André Parente and Pedro Varella
Instalation, 2022
The Ruin as An Embryo
By Guilherme Wisnik
Pieces of timber lie tumbled in right angles or diagonals on the floor, as if they were all that remained of the roof trusses of the Jaqueline Martins Gallery, now collapsed and in fragments, in ruins. André Parente and Pedro Varella`s site specific work on the second floor of the gallery uses these architectural and structural elements to generate sculptural forms, transforming what was a neutral space into the appearance of a ruin, the symbols of soaring heights now grounded on the floor.
There is a formal, constructive logic in the angles, joints, overlaps and ties that form the trusses. The result is a repeated, modular design, where the sequence of elements creates its own visual rhythm, freeing the space from unwanted walls and pillars. Through the intervention of the artists, the fragments on the floor no longer convey the idea of construction, becoming instead independent visual signs. In apparent chaos, the architectural elements are broken down into their separate elements. As if the crystalline order of the transcendent world next to heaven could not sustain itself in the ordinary and telluric world in which we dwell. In other words, all that remains in the diaspora after the fall of the Tower of Babelremains is confusion, noise, incommunicability.
But the fragmentary residues of the timber trusses, made by the artists themselves, can also be seen as as huge and mysterious letters attempting to convey some encrypted message on the scale of our bodies. Architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha was citing the Rio funk musician Deize Tigrona when he says: “For those who do not know how to read, the dot in an i is a letter” ¹ , as he conveyed the idea that everything abstract is founded on something material, something real. When organized in strictly geometrical forms, the trusses rise to form the roof, coming together smoothly to form its peak, while the same sculptural elements, scattered on the floor in different arrangements, can transform the functional into something playful, inclined on tripods which recall playground toys such as a child’s see-saw. In other words, the apparent disorganization of the space can be read as a reorganization of the same formal elements along other principals (codes).
“Here everything looks like it is still under construction but is already in ruins,” sings Caetano Veloso when he speaks of a country that was outside the new world order ². The lyric is a quote from the anthropologist Lévi-Strauss’s book Tristes Trópicos, in which he defines the entropic nature of Brazilian cities – and, in particular, of São Paulo. In dialog with this idea, in “Duas Águas” André Parente and Pedro Varella resonate with the work of poet Paulo Leminski, a self-declared “anarchitect of disengineering” ³. The ruin is an embryo of new construction. And if we can read it, we can also build it.
¹ Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Maquetes de papel. Sao Paulo: COSAC Naify, 2007, p. 18.
² Caetano Veloso, “Fora da ordem (Out of Order)”, Circuladô, 1991.
³ Paulo Leminski, “Ler uma cidade: o alfabeto das ruínas” (Reading a City: the Alphabet of Ruins), in Ensaios e anseios crípticos. Belo Horizonte: Polo Editorial, 1997, p. 176.
