The retrospective (June 12 - October 26, 2014) is made up of thirty-nine works which together build a kaleidoscope of images, a "poetic-philosophical" narration, as defined by the artists themselves who investigate the most inscrutable fragments of reality and give life to a probable imaginary made up of sometimes documentary, sometimes parascientific appearances.
The exhibition offers thirty-six films, including ten new productions, and three installations called Camera Obscura, one of which is unpublished, in addition a small cinema. The works created specifically for HangarBicocca testify to the great productive effort that the Milanese institution is carrying out in favor of contemporary art.
The exhibition project offers itself to the public as a single large installation that welcomes the artists' film production, made up of works created between 2004 and 2014, proposed by themes and concepts at the basis of their research. The spectator is also invited to move freely in the space, for a dynamic fruition and to always find different points of view, since perception changes with the variation of the chosen perspective.
The films screened in the exhibition space, silent and in 16mm film, are mostly in slow motion, short films in which the mechanical noise of the film device becomes the only sound background. Among them, the film Eye Eclipse (2007), exhibited at the exhibition Abyssology (Cordoaria Nacional / Galeria ZDB, Lisbon, 2008) inspired by the similarities between the eye, the egg and the moon andtwo films made by the artists to represent Portugal at the 53rd Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia in 2009: The Soup (2009), in which a group of monkeys feeds by grabbing potatoes from an improbable pot full of boiling water and 3 Suns (2009) which takes its cue from one of Isaac Newton's first optical experiments on studies of the impression of images on the retina.
The exhibition also includes three installations structured like a darkroom, environments for the projection of moving images, evidence of the research and interest of the artists around the origins of cinema and the dynamics of perception: Motion of Astronomical Bodies (2010) Room Inside Room (2010) and Before Falling Asleep, a precortical image inside a moving train (2014)
Among the new productions created ad hoc for HangarBicocca, there is a small cinema where the new film is presented Parrot (2014) which also gives the exhibition its title, filmed in the archipelago of São Tomé and Princípe, a former Portuguese colony in the Gulf of Guinea. The film, which exceeds 40 minutes (a novelty in the production of artists who until now had only made short films), is shot during an animist ceremony which recalls the practices voodoo used by the tribes of the West African coast. The event, filmed in its entirety and in part also by the protagonists themselves, includes dances and banquets and culminates in a state of trance collective in which, according to the animist belief, the bodies are possessed by the spirits of the dead. The film bears witness to a long research work that the artists carry out on the ex-Portuguese colonies, territories suitable for understanding and comparing experiences and images not yet included in the codes of representation and behavior typical of Western culture. In the works of the artists, there are no explicit moralistic interpretations, but it is precisely the representation of the still virgin contexts that makes the symbolic violence of colonialism evident.
In general, the productions of João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva have a strong link with the cinema of the origins and the experimental films of the sixties and seventies, with the research of the mechanisms of vision linked to the studies of optics and perception and with the processes of reception and brain image processing. In their films it is possible to detect the influence of the traditions underlying the birth of cinema: on the one hand the "documentary" tradition of the Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas (1862 - 1954) and Louis Jean (1864 - 1948), whose production is closely linked to the shooting of everyday life and reality without any interpretation of the filmed event; on the other, and predominantly, the "magic" tradition attributed to Georges Méliès (1861 - 1938), universally recognized as the "father" of special effects, to whom the invention of fantasy and science fiction cinema can be traced.
Like a cinema composed solely of light and objects, with the installations called Camera Obscura, the artists instead create, without the use of film, moving images originating within closed and dark environments, not accessible to the viewer. With these devices, they recreate the retinal principle of vision, revealing the mechanism by which images are impressed in reverse: on the retina before being "reprocessed" by the human brain.
João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva make use of a complex universe of cultural references which are the foundation of their work, ranging from philosophy to literature, from natural sciences to physics. Among the authors of reference they consider the philosopher Henri Bergson and Friedrich Nietzsche, the poet Fernando Pessoa and the writers Victor Hugo, Jorge Luis Borges and René Daumal. An important role also plays the figure of Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), French writer, playwright and poet, creator of "pataphysics", defined as "the science of imaginary solutions" in the book Doctor Faustroll's Deeds and Opinions (1898). In this novel, Alfred Jarry exposes the principles and aims of pataphysics by defining it as a science for which there are no absolute truths but only relative and ever-changing ones, in which all established principles can be affirmed and contradicted, in the name of the absolute creative freedom of the 'artist.
The title of the exhibition: Parrot
The title, in Portuguese, Parrot is a reference to one of the most important themes of the exhibition: la glossolalia, which indicates "speaking in other languages", and more precisely distinguishes those phenomena, often traced back to religious rites, in which words of an unknown language are pronounced, or simple vocalizations and meaningless syllables. The parrot (which appears in one of the new works) is filmed at extremely slow speed while pronouncing incomprehensible words and becomes a metaphor for man's impossible attempt to project his own image onto animals.
The artists
João Maria Gusmão (Lisbon 1979) and Pedro Paiva (Lisbon 1977) work together producing films, sculptures, photographs, installations and anthologies of texts. The two meet academically during the third year of the painting course at the University of Lisbon. Their collaboration began in 2001 with the exhibition InMemory at the Zé dos Bois Gallery in Lisbon, an institution with which they still collaborate today. The works of Gusmão and Paiva have developed over the years through three strands united by macro themes named by the artists themselves DeParamnésia, Eflúvio Magnetico e Abyssology.
Alongside their work as visual artists, they have published the Philosophical Magazine Eflúvio Magnetico. Many important institutions Le Plateau in Paris and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2011) have dedicated solo exhibitions to them. They have participated in international events and exhibitions such as the Gwangju Biennial (2010), Manifesta (2008) and the Sao Paulo Biennial (2006). They also represented Portugal at the Venice Biennale in 2009, where they were also invited in 2013 in the main exhibition.
The exhibition program of Pirelli HangarBicocca
The exposure Parrot by João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva is part of the program of exhibitions signed by Vicente Todolí together with Andrea Lissoni. The exhibition project is presented in conjunction with the solo exhibition of Cildo Meireles on display until 20 July 2014 and of Joan Jonas (from 25 September 2014). The Pirelli HangarBicocca calendar will continue with exhibitions by Céline Condorelli (December 2014), Juan Muñoz (March 2015), Damián Ortega (April 2015) and Philippe Parreno (September 2016).
Pirelli Hangar Bicocca
HangarBicocca, Pirelli's space for contemporary art, is the natural continuation of a long tradition of attention to culture, research and innovation that has accompanied the company since its foundation over 140 years ago. Thanks to the commitment of Pirelli, HangarBicocca makes high-level programming and a series of activities for children and families accessible to the public, and has now become a point of reference for Greater Milan and for the international public.
