“Cinthia Marcelle: for via dúvidas(Cinthia Marcelle: By Means of Doubt), curated by Isabella Rjeille, was an investigation into the work of the Brazilian artist, whose career began in the late 1990s. Marcelle belongs to a generation of artists that includes , among others, Marilá Dardot, Lais Myrrha, Matheus Rocha Pitta and Sara Ramo, all of whose works are characterized by the association of conceptual language with an investigation of economics and politics. This generation has been marked by two moments of transition. The first, around 2003, was the election of a leftist government in Brazil, after a series of dictatorships and neoliberal governments. These artists looked with hope to the future in a country still cautious about constitutional processes and social policies. The second moment of transition came around 2019, when a far-right government began tearing down the foundations of social programs and creating laws that made it easier to buy guns. Soon after, this government would also deny the reality of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The works in this exhibition claim a narrative of insubordination, a call for uprising and poetic and political responses to crucial moments in recent history. However, Marcelle’s work not only portrays the Brazilian scene, it also evokes undefined territories and eras. In the photographic series “capa morada” (Stay [Cape Town]), 2003, a collaboration with Jean Meeran, Marcelle drapes herself in fabrics of the same color as the background in front of which she is posing: an experience of fusion in the landscape of the South African city. By trying to leave no trace of her existence, she becomes a ghostly presence that periodically emerges in different contexts. Linking the phantasmagorical to culture, space and bodies in Africa is a powerful metaphor for thinking about forms of domination and power.
The idea of insurrection is revisited in Confrontation (Confrontation), from the series “Unus Mundus(One World), 2005. The video documents two jugglers throwing flaming torches while waiting for traffic lights to change. “Each time the lights turn red, two more join the action until they fill the entire length of the pedestrian crossing. At the end of the video, the jugglers formed a barrier of fire in front of the vehicles and motorcycles,” says Rjeille’s wall text. In Brazil, begging jugglers are commonplace at traffic lights, but here a standoff is emerging between performers – representatives of precariousness – and drivers who create a growing cacophony of honking as they huddle in the iconic vehicles of their socio-economic distinction.
In Leitmotif (Leitmotif), 2011, the camera remains static and focused on a concrete surface. Gradually, we hear the sound of running water. Slowly, the ground is covered with water and soap, and we see the movement of rodos, wooden rakes without teeth. In this allegory of the world of precarious work, its tools are transformed into invitations to a possible political discussion. As the video progresses, the intensity with which the rodos are manipulated augmentations. They repeatedly move from outside to inside, concentrating the foam in the center of the image. What was only the washing of a neighborhood becomes a gesture of revolt and an attempt to empower the periphery. But, at the end, the movement ceases, and all the effort is dissipated.
Marcelle’s work reflects on the contemporary world from the perspective of someone who, surrounded by evil and danger and threatened with death by economic, cultural, religious or political circumstances, turns to insurrection.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers.
