The DemarcAtions of Márcio Almeida
By Paulo Bruscky
I have known the artist Márcio Almeida and his dis/formed work in relation to the SituAtion through his proposals/installations, which always reference the human being and their questionings. In the artist's own words, one of the functions of his project 'is to generate thought and the questioning of the global in opposition to the local.' The exhibition's title itself makes an allusion to the city hall document/license for releasing a property for habitation [Habite-se]. This exhibition, composed of photographs, about 60 obelisks (made of welded iron rebar, whose oxidation is also incorporated into his idea), and a video recording made by Oriana Duarte following the break-in of his car—where, upon filing a police report, she filmed the broken windowpane and the obelisco lying on a seat, having gone unnoticed by the thief—is only a part of the record of his wandering obelisk project (unlike conventional obelisks, which are large, imposing, and immobile, serving to record historical milestones), which has already traveled through several Brazilian cities and also abroad, such as Paris, London, Rome, and Berlin, among others. These objects were taken from his production of drawings/paintings, where they were always represented.
Observing the photos taken in the city of Garanhuns, in Pernambuco, the artist noticed a curious fact: the absence of the obelisk's shadow in the photos taken on the streets in broad daylight. By handing over his object to people, he received a highly diversified photo/graphic documentation regarding situAtions/dwellings/memories of quite unusual locations, such as bathrooms, squares (in one of them, a guard protects the obelisk), shops, the seabed, and superpositions with monuments—in short, a series of records that deserve a sociological and anthropological analysis. In a series of photographs of his work in progress, the projections of the obelisks' shadows blend with the object itself, generating an innovative perspective. Since Márcio Almeida is a born researcher and multimedia artist, this proposAtion is not an isolated work within his diverse and intelligent production. He is one of the few Brazilian artists, alongside Nelson Félix and Eleonora Fabre, to work with GPS, which the public in Pernambuco was able to experience during his participation as a guest artist at the 45th Pernambuco Visual Arts Salon, held at the Tacaruna Factory in 2002/2003, where he set up his work entitled 'DeFormação (Ação/Marcação)' [De-Formation (Action/Marking)] on the inside and outside of the factory. According to the artist's own statement, '(...) it followed the Action/Marking series using a satellite location instrument, the GPS (Global Positioning System). De-Formation investigated positions and displacements in an action marked by three stages: recording and marking a specific point based on latitude and longitude coordinates; the artist's interference in this place, removing the matter (sand) and replacing it with water; and the transposition of the matter (sand) to the exhibition space, superimposing the matter from two distinct geographical points.'
In addition to the production mentioned above, Márcio has carried out several urban interventions and, recently, a highly conceptual work involving the transposition of a shanty [barraco] from a favela to the Olinda Museum of Contemporary Art in 2006, as a research project awarded at the last Contemporary Art Salon of the Museum of the State of Pernambuco. He also has a significant output in his video works, such as 'Direita/Esquerda' [Right/Left], 'Mani-Oca', 'Game Over', 'Delivery', and 'PA #1, 2, and 3', among others, which in a way are attuned to his production as a whole.
Finally, I make use of another phrase by the artist that sums up his proposal very well: 'the work speaks little and asks much more.'
Art in transit.
Today, art is this communication.
Paulo Bruscky
Nov/2006"