ARTE AMAZONAS

Ein kiio stlerischer Beitrag zur Konferen.z der Vereinten Natiooen iiber Umwelt und Entwicklung ,,Rio-92"

Projekt durd,geffihrt vom Goethe-lnsutut mit Umersttitzung des Auswanigen Amts, llonn und in Zusamme11arbeilmit dem Museu de Ane Moderna in

Uma contribui~ao artistica para a Conferencia das Na~oes Unidas sobre Meio Ambiente e Desenvolvimento "Rio-92"

Pro]eto realiiado pelo fnstituto Goethe em colabora~o com o Museu de Arte Modemo do Rio de Janeiro e com o apoio do Ministetio das Rela~oes Exteriores ds Repub lica Federal da Alemanha

Ausstellungen / Exposi~6es

Museu de Arte Modema, Rio de Janeiro Museu de Arte, Brasilia Bienal de Sao Paulo, Parque lbirapuera Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin Maria Fernanda Cardoso geboren in Bogota (Kolumbien), )ebt in Los Angeles und Bogota nasceu em Bogota (Co lomb ia), vive em Los Angeles e Bogota

PIRANHAS Installation, lnstala~ao, 170 getrockne te und lackierte Piranhas/ 170 piranhas secas e enverni zadas

141 PIRARUCU ~Okg Fischschuppen/ s_camasde peixe Hohe/ Altura 70 cm ¢ 50cm •

142

- - PfRANHAS Installation, Detail/ Instala~ao. detalhe 170 getrockne te und lackierte Piranhas/ 170 piranhas secas e envernizadas

143 Englische Kurzfassung / Traducao Parcial em Ingles / English Translation

Alfons Hug of tropical wood, scrap metal and minerals.Toward the end of the third week, most of the works had been finisb ed: most Arte Amazonas of them three-dimensional (environments, installations An artistic expedition and sclllptures), not a few of which were created in collabo­ ration with local craftsmen, "caboclosM(loc:al peasants) and Almost 500 years separate the quest for discovery under-· fovela residents. taken by the Spanish Francisco Orellana, who, Antony Gormley's work is a good example of this: a field sailed down the in the early 16th century, and. consisting of25,000 fired day figures which were produced the uPsyd1edelic Trip» of his compatriot Pedro Romero., by 60 inhabitants of a poor section of the city of Porto The young artist from Seville calls his installation, which. Velho. Bjorn Loevin also built his ''manioc press• with the was created at the mouth of the Amazon in 1992, i. e, help of a farmer from the Amazon island of" Terra Nova". Columbus Year,nLa Selva Dcseada": the Amazon asan illu-­ Tbe workshop character of the:project is charaeteristicof sion, as a mixture of visual images, sounds and smells from nArte AmazonasM.Th e artists not only worked together in the jungle; impressions captured on a boat trip in the;lnm. the studio; they also spent their free time together, sharing of the Amazon delta.Joseph Conrad's "Heartof Darkness" their experiences and giving each other a helping hand. in a concentrated and less rhreacening version Young arti~ts from Belem and Porto Vc:Lhooffered to work - The Brazilian artist Walterico Caldas bas designed a mm· · as assistants or took part in parallel workshops. This made it pletely different kind oflabyrinth:200 zeros made of70d if.­ easier to integrate the project into the local art scene, It goes fe.rent rypes of Amazon wood; arranged in an infinite· without saying that the studios were open to all who were sequence of rows, they symbolize the grandeur and immen·­ interested in art. sity of the Amazon. lfone takes a closerlook at the words, the following main - Using discarded wood, the Portuguese artist Juliao Sar·· topics emerge: menro constructed a crooked lean-to shack, like thousands. I. The living conditions of the people in Amazon, both ofothers in the rampant wilds at the edges of the big cities in among the"caboclos" and among the people who live in the the tropics. The inside of the hut, which is painted bilious, favelas (slums); green and to which there is oo entrance, consist~ of trash,, 2. The contrast between city and rural life. Urban versus Amazon earth and Littlepcnci I drawings depicting scenes of "primitive" forms of living; sex and violence, visible only through the slats between the­ 3. Virgin and endangered nature; boards: the Amazon as a 'peepshow'. 4. The variety of different species iu the Amazon; - Raffael Rheinsberg from Berlin was hot on the !Tailand 5. The exploitation of resources (c. g. gold). found the legendary 'El Dorado' - which the Spanish and Hutnan intrusion into the natural habitat, tbedestructi.on Portuguese conquerms sought in vain -on the banks of the of the rain forest, for example, which Felix Emile Taunay Madeira River. Taku1g98iron drill bits,so-called "abaraxis" had already made the subject ofh.is painting "Mata rcduzida (the Brazilian for pineapple), taken from "dragas", floating; a carvao" as long ago as 1850, is only one, albeit an impor­ platforms on which legions of"garimpeiros" pan alluvial tant, concern of the artists. The presentation of nature's gold, he arranged them in the fonn of a pineapple plan·­ strength and vitality, the many sides to the Amazon and the tation. creativity of the people who live is an equally important Four different attempts to approach the complex thtm~ concern. "Amazonas'', which lends itself to such an abundance of A few artists tread i.nthe footsteps of the 19th century artistic interpretations- At the invitation of the Goethe natural scientists and undertook expeditions into the Institute in Brasilia, a good two dozen artists from all over jungle: like bis models Henry Bates, Richard Spruce and the world came to the largest river on earth for a three-week Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Dion, an Amerimn, went deep workingvisit in February 1992.The project took as its start-· into the jungle and dug upa piece of earth which be will be ing point the idea of bringing together artists from various examining for unknown insects with the help of a Braz.ilian cultural contexts and having them work directly in the entomo logist dllring the exhibition in the "Museu de Arte Amazon situation itself and the impressions this makes and Modema" in Rio de Janeiro. far away from their familiar studio surround ings. An issue Marina Abmmovic chiseled out si"Xlarge blocks of quartz that has been sufficient!y ill urninated from tl1epolitical and in the inaccessible mines ofMaraba , which she reworked to scientific angle was now to be contemplatttl from a sub-­ form a field of meditation. Bill Woodrow and Raffacl jective, artistic vanrage point, Rheinsberg went to the gold-diggers on the Madeira River How did the artists go about it? and drew their inspiration from them. During the first week in February, three groups moved Mario Cravo Neto traveled on a Brazilian navy hospital into studios which 1·he sponsor and its Brazilian cosponsor ship for a month - from Manausall the way to the Rio Purus had selected: the boathouse of the "Clube do RemoMi n the - and video-filmed the life of the population along the river centre of the ~ity ofB~lem, still heavily marked by colonia­ banks.Elementary exper ienceswhich can only enrich a pro­ lism, tbe saw workshop of the "lnstituto Nacional de Pes­ ject such as "Arte Arnazonas". quisas da Amazonia" research facility in and,, finally, the locomotive hall of the defunct nMadeira­ Mamon!" jungle railway in . The artists spent Untou ched and endangered nature the first few days getting to know the respeni ve city and the vicinity; they met with Amazon experts, visited universities,, "The Chinese were hired to clear land, they penetTated the museums of natural history and research facilities, held dis­ jungle. The Germans did the cleaning-up work and leveling. cussions with representatives of the Indios and embarked The Barbadians were preoccupied with reinforcing the rail­ on excursions into the jungle. way embankment. The Spaniards who came from Cuba's In the weeks thereafter, the artists completed thei.rproject repressive colonial system were fore.menru 1d stood guard. designs and garhered material which is, in all cases, of local Everyone had his designated job, the working day was ll origin: things they found on the streets and markets,species hours long, whereby everyone has a right to a break at noon.

216 But all of the men, reg;irdless of their natiooal icy. bad the Has Man granted nature a brief respite, ha\ same look abou t them. All of them looked ragged, over­ Tropics" of Claude Levi-Strauss grown brighter, w ,.. worked, scrawny and weak like convicts who had been Ribeiro too quick in striking up his ''Tropical Requiem"? sentenced to hard labour." Ce1tainly not, if one considers the plightofZ00,000 Indios. Today there is no letup in the invasion ofcivilization imo The survi:val of a few of the )70 remaining ethnic groups - an u.ntouched world, described here by Marcio Souza in h.is there wese almost 300 of tl1em at the turn or the century - is novel Mad Maria, which narrates the story of the con­ in jeopardy, others are forced to share their habitat and sur­ struction of the railroad link from Madeira to Mamore roundings with hundreds of thousands of "garimpeiros" (1874-1912). The Amazon is covered with the traces of who arc themselves outcasts in their own society. And tl1e exploitation by the western world: Whereas the symbo ls of latter are also moving ever deeper into the jungle, causing progress at the turn of the 19th century were the opera consid erable damage to the environment with their uncon­ houses of Belem and Manaus, or the "Casa de Fierro" trolled gold-digging. Several rivers are already so polluted immortalized in literature by Vargas Liesa, which was with mercury that the fish are now virtually inedible. brought from Germany to Iquitos by a Peruvian rubb er Another problem which was of concern to more than a baron, today they are the huge dams and mines. The young few participants in "Arte Amazonas" is the wilderness Frankfurt artist Nikolaus Nessler deals with the collision encoumered within the Amazon cities, where the same between untouched nature and industrialization in his processes of impoverishment are taking place as in the installation, which consists of an Indio canoe and a tele­ metropo lises in the rest of .If one inquires as to the graph pole tumfd upside-down. Thousands oflndios were reasons for this adverse development, one willbe least likely driven out of their native homelands during the construc­ to find the answers to them in Amazo n itscl( An1azon has t.ion. of tbe telegraph line to Rondt'ln.ia at the turn of the inherited tl1e principle of rapaciously devouring nature and century. Ncssler's work is an artistic contribution to the the exploitative social structures from its masters on both Struggle between the "ambien.talis tas" (conservationists) sides of the Equator. If" Arte Amazonas" were able, using and desenvolviment .istas (advocates or economic develop­ the media of art, to call attention to a few of these inter­ ment). cormected areas - and tbey are having ao impact worldwide The Nigerian El Anatsui, with a milled totem pole, and - then the proje ct would already have served its purpose. the Th ai Montien Boonma, with a sawn-up tree trunk, also (English translation by Jeremy Gaines) interveue in this discussion. Both artists corne from countries in which the destruction of rain forests has al ready gone further than in Brazil. Miguel Rio Branco takes up a subject that is no less explo­ sive: in a photo installation he confronts the life or the Kayap6 indio s, who are close to nature , with the barbarian scenes of violence from large Brazilian cities. The voice of the indigenous artists is heard in a video installation: films which they shot themselves and in which they - like the Indio photographers in Peru - describe their living con­ ditions , their everyday lives and their festivals. "Arte Amazonas" thus opens up a view on an alternative blue­ print for a society whose main features-are self:sufficiency and consensus-base d democracy, two fondamental prin ­ Nikolaus A. Nessler cip les which are of the highest relevance today in a world The conference of silence 1vhen: the rich countrie s are consum ing the planet's resources at an .incredible pace. While on a trip tO the Amazon region jn 1990, I arrived in The good 2,000 kilometers of jungle separating Belem Porto Velho , where comp letely to my surpri~e I discovered and Porto Vellio i.n many ways still resemb le a "green the huge industrial ha lls of the "ferrovia Madeira­ carpet" - from a bird's eye view. Actually "only" about 10 % Mamore" . The railway depot created the impression of an of the vegetation has been destroyed on the almost 500 mil­ abandon ed backdrop, reminiscent of films by Herwg. Yet lion hecta res of the Brazilian part of Amazon, which is 15 these halls are not the forgotten traces of cultural proselyti­ times the size of Germany. The rate of deforestation ranges sation but are rather evidence of a failure on a gigantic scale: between 25 % in the mo st severely affected federa l state of Here, the utopia of a country's economic and technologica l Rond(lnja, located on the Bolivian border , and 2 % in revital ization came to an end. I photographed this lands ­ "Amazonas" (capital: Manaus), the largest federal state, cape of ruins composed of heavy metal parts, corrugated 2 which is LS million km ; it is thus probab ly the mosr intact metal, steel girders, locomotive s and mountains of screws, jung le area on earth. The total population of the Amazon is made a mental note of the rest and then return ed Lo Brasilia. substantia lly higher than the numberofinhabitants in a city A few weeks later Alfon s Hug asked me to suggest an idea such as Silo Paulo. In other words, compared with other tro­ for an artistic contribution to the United Nations environ­ pical regions of the world, in Asia or Africa. for example, the men tal conference in June 1992. Amazon is still relative ly intact. Owi.ng to incisive govern­ Porto Velho, .February, 1992 mental measures, but also as a consequence of the Brazilian Porto Vclho is loeated on the Madeira River, which flows economic crisis, which has deterred investmeots, the pace of a.round the crtyin a horseshoe. bend. The view of the lazily clearing activities by burning down forest has fort unatdy flowing rive( brought to mind the streets oflarge European d.im.inished in recent years: Wherea s in 1987,at the height of cities. Only, unlik e the familiar places, this tropical region is the wave of destruction, a total of 900 000 kn.i1 were a ~setting~ for totalities. On the horizon, a forest which, for deforested, last year the f(gure was ''o nly'' 20,000 km ' all of its frazzled and eroded edges, goes on for another few according to the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment. thousand kilometers. In addition, a moist heat which makes Many settlers who had streamed .into the Amazon region by it difficult for any particle or square centimeter of skin to the hundreds of thousands during the 1970s and 1980s are breathe and gives you the sensation of being in a completely now disenchantedly rurnjng their backs on the jungle. The unknown body . infrastructure is falling apart - the "Transama zonica", which In a placesu.ch as this, I find myself in the rights pot for an is 5,000 kilometers long, a chimera of techno logical pro­ artist: I am in the middle of the world. TI1e horizon here gress, has degenerated into a rough country road aDd only a fonns a complete circle aro und you. The boat which brings third of it is still passable. travellers to the opposi te shore begins to dri~ slowly, tbe

217 shores start to spin. it is easy to create art here. In this lands­ had always done at a hundred other conferences; there was cape which is being drained of its resources,on this ground only one·thing they should not do - talk. They should be that is gutted by drills, under the darkened sky, 1 find an silent. atmosphere that is extreme and dramatic. It already-has On tl1cother days we worked, we did an amazing amount everything that otherwise has to be staged specially. There is of work.We made friends among the people who helped us. no place more suitable for art than one where nature keeps They, in turn, introduced us to people who were their me away from it. friends, we sat at their tables and found out that we were all My greatest concern when I moved to Brazil was the pro­ strangers. However, in comparison to othe r encmrnters be­ spectoffind ingmysdf satisfied with the world again,in har­ tween. strangers, very few questions were asked that were mony with tbe world, whereas I bad never been satisfied related to ourwork-tharwastaken for granted: it was"arte". with it before and this dissatisfaction appeared to be the The things that we produced io the locomotive halls with reason for my anisticactivity. I was thus afraid of no longer the help of workers and that we procured with the help of wanting to do anything, of no longer wanting to change or committed assistants meant something. An was the way we improve anything. In this desire I recognized myself as ~ treated these things. We talked a great deal about how they European. l sensed where this peculiar phenomenon of were made but seldom did we talk about why. It seemed to "civilisation" came from and with ir what kind of dis­ be a matter of recreating the world, for it was zealous work. position is the prerequisite for culture. The fact that we were producing three-dimensional However, once there a view of the world opened up creations seemed to be important. They were models or which the native populations are said to have, serene.above prototypes of a sort. The mode of production became just as it all, self-evident and completely in touch with one's important as the idea. natural surroundings. It was here that I witnessed the realisation of the idea that We wanted to see this view, to get to know this bond of I could not stop thinking about, but which I did not often intimacy with the earth. We drove for a whole day, Mario, mention: What would it be like ifwe looked ar the world asa Antony, Christian, Bill and I. The car stumbled over the tool and everything on the outside, the whole world for that potholes which break up the strip of asphalt that runs matter, as material? ln other words, if art, as the origin of the through the forest. At the end of t he tarmac, in 1--lumaita,we word implies, were the mode of making and this mode wer~ waited for the ferry that would take us across the Madeira. related to more than mere colourand canvas,for example to An old man with a wrinkledface and a glasseye ran a baron the treatment of political questions as weU? the shore. He was the doonnan of civilisation and did not' Admittedly, I was thinking of a Trojnn horse when seem to think too much of what went on beyond his own pondering this project. Butnotone that wasequipped for an environment. He was at the right place, more between the offensive. On the contrary. More peace and quiet should be two sides of the river than 0 11 one or the other shore. He spread, stlence. roped anyone who came by into a game of snooker, which After the first artempt at cooperation with an exhibition­ he usually won. He swore and laughed, simultaneously and maker wbo was a friend of mine,I knew that I would have to incessantly, danced around on the narrow balcony of his escort this horse as a traveller on the inside as well as on the new house at a precarious height. Jumped down onto the outside. street, now you see him, now you don't. He had given us to I am tempted to suspect that the whole scene surrounding believe that the ferrywas out of order and we hung around the making of an exhibition does the exact opposite of whar in his bar fora few hours, t-ating,drinking, playing billiards it sets out to do: it puts the autonomy of art 1njeopardy. and Bill caught fish on the shore. He also (aught a candiru, Often enough someone considers himself the "super-.1nist" which the cranky old man joked about and threw at buddies who engages "supporting an ists" to verify bis assumptions who stopped by. It is said that the candinl slips into the ori­ and who then become no more than a part of some philo­ fices of bathers and eats them up from the inside. sophy or other. This is something I wanted to avoid and l Suddenly the ferryappeared and we went on our way.For travelled back and forth between the two sides of the river a few kilometres our route took us along the Trans­ for that reason; the movement did me good. amazonica. This was the magnificent sounding name for a For all of the commitment to a cause, the overriding pur­ road that was very much like a dirt road through a German pose was to create an. In this case, at an important point in field. time ~nd at a neuralgic spot on the earth. From the road one could occasionally glimpse huts th,u No matter where art's true place is - and 1 cannot say were hidden behind manioc bushes and banana trees. There where that is precisely and think it is safe and sound in the were no people in sight. One single roan came towards uson museum for the time being - it still comes from neuralgic the road and we stopped him. We asked whether he lived spots such as this one. Porto Velho, Manaus or Belem are here and whether he knew where the Indios werewho had to not paradisi,1cal spots, they are completely unsuitable sites have a village somewhere nearby. He told us that we bad for spending a holiday, for example. But they are places about another 25 km to go. We exchanged a few words with which are just as mud1 in the middle of the world as a street him and then decided to turn around, took him with us in comer in Detroit or the halls of the railwaystation in Novo­ the station wagon and drove back to the river. That was sibirsk. where he lived and he w;ually had to walk for three hours to (English translation by Jeremy Gaines) get home. In the car we talked with him for quite a while a boot fishing and after he had got out we took rhe road back in the rwilighL (n $ilcnce. T thought of the reason for our being here and of the questionable conference which had already been talked to death before it had even begun. The idea occurred to me of calling another conference,a conference of silence. I imagi­ ned calling together hundres of delegates, heavily armed with information, problems and solutions, high-level offi­ cials,heads of state, presidents and secretaries,interpreters, scientists, logisticsexp ats and strategists to the conference of silence, ( saw them waving for the cameras, shaking each others' hands and patting each other on the back, gesticulat­ ing from the speaker's podium, with earnest and smtined expressions on their faces.They shou ld do everything they

218 Gunter Metken scales, commonly used up·country as nail files, have been layered to form grass snakes to fit the image the tourists Studio of the tropics have. Tbis is how clicMs steal the sho w from nature, which becomes invisible, and withdraws in its original form from ~Fromthe outside,ihe Amazon j1111gleresembles a myriad of the cities, away from the commerciaJly used river banks. A petrifiedblisters and welts,amazr ofgreen ulcers-as if theriver Selva, the grand rainforest of Levi-Strauss, of RugendHs, of landscapehad undergonepathological mutation. But ·when011e Ma..'C.imilian, Prince of Wied and Karl von den Stcinen has. penetratesits inlllrior, emrrythingchanges ;from herethe tangled long become a myth, a mirage, substituted for by photogra­ mas.1looks like a monumental1111ivcrse. T'he fore.st is 110lo11ger phic and TV-screen illusions, which Pedro Romero from disorder1111 earth; rather, it bringsto mindthn1ewworld ef some Spain shows up for what they are with his cabinet of mirrors. planet or otherwhich has takm theplace ef ours. Christian Lapie brings the rainforest tight along with him As soon 4S the ':)le grows acwstom,d ta the horizonbeing s11 from France in the shape of exotic jungle wallpaper for nearand 011ehas overcomeflu feeling efoppressive suffocation, a bathrooms and hotels and installs it like rolls oftorlet paper c1Jmplicatedsys{(m becomesvisible. One begi11sto disti11g11ish in from of plaster-of-Paris walls which are modeled in pink between mperimposed layerings which, despite interrupted and green from lines of corrugated iron like in a films tudio. rnrfaces,deJpite la11glu Q{ r:wigs and branches,always manff est tlu Europeans, he probably wants to say, like to take cover samedesign - first, at eyelevel the top.1of theplants and grasses, behind tender visions in order not to be exposed to tropical abovethem the whitish tnmks 1/jthe trees ,md thelianaswhichfor reality, poverty, druglf, mord~r. a shortperiod of timemjoy aspt,cefrccof,1l/vegctation;somewhat '1\7eset out mi theroad again, "Levi ·Strauss continues, "a11d higherup the trunks disappearinto the le;gytops ef bmhes and f!Veryonetried not to losesight of theback qf th,:person i11 front of shrubs/Jr in /he scarlet nd sea ofblossom/ of wild bananas,tbc him.for qftcrbut afi:w metresit becomesimpossible to keepyour pacova; above /hem time reappeai;011/y lo be lost ag11i11in the be,zringsand the}ores/ swallows up any cryfor belp.O11e of the leave.1Qf the palmtrees. Fi11ally, they reappearwhm theirlower• jul!gle'spec11liarities is that it seemsto bedipped in a mediumthat most brmzchesbegi11 lo spreadout hon'zontal{y,branches without is thickerth11n air; only tt weakglimmer of lightpmctrates the leaves.,but drippingin parasius,orchids and bromdi,t.And at the greenwalls ,ind v11ices do not carry.Thi. lremendoussileme alone poir,twhere the rye almost no longerreaches, ris e wide c11polasMato Grosso into the drops or tears made of rusty metal. In her opinion, the rain Amazon region . forest is not inviting but rather stifles people . Openings in Based on this idea, and given the devast:ition which has the canvas allow us to look beyond it, into the imaginary taken place since that time, the initial objective of this realm - the actual forestaod the idea one has ofit. ln reality, workshop is as follows: "TheAmazon issuitable for theproject rhis picture is a diptychon, the pages ofan opei1 book with bmum it is herethat natureca11 brst be experienced in its virgin margins, Amazon as libernatllrae, that bas long since ceased and stWagefomz, becamethere an antithesisto thebig city emerges, to resemble the original, a second•hand creati.on . bemusethe rain forest is a topicqf param01mt pJtblic interest a,zd, jiflal/y, becausethe problmlS ass11ciated with ec1111omicdevelop,. mrnt can bestl,c tackled011 site." First a nd Third Wor ld - Artists from Four Continents And now the artists' response. From the mouth of a woodfired kiln in an archaic-looking tile·making workshop What has happened? No longer does the nature of the pour forth rudimentary clay figures whose only expression Amazon appear to be the subject of the workshop , but is conveyed by eye sockets and stumps of arms. Antony rather how one deals with it and how these changes, in tum, Gormley, sculptor of standardised peep le, shaped the first affect the inhabitants. lo so doing, attention shifts to focus prototype figures himself. All others were created in col· on desperados such as the golddiggers on the Madeira River laborat'ion with cabocl.os,the inhabitants of one of the favel· whose less than lucrative trade often covers up fo(moresub ­ las in Porto Velho. They remind us offuneral ums., of pre· stantial drug--dealing and money·laundering. Those diggers historic civilisations, also of the whole army buried with or dragas floating on pontoons which dredge the river up, that ancient Chinese emperor near Xian. Above all, how­ sucking the sediment up to pan it for gold. Bill Woodrow ever, the sight of this anonymous mass - there are tens of cut the tops off six of the scoops and welded them imo a thousands of them- remind us of the population explosion powerful conical landscape of stumps and diagon~!s. From in Brazil. Where are these people to go, if not to the the top cooe hangs a gold padlock and one can search for the Amazon, the last deceptive Eldorado, people like those who rusty key to it among the warped, peeling hollow scoops dug this clay and kn~ded it here, were fed and remunerated below - an endeavour which roughly corresponds to a for it, something that in these parts cannot be t-aken for garimpeiro's chances of success. The entire structure recalls granted. · Rio de Janeiro's Sugar loa f Mountain silhouette and the A different response. Stuffed, glimmering piranhas float lock tbc statue of Christ on the Corcovado. With an towar

219 drill bits which, because of their basket shape made of zig­ otherwise familiar. This is probably also the reason for the zags, points and sharp blades are called ~Abacaxi" (pine­ differences in conceptual approach to similar subjects. apples).The artistarrangtd slightly less than a hundred such Tunga from Rio de Janeiro, for example, begins with an iron fruit to make a field no less beautifuJ and deceptiv,~ entomological odruty. A sexton beetle indigenous to the than the bogus Eldorado itself. tropics which feeds on carrion, preferably of the human So, ir is not forests or Indians which are the artists:' kind, builds little balls out of its own excrement and lays irs primary concern, nor is it ecology, but garimpeiros, th,~ eggsin them. A perfect cycle,in other words, whicb the n.rtist members of the urban wilderness,the survival techniques of attempts wittily to invert by juxtaposing the sweetsmelling the poor. the metabolism of civilisation. Music and

220 relinquishing the critical meaning of art and the perils of - and the variation will indeed give one the precise measure forfeiting the aesthetic sense of art - that is, if the object (and of their inventiveness - but the artists shou ld at no point fail therefore the work of art) were to lose the specific, auto­ to allude to 1·heparameters as an explicit touchstone. Tbey nomous niche set aside for it, thus aligning art with philo­ must travel their own roads without losing sight of the com­ sophical speculation or th e probing of scientific knowledge. mon denominator that keeps the artist's activity distinct \Vere this to be thec.1se, we should no longer have any need from the activities of the politician (or evenoftheaesthe te­ for it - and it is on these grounds that art has so often been a fine distinction all too often neglected). dealt the death sentence . ft will thus not be their concept of art alone that high­ lights rhe diversity of these artists·' palertes. The very notion of "nat ure" that informs each and every work will reveal JI approaches that are at tinles confl icting, not seldom openly opposed and rarely mutually compatib le. Even the fact of Curjously, at first sight, Arte Amazonas would appear to be having worked in the same region, the Amawn (though set beyond these almost esoteric bounds . Since they have dispersed in three very different cities, Belem, Manau s and been invited to work on a "theme", the artists involved Porto Velho, as well as in Yanoma.mi lndian territory) has would apparently be required simply not to insist on the failed to muffie the differences, no doubt the result of the specific nature of the object of their know ledge, so as to heterogeneous cultural make-up of the group. Being more make it an instrument of something beyond itself: nature . of a sign or symbol than an ob ject for appropriation, the This would then be an instance of thematizing art in which, Amazon will most likely find its way into their work less as to begin witb, the very object is pan of a greater reality raw material than :i.s a point of departure for reflection. which, moreover, has such conspicuous political overtones tl1at all othet concerns must needs dwindle in its shadow . This is precisely where the dangers oflosing the meaning of rn an loom largest and most alarmingly. First and foremost, nature itself is, of course, a cultural Alternating between relatively pure stales or Lhe concrete feature, though few remember the fact. Reifying it, reducing and the conceptual (as one migbt ideally e_xpectio con­ it to a thing, is a misguided approach from which even (or temporary art)but also ranging: across a broad spectrum of perhap s especially) those most anxious to defend it are not possible perspectives on an extra-artistic object, Arte exempt. Once reified - viewed as an object to be appro­ Amazonas presents a range of possibilities as extensive as printed by a subject. albeit under the guise of intellectual the number of artists on display. Not for the hedonistic sake fruition and with the prete."

222 pondered, they seem to say, it is real because it can be pean presence but has shown itself politically capable of conceived; it outreaches rhe mere physicality of objects resisting who lesale assimilation, his workopenlydedares its our senses can apprehend. Just like the insects in Tunga ties with the craft tradition it is bound to. He does, however, and Mark Dion 's insta llations. Dion makes an obvious make allowances, for he accepts the possibility of his work reference to the process of appropriating nature through the being appreciated on purely aesthetic grounds. This was an scientific means of representing reality. The action carried unp recedented phenomenon in his culture until European out around the object is as important, if not more so, colonization because, to his people's minds, if artefacts than the object itself. Tonga, byway of contrast,marshals his could be deemed beautiful , they must first serve some useful insects in a field where the senses (sight, sme ll) only signify purpose, albeit ritualisti c. Howev er that may be, the trunk once they have been ftltered through a more complex he has sculpted, though designed for no immediately framework c,f knowledge: geometrical references to recognizable or acceptable utilitarian purpose, does at least Cartesian space, perfume elaborated by Jess for.ma! (but no serve as a symbol of a continent's cultural survival and, if loss rationaJ), more everyday and subtler knowledge. you will excuse a minor sophism, ensures tl1e continuity of Maria Fernanda Cardoso can be said to occupy the its traditions. middle ground. Her work produces a deliberately palpable (aesthetic) effect, accomp lished by explicit reference to two IV contrasting forms of cultural appropriation of nature. The piranha fish in her installati on are displayed in an Th ese, then, 'are a number of possible readings of Arte «alienated" form, souve.nirs lO be snapped up by "civilised Ama zo nas. They may help one to come to terms with the tourists" (representing a western mode of appropriation), way in which tlie exhibition has been assemb led from the starkly contrasting with th e utilitarian use to which the combined efforts of each individual artist working with the scales of the giant Amazon "pi rarucu" fish are put by local means at his disposal and with the concepts that were the inhabitants (representing the native mode). The sarcastic, instruments of his handiwork before he even took up the almos t crud tone of her art, redole nt of the atmosphere of tools of his trade , There is no need to search for some hymn Felix Droese's assemblage, makes ita. very diff erent kettle of to nature in Arte Amazonas. Those seeking to ferret out a fish from the work of Pedro Romero and Bjorn Lovin. They poetic or bu colic but false vision of nature are either too employ local utilitary artefacts bur with a wholl y conn ing themselves (if they reckon to have found one) or unironic attitude. Rather , the y-take a very positive, warm else headed for disappointment (when they discover that view of the co untless ways in which man in the tropics pre­ they have hunted in vain). Fur if an is to be ascribed a cariously copes with adverse conditions. The same brand of critica l role that reaches beyond its own bounds, that role is empathy is to be found in Ant o ny Gormley's approach to to instil disquiet and sow doubt in questions that wouJd the local craftwork employed in his installation of clay otherwise remain dormant and cloaked by the facile figures, in Milton Becerra's incursions into Yanomami terri ­ answers customarily proffered. For every such question one tory, and in the sounds Rolf Julius recorded in Para State. will probably find an artist de.nounc ing the impertinence of There are certainly those who, like Nassar, have cho sen to the ready-made solutions proposed. Io the present day, the steer clear of any reference to natural or "savage" outlooks or most facile of them is the reification of nature, with man, preferring to comme nt o n the patently urban elements everyone in all fields now franticly claiming to be its they have encountered. This is definite ly the case with guardians , Even the most superficial observation would Juliao Sam1ento's wooden shack, Kazuo Katase 's flag and reveal thi s to be the stance of those advocating better pre­ Rainer Goerss' burc,1ucratic assemblage, TheiJ con­ servation in the present to reap better appropriation in the sp icuously non-natural , thoroughly human, cultured future. Those who really want to go in pursuit of nature in content (simi larly present in Loevin's art) can readily be this exhibition wou ld be well advised to bear in mind that it detected by even the most unattentive observer. The same is not nature but rather an entire cultural complex - and one app lies to the topsy-turvy, contradictory, almost schizo­ of the richest, that of art - that emerges from the work on phrenic world Nikolaus Nessler has pieced together which, display here. Nature was mereJy the terrain where these besides the eminently graphic nature of his work (even artists wandered and found material for wonder and when it is three-dimensioral), clearly translates the disquiet reflection . of a region where urban elements brashly contrast with non­ (Eng lish translation by Mark Ridd) urban ones, and the uncultured all too often rubs grubby shoulders with the refined. The confrontation between man/cu lture and nature in this exh ibition is perhaps most I\ Greenberg, Cl=ent. 30s and 40s onwards only undisguisedly expressed the wor:.Cof Montien Boonma .Mo dem Painting•, in An served to confirm the in and Literature, n. 4, young American painters' and Pere Noguera, however. Th ey have chosen forthrightly 1965. belieJ that they wer...-the to address the problems of man 's hostility toward the wor ld ZJ Weber,Max. ,,Wisscnschaft legitimate hcits of western that surrounds him. als Beruf", a lecture deliver­ w lture, Jn the field of photography-with exhibits by Miguel Rio ed in 1918and published in 51 As early as 1897, Gaugin Branco and Luiz Braga-the problem of thespccificityof art 1922. (Bra1.ilia11trans. in: - giivc one of his canllasses Ensaios de Sociologia. Rio the suggescive ride • Where is posed in a particularly delicate manner, since photo­ de Janeiro, Zahar, 1963. huve we come from, who graphy rarely manages to slough off the mimetic role it was 'I Oscar Wilde: .Science is arc we, where arc we headed born to perform and for which it was developed. One can­ the record of dead rdigions.~ forr And, not surprisingly, not ignore the fact that it burgeoned under the dual aegis of Phrases and Philosophies he was prompted to do so Science (the came ra being no more than a replica of the for the Use of the Young, when confronted by a cul­ structure of the human eye, a successful automaton, if you new ed. London, l971. ture entirely different from •1 Even Joan Miro, a veteran will) and Fine Art s (painting teaching precious lessons in his own. If this was not the it of the historic European first time painting had set the intellectua l means of (re)constructing visible reality). ~v~nt•gHde, ii said to have itself an existential The solution has been to abandon photography as an auto­ commented thnt the New quesrion, from then on nomous art form, incorporating it into less orthodox York.School had managed movement! like Symbolism situations or, alternatively, to ;,ssume its inevitably to accomplish what its or Expn,ssionism - emerg­ documentary (mimetic) character . And frequently- as is the EurQpean counterparts had ing in embryonic form in case in Arte Amazonas -the two solutions can be com bined . only tentatively envisaged. the worlcof Van Gogh and The f.!ct that a number of Munch - will begin to con­ The exception to the quandaries and deadlocks that assail major European artists took cern themstlves with these western artists (mentioned above) i, El Anatsui. Descend­ up residence as refugees in quandaries with a whoUy ing from a cultural tradition that has been affected by Euro- tbe United States from the novel insistence.

223 Die Autoren/0s autores:

Maria Heloisa Fenelon Costa Ethno login am Museu Naciona l, Rio de Janeiro Etn6loga no Museu Na cional, Rio de Janeiro

Joao de Jesus Paes Loureiro Oichter aus Belem Poeta de Belem

Alfons Hug Leiter des Goethe-lns ,tituts Brasilia Diretor do lnstituto Goethe , Brasilia

Giinter Mctken Kunstkritiker, Paris/Berlin Crit ico de Arte, Paris/ Berlin

Nikolaus A. Nessler I<.Unstler, Frankfurt Anista Plastico

Reynaldo Roels Kunstkritiker, Rio de Janeiro Critico de A n e, Rio d e Jan eiro

Darcy Ribeiro Senator von Rio de Janei ro in Brasilien Senador do Rio de Jan eiro

Perdita von Kraft-Lattner Kunsthis torikerin, Mitarbeiterin im Siemens Kulturprogramm Historiadora de Arte, colaboradorn no programa de cultura de Siemens

Oberserzer/T radutores: Ins Portugicsischc: UlfG. Baranow Ins Deutsche: Herbert A. Welker [ns Englische: Jeremy Gaines, Mark Ridd

X[NG U, Dorf / Aldeia KUJKURU , Fest/ Festa JA VARI

Bildnachweis/ lndic, de fotografias:

Marina Abramovic: 89/ 90/92;John Arden: 91; Luiz Braga: 94/95 :; Bob Brainc: 45/97; Mario Cravo Neto: 205/206/207; Olney Cunha: 187; Mark Dion: 98/ 99; Andrea Diefen hardt: 87o./87u. l.; Felix Droese: 201/202/203; !rind Droese: 200; Michael Ende: 208-2 11; Michael Friedel: 77-88/224; Wolf Gauer: 177; Antony Gormley: 170/17 1; Alfons Hug: 30/36./37/48/13 1 o./ 132u./J60/168; AlfredoJaar: 154/ 155; Kazuo Katase: 106/107; Perdita v. Kraft-Lattner : 33 u./ 128/ 142/ l 50; Karin Lambrecht: 108; Ch ristian Lapie: 192; Nikolaus A. Nessler: 25/63/86/131 u./167/ 179/ 180; Pere Noguera: 116/ 117; Migueal Rio Branco: 15/16/2 1/27/28/31/ 33 o./36/38/41/42/47 /52/65/70/8 4/87 u.r./89/J I0/lll/\13/ 114/ll 5/ 118/ll 9/ 122/123/126/127/130/132o./134/ 135/141/ 143/ 145/146/147/ 149/ISl/152/157 /161/162/163/169/172/174/175/ 176/l 7 8; Walter Schorlies: 11/55/ 158/ l 66; Dionisio Shockness: 165; Memo Vogeler: 197; Christian Wilmsen: 18/5 1/68/73

224 Die Autoren/Os autores .

Maria Heloisa Fenelon Costa Et.hnologin am Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro Etn6loga no Museu Naciona l, Rio de Janeiro

Joiio de Jesus Pacs Loureiro Dichter aus Belem Poeta de Belem

Alfons Hug Leiter des Goethe- lrntirurs Brasilia Diretor do Institute Goethe, Brasifo

Gunter Metken Kunst.kritiker, Paris/Berlin Critico de Arte, Paris/Berlin

Nikolaus A, Nessler Kunstler, Frankfurt Artisra Plastico

Reynaldo Roels Kunstkritiker, Rio de Janeiro Critico de Arte, Rio de Janeiro

Darcy Ribeiro Senator von Rio de Jane iro in Brasilien Senador do Rio de Janeiro

Perdita von Krafr-Lotlner Kunsthistorikerin, M1tarbeirerin im Siemens Kulturprogramrn Hisroriadora de Arte, colaboradora oo programa de cultura de Siemens

Ubersetzerff radutores: Ins Portugiesische: Ulf G. Baranow lns Deuts che: Herbert A. Welker Ins Englische: Jeremy Gaines, Mark Ridd

XINGU, Dorf/ Aldeia KUIKURU, Fest/Festa JA V ARl

Bildnachweis/lndice de fotografias:

Marina Abramovic: 89/90/92;John Arden: 91; Luiz Braga: 94/95; Bob Braine : 45/97; Mario Cravo Neto: 205/206/207; Olney Cunha: 187; Mark Dion: 98/99; Andrea Diefenhardt: 87 o./87 u. l.; Felix Droese: 201/202/203; lrinel Droese: 200; Michael Ende: 208-2 11; Michael Friedel: 77-88/224; Wolf Gauer: 177; Antony Gom1ley: 170/171; Alfons Hug: 30/36/37/48/13 1 o./132u./160/168; AlfredoJaar: 154/155; Kazuo Katase: 106/l07;Perdita v. Kraft-Lottner: 33 u./ 128/[42/150; Karin Lambrecht : 108; Christian Lapie: 192; Nikolaus A. Nessler: 25/.63/86/131 u./ 167/179/180; Pere Noguera: 116/117; Migueal Rio Branco: 15/16/21/27/28/31/ 33 o./36/38/4 l/42/47 /52/65/70/84/87 u.r./89/110/111/113/114/115il18/119/122/123/126/127 /I 30/132 o./134/135/141/143/ 145/146/147 /149/15 1/152.'157/161/ 162/163/169/ 172/174/175/176/178; Wa ltcr Schorlies: l 1/551158/166; Dionisio Shockness: 165; Memo Vogeler: 197; Christian Wilmsen: 18/51/68/73

224 Marina Abramovic El Anatsui Arquimedes Milton Becerra Montien Boonma Luiz Braga Waltercio Caldas Maria Fernanda Cardoso Mario Cravo Neto Mark Dion Felix Droese Rainer Gorss Antony Gormley Alfredo Jaar Rolf Julius Kazuo Katase Kukran Bjorn Lovin Karin Lambrecht Christian Lapie Miti Emmanuel Nassar Nikolaus A. Nessler Pere Noguera Pitu Raffael Rheinsberg Miguel Rio Branco Pedro Romero Juliao Sarmento Tunga Bill Woodrow

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