RIVANE NEUENSCHWANDER EXPLORES HEDONISM DURING FESTIVE EVENTS
At the Perez Art Museum of Miami (PAMM) the Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander is showing her video installation Quarta-Feira de Cinzas / Epilogue (Ash Wednesday / Epilogue), a work she did with the collaboration of Cao Guimarães.
On the one hand, Neuenschwander's installation explores nature, language and time using tiny insects and ants as protagonists of a journey. On the other hand, the video was made during the Ash Wednesday that is celebrated, every year, after the carnival - a very important celebration in Brazil.
Thus, the video shows the journey made by ants transporting colored confeti pieces into their underground nest. At the same time, matches striking the ground, emphasizing the meditative quality of the diligent work that is carried out, compose the ambient sound of the installation.
In this way, the video makes sense at the end, when the ants are seen retreating into the darkness of their nest transporting the remains of the carnival to celebrate a "ritual of their own species." What the Brazilian artist does with this gesture is to question the hedonism that characterizes the carnival.
The video is removed from Carnival's hedonistic social issue to focus on the intricate communal world of ants. Its action becomes a mirror of the festivities; While the ants work with the confetti, the delicate remains of the fun, one remembers the exuberant festivities of the Carnival. Quarta-Feira de Cinzas / Epilogue, then, becomes a mirror of the human condition during festive events.
Rivane Neuenschwander (Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 1967) was formed as an artist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. That is why the aesthetic and the collective process of Brazilian neoconcretism cross her work. Also, her videos are characterized by the spectator participation in the complex narratives and scenarios that dialogue with everyday life in Brazil and playfully imbue the mundane with a sense of the poetic.
