Converging Infinities
exhibition
2008
Brazil
21° 10′ 24.78” S 47° 47′ 52.224” W
How it all began
Photoengraving. 2006
This project marks my debut in the contemporary art world.
At this point, I’ve been working as a designer and started a Degree in Marketing and Advertising. I knew the creative industry was my thing. Still, only after studying Art History and Aesthetics I realised that a deeper dive into how, over the years, our culture was shaped through visual representation.
The performance results from many exercises trying to represent me, who I thought I was or would like to be.
It was natural to migrate from any cold traditional artistic surface and use my body instead. I don’t see myself as a performer. Never felt comfortable performing in front of an audience. Teaching students or working in a corporate environment is different. There is a structure, and we say things based on facts – we exchange knowledge.
Another aspect is the Brazilian culture I was brought up in.
Brazil has an extreme cultural dichotomy. At the same time that it is hugely religious within the good catholic customs, it emphasises an exacerbated sexuality as in music, tv programs and popular festivals like the carnival.
This project happened in a private but public enclosed space —a motel. In Brazil, it’s mainly used for quick sex – not short stays.
References to extremes, sacred and profane, “the me” and “the you” can be seen inscribed on the skin. The frantic rhythm of the music and editing of the video demonstrates how at that moment, still young, I was processing the concept of identity inside my head.
Strength is not in reaching an end, but in starting again.
The two most important images are the biceps and the hands.
In this image, my thin and almost fragile body serves as a billboard for the phrase “Strength is not in reaching an end, but in starting again”. A reference to climbing a mountain and maybe celebrating the victory too soon. I still needed to get back to base alive. I was stuck in this cycle.
Another popular saying in Brazil is “neither eight nor eighty” – I wanted it all – 88
I drew an infinity on each hand between my thumb and index fingers. The movements that follow are my attempt to make these extremes, infinities, collide at least at one point of contact—me there, as the agent and in the centre of the action.
A hat for every head
Hebert Gouvea presents his works from the series “Infinitos Convergentes” at the exhibition “Cada cabeça uma sentença”, Casa de Cultura. Video, adhesive vinyl, photos and a large backlight occupy one of the rooms dedicated to him within the space that also presents the projects of artists Fernando Dias and Paló (Ribeirão Preto) and Marcelo Berg (São Paulo).
Exploring the symbolism of infinity and other inscriptions applied to his own body, the artist created the performance that initiated the new formats of his work. From 2005 until now(2008), he has built up the visual repertoire of the series presented in this exhibition.
The very intimate tone, whether by repetition or by the intense colours of the video and of the photographs that bring details of the body as support and element of the action, seeks to join the edges of the movements nervously located between the beginning and the end: head-foot; relationships; daily elements that constitute our history; memory given by the instantaneous and digitalized visual register.
The artist occupies the exhibition room in time and space: a looping sequence on the walls, floor, and lighting. Its combination reinforces the connection between the elements presented by Hebert in this exhibition, which demonstrates his vocation and a particular interest in the language of digital image technologies.
Sylvia Furegatti
Visual artist and curator.
Lives and works in Campinas / São Paulo / Brazil.
Her artistic production is directed towards actions and interventions into the landscape and installations and objects linked to her academic research. She is a founding member of Pparalelo de Arte Contemporânea/ ppllartgropu.net. Professor at the Department of Visual Arts and the Post Graduate Program in Visual Arts at the Unicamp Arts Institute. Currently holds the position of Director at Museum of Visual Art – MAV Unicamp. Her works are in public and private collections such as SESC São Paulo, MAC Campinas, MAV Unicamp, Engraving Cabinet of Unicamp Arts Institute, and MAC Americana, among others. She is the national coordinator of the Study Group on Public Art in Brazil – GEAP BR and vice coordinator of the Group of Studies on Public Art in Latin America – GEAP LA
