he received the Award for Artistic Residence in HANGAR –Barcelona of the Programa de Exposições Centro Cultural São Paulo. In 2011, he published his book Estratégias Expansivas; Publicações de Artista e seus Espaços Moventes funded by FUNARTE. In 2012, he will participate in Rumos Itaú Cultural and Temporada de Projetos Paço das Artes. His research deals with the poetic possibilities of scientific disciplines through the transposition of educational contents or printed information materials of the second half of the twentieth century. He is interested in science fiction projected in a past time, where the displacement of spaces constitutes powerful matter.