Untitled | Welcome Home series
2011
Untitled (from the Welcome Home series) (2011)
Reference of the artist: Auguste et Madeleine - La ciotat (1912), brothers Lumière
"A sanctuary-goer visits the exhibition where Welcome Home was shown for the first time, in 2011, before the book was completed."
"A sanctuary-goer visits the exhibition where Welcome Home was shown for the first time, in 2011, before the book was completed."
"Welcome Home is the outcome of a series of experiences in a pagan sanctuary in the United States countryside. I paid visits to the sanctuary between 2009 and 2011, during the Beltane, a fertility ritual celebrated by the locals and by visitors in the springtime. There, I came in contact with and was deeply affected by the customs and philosophy of that community.
One of the most important things I learned from the group is to seek 'subject-subject' relationships, as opposed to the 'subject-object' ones. The understanding of the other as a being who has desires, rather than an object that is available to satisfy the wants of the subject. Each encounter is an approximation, a negotiation between two (or more) desires.
Welcome Home is a trajectory of discovery of the Other.
The image shown at the 18th Festival marks the end of the Welcome Home series. It inaugurates something new in my work and marks the moment in which this search for the subject-subject materializes into a visuality. This image is the result of a collaboration. It originated from a request to 'take my picture' and from a study, a pose. This is the first time that I recognize myself in my work, much like the subject of the photograph. And this changes everything.
The Welcome Home series was completed with a 168-page book and the images and texts were subjected to the approval of the locals. The book was first launched at the sanctuary itself, in the autumn of 2012."
Gui Mohallem in a statement to PLATFORM:VB (October 2013)
Untitled (2011) (from the Welcome Home series) | Gui Mohallem
Photography | Printed on cloth, 2.60 × 3.90 m
Untitled (2011) (from the Welcome Home series) details and setup at the exhibition space of the 18th Contemporary Art Festival SESC_Videobrasil
Testimony Gui Mohallem | 18th Festival
The artist shares some of the experiences that originated the photograph. He discusses his trips to the United States, between 2009 and 2012, when he attended a pagan fertility ritual
First films (1895) | Brothers Lumière
O Corsário | Ney Matogrosso
The (S) Files 2011: Meet Juan Betancurth | El Museo Bienal
Turning (2012) | Charles Atlas & Antony and The Johnsons
Welcome home (2013) | Gui Mohallem
"Goers and residents of the sanctuary, photographed in the series, make reflections based on the images of Welcome Home", explains the artist.
Gui Mohallem (2012) | OLD Magazine
Interview with Gui Mohallem. [pt]
"In the art field, my biggest influences were Nan Goldin (with pieces like The Ballad of Sexual Dependency) and The Lumière Brothers, with their autochromes, from 1910. Ed Templeton, with his freedom to exhibit his own universe, and the writings of Harry Hay, one of the founders of the Radical Faeries and of the concept of 'subject-to-subject' consciousness", says the artist.
The novels Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë, "in which the landscape reveals the inner state of the characters", and Pedro Páramo, by Mexican writer Juan Rulfo, are part of the artist's literary references.