Découverte des Américains

"In Découverte des Américains, the analogy with neo-concretism is intentional. Stationary camera, a harsh, sun-like yellow color tinges the wall in the background. The floor is covered with light sand. Cellophane paper sheets of different colors held by two hands on the top of the screen fall down, one by one. Half-parangolés, half-spatial reliefs. At first, each sheet is flat; once they are dropped and fall randomly, they turn three-dimensional. The painting takes to space; as a vibrating field, the color manifests itself in opposition to monochromatism; randomness, rather than order; it is the target. Ephemeral sculptures display their spasm of life. 

In the lyrics to a song about North Americans, Caetano Veloso unwittingly spoke of us, South Americans: 'Americans are too statistical / They have clear-cut gestures and clean-cut smiles / Eyes with a penetrating brightness that go deep into what they look at, but fail to reach the bottom itself / Americans represent a large portion of the joy that exists in this world / For the Americans, white is white, black is black (and the mulatto woman is not a thing to be)/ … / And thus they gain themselves, bargain themselves, lose themselves, give themselves, conquer rights / While, down here, indetermination is the regime / And we dance with a grace whose secret not even I know / Between delight and disgrace / Between the monstrous and the sublime / Americans are not Americans / They are old human men / Arriving, passing through, crossing through / They are typically Americans / Americans feel something’s lost itself / Something that broke, that is breaking'.” Luisa Duarte

On occasion of the subscription to the 19th Festival, Rodrigo Cass introduces his work with the words of the curator Luisa Duarte (January 2015)