Vermelho JULY - AUGUST – 2019

From July 25 to August 24, Vermelho presents Ka'rãi, Dora Longo Bahia’s ninth solo exhibition at the gallery. Longo Bahia presents drawings, paintings, works using Augmented Reality and an object – all produced in the last 4 years. The title of the exhibition comes from expression in the Tupi language meaning to "tear with claws" or "scratch"; the expression is also the origin of the word Carcará, which designates the bird of prey that inhabits the center and south of South America.

The Sala Antonio projection room receives the project Cripta [Crypt], presented by the group Depois do fim da arte [After the end of art], which is composed of participants in the research group of the same name coordinated by Longo Bahia. Its participation is part of the artist's practice to share the space of her exhibitions with the research groups coordinated by her since 2001 when she included her students in the solo exhibition Quand les attitudes deforment les altitudes, at the Forum D'Art Contemporain in Sierre, Switzerland. This procedure has since been repeated in commercial and institutional exhibitions, such as at the 28th São Paulo Biennial, in 2008, when the group was named Anarcademia.

Dora Longo Bahia _ Ka'rãi

In Ka'rãi, Dora Longo Bahia presents works produced since 2016 that reflects the current political conjuncture of Brazil. The title links the Nazi Air Force unit, Condor Legion, which served with the nationalists during the , and which was responsible for the bombing of Guernica, Spain, with the Operation Condor. The latter was a military and political alliance between the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the military regimes of South America. Ka'rãi, which in the Tupi language means "tearing" or "scratching", is also the origin of the word carcará - an animal that has been the symbol of Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (ABIN) [Brazilian Intelligence Agency] since 2006. At the time of including the bird of the falcon family in the symbol of ABIN, the then director of the agency justified the choice by saying that the carcará is a bird that represents haughtiness, nationalism, acute vision and control of the territory.

Fugue (third voice)

Fugues are polyphonic compositions, where one melody overlaps another. The fugues are structured by a main theme, the subject of the composition, with which subsequent voices establishes variations.

In her series of paintings called Fugue (2019), Longo Bahia employs an Augmented Reality experiences where one painting leads to another through the use of an app that reveals covert images. The subject (the main theme) and the third voice of the series are present in Ka'rãi.

Fugue (Subject), installed on the gallery's facade, presents itself as a red brush stroke that, through the Fugue app is replaced by the video of a female face screaming at the entrance of the exhibition. Fugue (third voice) is composed of six vertical canvases with abstract paintings on their front faces. Using the app, the viewer can see portraits that are painted on the back of each screen. While in the first voice the portraits were of women who were forced to leave their countries due to political conflicts or natural disasters; in the second voice, the portraits are of women most susceptible to becoming victims of violence in Brazil. In this exhibit, in the third voice, Longo Bahia portrays women that were persecuted, tortured or murdered by the military dictatorships of each of the South American countries that aligned themselves with the United States during Operation Condor (1968-1989): Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. While using the app, the viewer can also read more about each of these political links and their outcome.

The condor and the carcará

In the two diptychs called The Condor and the Carcará (2019), Longo Bahia juxtaposes the reproduction of a Spanish Civil War rationing coupon cards and an updated version of it linked to recent Brazilian politics. Both the front of the cards, with iconography referring to the Spanish Civil War, and the reverse divided into coupons, were changed to include elements from the current Brazilian situation. The works are installed on hinges allowing the viewer to manipulate the pieces.

Paraíso - Consolação (Project for Avenida Paulista)

Originally designed to be displayed on banners along Paulista Avenue's central bike- lanes, the Paraíso - Consolação (project for Paulista Avenue) (2019) is a series of drawn portraits of original peoples from the Amazon facing the viewer.

A Girl A Gun - American Shot

A Girl A Gun - American Shot is a set of drawings based on a collection of images collected by Longo Bahia from movies where women are wielding weapons. In cinema, the term american shot refers to the camera position that frames the actor from the knees and up. The plan was popularized in American cinema during the 1930s and 1940s, especially in the Western genre, as it framed the cowboys while drawing their guns from their holsters. A Girl A Gun - American shot, consists of 195 of these images collected and drawn by Longo Bahia.

Revolutions (Project for calendar)

The set of drawings depicts twelve in different countries and periods and was initially conceived as a project for a calendar. The drawings are organized in the monthly sequence in which the revolutions occurred.

Fogo []

Fogo [Fire] (2019) portrays in screen prints on aluminum thermal blankets (the same type used by firefighters to protect victims during rescues), ten Brazilian cultural institutions that were consumed by in the last ten years.

MASP X FIESP

A model made of cellular concrete blocks and Molotov cocktail bottles with different types of gasoline and diesel simulates the length of Paulista Avenue (a main thoroughfare in São Paulo) where the Masp (Museum of contemporary art of São Paulo) and the FIESP buildings are located. Two bottles with ecoline and represent the museum's red pilasters and two bottles with ecoline and different types of gasoline (one green and one yellow) represent the FIESP (the São Paulo State Federation of Industries) building.

Lava Jato [Car Wash]

Longo Bahia painted images representing the 84 phases of Operation Car Wash preceding the arrest of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on 98 pages of the pornographic magazine Brazil Pocket Hard.

Depois do fim da arte [After the end of art] _ Cripta [Crypt]

Cripta [Crypt] is an occupation project for Sala Antonio, at Vermelho, presented by the research group Depois do fim da arte [After the end of art], coordinated by Dora Longo Bahia, which investigates the role of the contemporary artist through artistic interventions.

Cripta seeks to create intersections between concepts and forms discussed by the group during the first half of 2019, when the group read Achille Mbembe's Critique of Black Reason and Necropolitics; Giorgio Agamben's The Use of Bodies; and, Susan Buck-Morss’s Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History. The group also watched the films Class Relations, by Straub-Huillet; Sugar Hill, by Paul Maslansky; Hyenas, de Djibril Diop Mambéty; Life of Jesus, by Bruno Dumont; and, Play, by Ruben Östlund. The group presents a work in progress that comprehends the simulacrum, the doubles and the zombies as crucial figures of the current social experience, unveiling the intersections between the films watched and the explored texts, in a plastic response to the theoretical discussions established in the previous semester.

The title refers to the phrase “The Black man [...] is the only human in the modern order whose skin has been transformed into the form and spirit of merchandise - the living crypt of capital” (Mbembe, Critique of Black Reason) and points to the group's interests in discussing the relationship of art with social, economic, historical and political issues.

In Cripta, Depois do fim da arte is formed by Anna Talebi, Ariédhine Carvalho, Bruno Ferreira, Cássia Aranha, Eloísa Almeida, Felipe Salem, Gabriel Ussami, Gabriel Xavier, Igor Vice, Ilê Sartuzi, Karol Pinto, Lahayda, Leandro Muniz, Marina Lima, Murillu, Nina Lins, Rosângela Pestana, Terenah, Thais Suguiyama, Thais Teotonio and Victor Maia.

EXHIBITION Dora Longo Bahia – Ka’rãi FACADE Dora Longo Bahia – Fugue (Subject) Sala Antonio: Depois do fim da arte – Cripta

OPENING: July 25, from 8pm to 11pm EXHIBITION PERIOD: July 25 until August 24 2019

WHERE: Vermelho Rua Minas Gerais, 350 _ 01244-010 _ São Paulo, SP