O EFEITO TYNDALL / THE TYNDALL EFFECT

With Adriana Affortunati, Alexandre Brandão, C.L. Salvaro, Jurgen Ots and Nicolas Bourthoumieux

Virtual tour of the exhibition here: https://my.matterport.com/show/m=XShstFfDDtY&play=1&amp&ts=30;amp&qs=0;amp&amp&lp=1

On view at Galeria Central, rua Bento Freitas 306, São Paulo, Brazil, from February 8th until March 21st 2020 - part of the Curitiba Biennial 2019

Observed in 1857 for the first time by Michael Faraday and further studied by the English physicist John Tyndall, the Tyndall effect is the scattering of light as it passes through a colloid. The individual suspension of particles such as dust, scatter and reflect light, for instance making a light beam passing through trees visible. In the homonym group show, Adriana Affortunati Martins, Alexandre Brandão, C.L. Salvaro, Jurgen Ots and Nicolas Bourthoumieux, each bring in their singular language, this quest for the almost invisible, turning it visible.

In the artist’s work, the objects, forms and matter gain a presence of their own, incorporating alternative formal systems whose coherence is disconnected from their initial meaning, highlighting a human, social and political resonance that goes beyond form.

In this way the Belgian artist Jurgen Ots opens a temporal window with the video “Are we Arc?”. In the video piece, yellowed chess notebooks gathered in European flea markets are flicking in loop, reflecting moments of political change and territories that no longer exist, like the former Russia or Yugoslavia. The accelerated rhythm of the images emphasizes the contrast of time, almost creating a fresco of colors that brings forth a utopic temporal horizon.

The rescuing of elements from the past also characterizes the work of C.L. Salvaro, though without manipulation or almost without. In the installation “Retrospecto” (Retrospect), the artist uses elements from an old house and transposes them in the exhibition space. With this operation he brings a piece of Brazil’s history and the experience of the home’s occupants, using found elements and the narrative they contain, outside any contemporary urgency. Acting as a kind of archaeologist of the present, the artist reveals in this installation, layers of time and the portrait of a family that voted for Collor and owned a gun as shown by the elements that make up the installation. Like this, Salvaro crystalizes a moment, revealing pieces, hiding others and allowing the material to express itself.

Adriana Affortunati Martins, in dialogue with Salvaro’s research, reveals in “Helena” the poetic beauty of decay in a piece of fabric, altered by a lenghty exposure in her backyard, to nature’s elements. The colorful rags, supported by a wooden frame, acquire the appearance of an abstract paintings. In the artist’s work, time carries on freely, the objects decay and the beauty emerge from within. Assuming life’s imperfections - and the inevitability of the passing of time - Adriana Affortunati’s work revendicates its ephemeral quality through the wind and rain that create the work together with the artist.

Parting from the raw material, the work of Alexandre Brandão points to the matter and the tension that occurs when it is manipulated. Light, heat, reactions related to the passing of time become drawing tools, such as in the series “Estudo Crítico” (Citric Study) composed by minimalist letters inspired by the alphabet for the blind created by William Moon. The hiatus between the substance and the manufactured object also manifests in the piece “Tectônica” (Tectonic), in which the artist inverts the passage of time and creates cracks in the reality by using ancestral construction techniques to create an installation that resembles desert sands.

The impact of the anthropocene and human action on the environment also permeates the works of the French artist Nicolas Bourthoumieux. The perception of movement and time, the light, nature’s sublime and its relationship with the human condition are expressed in a slender sculpture that allows the appearance of a golden sun emerging on the dark blue background of a painting. Our perception changes as we relate with the installation that invites us to contemplate, in a place where notions of space and time disappear. In dialogue with the artwork, a series of pictures of a lunar landscape and moving candlelight takes us back to the tension between the natural and artificial, the change from one state or space to another and the perception we may have of those changes.

Acting as anthropologists, the artists of the Tyndall Effect offer a new resonance to civilization’s waste and debris. Without artifices, they not only reveal the elements utilized but also their metaphorical properties, in the same way that written language conveys, beyond its initial meaning, ideas that transcend the mere description. In their works, time, the relationship between the human, nature and the artificial appear, as the layers left by the tides, in intuitive arrangements that escape monumentality to favor the individual presence of the forms and what exists beyond appearances.

Guided by the artists’ proposal, we direct our gaze towards the simplicity, the essence of materials, the poetry of decay, of the moment of deliquescence that precedes the final disappearance of discarded objects. Escaping from the post-modernist machinery, we may even pause the velocity of a world always more digital, obsessed by newness and cleanliness, in which time’s passing is perceived as an undesirable fatality. And so, we stop to contemplate the dance of the dust, before it settles and disappears, absorbed by the world that revolves around it.

Adriana Affortunati (1982, São Paulo, Brazil), lives and works in Krems, Austria. Studied Contemporary Aesthetics and Philosophy Università Statale in Milan and Visual Arts Centro Universitário Belas Artes in São Paulo. She participated to the following residencies: AIR KREMS, Austria (2018); SeMA Nanji Residency, South Korea (2018); Est Nord Est, Canada (2017); PAS Contemporaneo, Sardinia, Italy (2016). She had the following solo shows: Galeria Virgilio (São Paulo, 2018); OnSang (Seoul, 2018); JBGoldenberg (São Paulo,2015); TNT Contemporêanea (Rio de Janeiro, 2012). Group shows: Central Galeria (São Paulo, 2018); Orebro Biennial (Sweden, 2017); Museu de Arte de Ribeirão Preto (Brasil, 2015); Bienal de Cerveira (Portugal, 2015); Pinacoteca Miguel Dutra, Piracicaba (Brasil, 2015); Galeria Zipper (São Paulo, 2012); Memorial da América Latina (São Paulo, 2008), among others.

Alexandre Brandão (1979, Belo Horizonte, Brazil), lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil

Departing from techniques such as drawing, video and sculpture, his work is characterized by forms that shift between the estrangement and the familiar, suggesting a mixing exercise of the world’s order. His practice merges randomness, temporality, natural and cultural processes as craft methods of production.

Alexandre Brandão participated in group shows such as "Dear Amazon: Anthropocene Project" (South Korea, 2019); “In Memoriam” (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2017); “Bolsa Pampulha 2015/2016” (Minas Gerais, Brazil 2016); ”Some False Moves" (USA, 2015); "Taipa Tapume" (São Paulo, Brazil, 2014); “18º e 17º "Festival Internacional de Arte Contemporânea SESC Videobrasil” (São Paulo, Brazil, 2013 and 2011). Solo shows: “Experimentos com o acaso” (France, 2016), “Chão” (São Paulo, Brazil, 2015); “Efeito sem causa” (São Paulo, Brazil, 2013) and “Quase sombra” (São Paulo, 2012). In 2010 he was awarded during the 5th Interamerican Biennial of Videoart (Washington DC, USA) and in 2014 he was granted with the prize Grant for Artistic Residency ICCo / SP-Arte at Residency Unlimited, New York.

C.L. Salvaro (Curitiba, Brazil, 1980) lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.

C.L. Salvaro’s poetics conform to his reaction to external stimuli provoked by spaces, in which he develops site specific pieces, or objects which he reassigns significance. Always considering their different contexts, he addresses topics such as impermanence, decadence, and residue, all of which are part of the vocabulary of urban ruin.C.L. Salvaro has a degree in Artistic Education from the University of Arts of Paraná (2001), with a Master of Visual Arts from the State University of Santa Catarina (2010).His individual exhibitions include: eira alheia, Central Galeria, (São Paulo, SP, 2018); vazamentos, contenções, Orlando Lemos Galery, (Nova Lima MG, 2016); Ybakatu Espaço de Arte (Curitiba, PR, 2007) and CCSP – Centro Cultural of São Paulo (São Paulo SP, 2005).His group exhibitions include: caso o acaso, Central Gallery (São Paulo, SP, 2016); 20 anos, Ybakatu Espaço de Arte (Curitiba, PR, 2015); New York USA and Museum of Contemporary Art (Vigo, Spain, 2013); Region 0 - The Latin Video Art Festival (New York University, 2013); 6ª VentoSul - Bienal of Curitiba (Curitiba, PR, 2011); Biennale de Québec - Manif d’art 5 (Quebec, Canada, 2010); Trilhas do Desejo, Rumos Visual Arts Program 2008-2009, , Instituto Itaú Cultural (São Paulo, SP, 2008) and Imperial Palace (Rio de Janeiro RJ, 2009).The awards, scholarships, and residencies in which he participated include: the Production Scholarship for Visual Arts, in Curitiba (2006), Pampulha Scholarship, in Belo Horizonte (2010-2011), and the Iberê Camargo Scholarship (2013) in partnership with CRAC Valparaiso, held in Valparaíso, Chile.

Jurgen Ots (Brussels, 1979), lives and works in Brussels, Belgium

Jurgen Ots’ departs from the printed image. He creates installations, prints and video’s where the role of the image in the everyday reality is questioned in many destructive and scrutinizing ways. He translates these images into abstract, tortured images where the tormented material work as a metaphor for marginal emotions, dynamics, relations and situations. The body of work is dark, but human and vivid. The installations have their own way and visitors have all sorts of personal interpretations attached to them. "The anonymous passage series" are different for everybody. The installation is standing there as some kind of religious icon. It is simple and grotesque at the same time. A minimum input to get a maximum interpretation. Jurgen Ots uses his media in a non-conformist and anti-traditional way. His actions underline the character of the material and show them in an unexpected situation. The work invents itself through experimenting and trying different possibilities during the artist' process. 2020* ‘Altered Reset’, ZERO.., Milan, La Nympfa Segregada, Villa D’Este, Tivoli, Italy 2019 ‘Bunkers for All’, Place Jeu de Balle, Brussels, Belgium ‘The Four Seasons p.1: Monkey Business’, with Kjerst.G Andvig curated by Caroline Dumalin, Place jeu de Balle, Brussels ‘The Four Seasons p.1: Monkey Business’, curated by Michelangelo Miccolis, Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich ‘This Little Piggy Ended Up At The Market’, curated by Jana Haeckel (Goethe Institute), Place Jeu De Balle, Brussels ‘The Flat Bat’, curated by Jennifer Teets, Place jeu de Balle, Brussels, Belgium 2015 ‘The Periaqueductal Gray series’, Galleria Zero, Milan, Italy. 2019 ‘Natan, the artist studio’, Natan, Brussels ‘Small Fires’ Universtity of Leuven, Belgium ‘Skateroom’ Catherine Bastide, Brussels 2018 ‘Collection the Walker’ Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA ‘Celluloid Brushes’, Etablissement d’en face, Brussels, Belgium ‘Something in between’, BOZAR, Brussels, Belgium ‘Open AIR’ Air Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.‘Europe, Europe’, BOZAR, Brussels, Belgium ‘Collection of Michel Francois’, DOC. Paris, France 2017 ‘The Living Room’, BODEM, Antwerp, Belgium ‘Tjigger Fun’, Panicz, Ostend, Belgium 2016 ‘What Are We Going to Paint’, Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam 2015 ‘Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes’, Aike-Dellarco, Shanghai, China ‘Dust’, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland 2014 ‘Imitatio Christie’s (partoftheprocess6), Galleria Zero, Milan, Italy ‘A house of passive noise’, Ursula Blickle foundation, Kreichtal, Germany ‘Another dream, another sense, another mind’, Library Faculty of Law, Leuven, Belgium ‘Parallel Borders’, Forum Stadtpark, Austria; National Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland 2013 ‘Celluloid Brushes’, Ludlow38, New York ‘Rainbow Juice’, The Helper, Brooklyn, New York ‘Parallel Borders’, National Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland ‘The Fridge’, Komplot, Brussels, Belgium ‘Black and vases’, Komplot, Brussels, Belgium ‘The Perfect Marble Face’, Elisa Platteau, Brussels ‘Kompiouti’, SIC project space, Helsinki, Finland ‘Remap4’, Athens, Greece 2012 ‘Vinyl in het atelier’, Mu.ZEE, Ostend, Belgium ‘Celluloid Brushes’, Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin, Germany

Nicolas Bourthoumieux (1985 Toulouse, France), lives and works in Brussels, Belgium and Bagnères de Luchon, France

Multidisciplinary artist, Nicolas Bourthoumieux works with painting, photography, video, sculpture and installation. His research revolves around the concepts of time, space and borders, whether physical or abstract. Between minimalism and figuration, his work refers to the codes of the history of art, philosophy and the history of humanity. He studied sculpture at ENSAV la Cambre in Brussels where he also taught video art. His works were exhibited in Belgium, France, Portugal, Germany and Serbia. Among his individual shows, the following exhibitions stand out: Nós e Eles, (São Paul, 2018); Ailleurs, 76,4 (Brussels, 2017), Der Tag der doppelten Morgendämmerung, Fugitif (Leipzig, 2016), Le dernier second,  B.A.D. (Brussels, 2015), Farewell spit, SKREI (Porto, 2015) and Nicolas Bourthoumieux, Catherine Bastide gallery (Brussels, 2015).