The exhibition “Lua versus Luta(Moon Versus Struggle) reflects Jarbas Lopes’ interest in the body in danger, exposing the fragility of the individual in a neoliberal world where subjects are forced into a constant state of submission. Lopes not only approaches precariousness and improvisation as a subject, he allows concepts to shape the formal contours of his work. For a pair of untitled images (all works cited in 2023), Lopes coated her body in vegetable oil and used it to make prints on paper. The resulting silhouettes are somewhat spooky, with fungus spreading over surfaces in a foreshadowing of a body being gnawed at. For Leap (Leap), the artist has stacked boxes high in the street below the gallery. The image captures him throwing himself from the balcony onto the pile. The reference to Yves Klein in these two works is unmistakable, but the context is surprisingly different. Lopes is coming at a time when the left has returned to power in Brazil, following the far-right authoritarian administration of Jair Bolsonaro. By presenting the body in oscillation between an affirmation of presence and an acceptance of bodily fragility, the artist emphasizes the very freedom and bodily autonomy that have been suppressed in recent years. Unlike Klein, Lopes actually throws himself at the boxes, facing risk not as a fantasy but as an act of disobedience. In the midst of terror, death or despair, life, for better or for worse, makes its presence felt.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers.
