Ilhas de Água | Water Islands | 2005
Virada Cultural 2005
Vale do Anhangabaú, São Paulo, SP
fotografias | photos Nino Rezende
Water Islands
Looking for a good exhibition to go, I found in CCCB (Banco do Brasil Cultural Centre) website one from the artist Sonia Guggisberg.
According to the site, Sonia is an artist emerging in the 90s with some important exhibitions in her curriculum, showing a very consistent work. By some uncommon inserts, interferences and installations, she addresses a very in vogue theme on environmental circle which is the water issue. She is not the first one to focus on it. Cildo Meireles has already done something about in his work "Elemento desaparecendo, elemento desaparecido" (missing element, missed element) in which he creates water popsicles where we can read “missing element” before being consumed and “missed element” after, in its stick. This has been “exhibited” in 2008 at Itaú Cultural.
Although both works deals with water, we have different approaches. Cildo puts it as something inherent and temporary as making it being consumed or falling apart. Sonia in her “Bolhas Urbanas” (Urban Bubbles) - 2006-2007 series, utilizes it as material, making part of it, thus being permanent though morphing.
These bubbles are as oasis in the middle of concrete jungle. Isolated by thin transparent coating plastics allowing us to see inside, noticing dripping condensate water from evaporation while urging us to touch it because of its mushy, fresh appearance. Artistically splendid, it attracts observer to come closer, riding down, observing. Carrying a strong vitality of their own, it sends us to a greenhouse, nursery idea, seeming a displaced, isolated and integrated and active place at same time.
Since 2005 Sonia has created these huge PVC filled with tons of water containers, transforming in big bubbles strategically located in “diseased” and forgotten urban places as contemporary public art exemplifications. Her first experience was in “Virada Cultural de São Paulo” (a big cultural event) in Anhangabaú Valley where it has questioned the dependence of walls in public spaces.
Eduardo Ferreira
Ilhas de Água
Procurando uma boa exposição para ir, achei no site do Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil uma exposição da artista Sonia Guggisberg.
Segundo o site do próprio banco, Sonia é uma artista da década de 90, com algumas exposições importantes no curriculum, e um trabalho bastante consistente. Por meio de inserções inusitadas, interferências, e instalações, aborda um tema bastante em voga no círculo ambientalista, que é o problema da água. Não é a primeira artista a tratar dele, Cildo Meireles já o fez em seu trabalho "Elemento desaparecendo, elemento desaparecido", trabalho no qual cria sorvetes de água e os vende ou dá a quem quiser, com uma frase no palito "elemento desaparecendo", que depois de completamente consumido, se pode ler "elemento desaparecido", trabalho esse que inclusive esteve "exposto" (sé é que se pode falar assim dele...) no Itaú Cultural no início de 2008.
Embora ambos tratem da água, a abordagem acaba sendo diferente. Cildo coloca-a como algo inerente ao homem, o faz consumir seu objeto de arte, que só existe por certo tempo. Ou é devorado pelo "consumidor" de arte, ou se desfaz por si só. Já Sonia, em sua série Bolhas Urbanas (2006-2007), usa-a como material parte de suas obras, que podem ser permanentes, embora mutantes.
São como que oásis em meio à selva de concreto, isolados por finas e transparentes camadas plásticas, que permitem que de fora se veja o interior, se veja as gotas de água que se condensam na superfície interna da bolha pela evaporação, ao mesmo tempo, incitam ao toque, pois parecem moles, frios, etc., atraindo o observador a aproximar-se, parar, reparar, afinal, são plasticamente bastante belas. Possuem uma forte vitalidade, pois remetem às estufas onde se criam plantas, ou mesmo a ambientes ideais para proliferação de seres. É um lugar deslocado, isolado, ao mesmo tempo que inserido e atuante na paisagem.
Sônia criou grandes recipientes de vinil (PVC) preenchidos com toneladas de água. Cheios, os recipientes transformavam-se em grandes bolhas, que a partir de 2005, foram estrategicamente colocadas em locais abandonados ou "doentes" da cidade, como exemplo de arte pública contemporânea.
Sua primeira experiência foi no vale do Anhangabaú onde teve que montar e desmontar as peças durante a Virada Cultural de São Paulo, em 2005. Tal experiência marcou a passagem de qualquer dependência de parede para o espaço público.
Eduardo Ferreira
Water Islands
Looking for a good exhibition to go, I found in CCCB (Banco do Brasil Cultural Centre) website one from the artist Sonia Guggisberg.
According to the site, Sonia is an artist emerging in the 90s with some important exhibitions in her curriculum, showing a very consistent work. By some uncommon inserts, interferences and installations, she addresses a very in vogue theme on environmental circle which is the water issue. She is not the first one to focus on it. Cildo Meireles has already done something about in his work "Elemento desaparecendo, elemento desaparecido" (missing element, missed element) in which he creates water popsicles where we can read “missing element” before being consumed and “missed element” after, in its stick. This has been “exhibited” in 2008 at Itaú Cultural.
Although both works deals with water, we have different approaches. Cildo puts it as something inherent and temporary as making it being consumed or falling apart. Sonia in her “Bolhas Urbanas” (Urban Bubbles) - 2006-2007 series, utilizes it as material, making part of it, thus being permanent though morphing.
These bubbles are as oasis in the middle of concrete jungle. Isolated by thin transparent coating plastics allowing us to see inside, noticing dripping condensate water from evaporation while urging us to touch it because of its mushy, fresh appearance. Artistically splendid, it attracts observer to come closer, riding down, observing. Carrying a strong vitality of their own, it sends us to a greenhouse, nursery idea, seeming a displaced, isolated and integrated and active place at same time.
Since 2005 Sonia has created these huge PVC filled with tons of water containers, transforming in big bubbles strategically located in “diseased” and forgotten urban places as contemporary public art exemplifications. Her first experience was in “Virada Cultural de São Paulo” (a big cultural event) in Anhangabaú Valley where it has questioned the dependence of walls in public spaces.
Eduardo Ferreira