INTRO
The power in the contemporary world is diluted, fragmented in the multiple human relationships. and no longer centralized in certain institutions or social roles. In the information age, everyone carries a certain level of power over others, and thus fields of tension that form the universe of biopower and biopolitics are established. Daily life is immersed in the sounds and images that arise from the clash of diverse interests and powers. The work of Fabiano Gonper investigates those issues; using daily life experiences as a start point. it studies the person. as the moving sphere of the dimension between the individual self and the collective self. Drawings have been explored by the artist since 1997. when he initiated a series of pieces made with mirrors and paper, carrying a confidential poetical sense, with personal registries that carry thoughts on the author’s condition as a person, citizen and artist within the art system.
Gonper’s research mostly creates new possibilities to understand the potential of languages (drawing sculpture I painting), creating conflicts and situations that provide new poetical elements to his production. In his work. image is not immediately revealed; it is gradually presented in different moments. starting from the investigative eye. In his body of work. the Subject is everywhere. In this new series. which integrates the exhibition. as well as in The Manipulator (2007), the artist resizes his work with the visual saturation of daily images referenced in the mass media (books, magazines. catalogues, newspapers. photography. TV shows and Internet), where the displacement of images amidst various media creates a new visual possibility that composes the work’s poetic field.
So often. the technical procedures and media (video projection. enlargement and reduction. and print) generate the imagery dissolution. Scenes of diverse situations are intertwined and create contemporary protonarratives. From the videos of Gonper, l have extracted random frames (interstices), or even images captured by the webcam, directly from your computer’s monitor. Instead of using animation and video editing softwares. the artist utilizes the websites YouTube and Bambuser to generate audio and images in a continuous shot. The videodrawings editing and animation happens concurrently with recording, as in a performance. Miniature dolls, static images and objects from his studio gain motion with lights. audio and/or video overlays published online and, mainly, by the pixel that composes the digital image.
The intensity of the contrast developed by Gonper, which reminds of the film Renaissance by Christian Volckman (France, 2006), favors an image texture. in which the pixel‘s vibration draws subtle expressions on inanimate objects. The Gonper Museum – work in progress legitimates this series of new works that were created, whilst stimulating contemplation on the relationships between the artist, the art institution and the museum framework; it suggests questioning on the museographic procedure by which objects are historicized, Sacralized and perpetuated in the social imaginary. The artist takes on the roles of curator, executive producer and visual programmer. shuffling such practices of power when negotiating with real institutions, like museums, cultural centers and galleries. and in dialogue operations with other artists.
In its site specific format. Gonper Museum has travelled a long way. and some of its exhibitions acquired the function of showing pieces that were not created by Fabiano Gonper. as he did with the work of artists Antonio Dias, Cildo Meireles, Iran do Espirito Santo, Lygia Clark, Regina Silveira, Waltércio Caldas, Matias Duville. It has been exhibited in Séo Paulo (Modern Art Musem), Goiania, Recife and also in the United States, Argentina and Spain. Which specific mounting meant to house the work of the artist himself, the Gonper Museum has showcased the series Desenhos Secretos (Secret Drawings, 2003), Pinturas Variáveis (Variable Paintings, 2004) and RDS (ROS, 2010).
The new BlankTape exhibit presents creations that deal with issues such as society and politics (micro macro), matters that have always interested the artist. The RDS (ROS- Reconfiguration of the Subject) series presents the universe of the various powers that exist in the contemporary society. such as those in politics, in economy. in the multiple social relationships and media. With such hybrid spatial relationships between mediums and the typology of the film frame (shots and angles that help establish possible paths for new interpretations). the individualization and the state of autonomy of the subject are amplified. The practice of the powers of ‘us all’ – quotidian, trivialized, centralized, vigilant -, when analyzed by the artist’s magnifying glass, are worthy of undisputed blushing and pondering over what is about to come. Together, those pieces form a plastic and conceptual body, in which visibility and concealment are revealed as primary problems.
São Paulo, Brazil | 2010
