Persistence of conscience: marks of Cristina Tejo's identity *

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It is known that it is painful, if not impossible, to escape our time. Despite the subjectivity guiding our experience in the world, the situation nourishes the look and develops the knowledge that generates the work. Therefore, it would not be unreasonable or even frivolous to claim that all authors and artists are the fruit of their times, even if their works go beyond understanding and relevance to other contexts and generations. In this way, we could say that Letícia Parente is located in this lineage: her work expresses her time. His videos touch on the resizing of identities, the relocation of social roles, the use of the body as a discursive support, the escalation of exacerbated consumerism and the call to explore new media, aspects that characterize the art of the second half of the 20th century. These elements, however, combine in a very peculiar way in the trajectory of this paradigmatic artist of Brazilian conceptual art and historically base part of the current production that deals with these issues.

Letícia's keen understanding of the female body stands out as a target of reification in a period of extreme questioning of the position of women in society, a corroboration of Simone de Beauvoir's statements that women are not born, they become. The imprisonment of the female visual and identity construction procedures is represented by subversions and parodies of everyday situations in domestic environments, simultaneously simple and with high imagery power. In Preparation I, the banal act of beautifying yourself to go out becomes the wearing of a mask. The sliding of the lipstick does not show the artist's lip lines, but because it is applied over an adhesive tape it becomes a drawing of the lips, a representation over the real part. The eyeliner draws eyes on the tape. Makeup takes on a masking character. What is supposed to be done to emphasize female beauty presents itself as falsification, deceit.

In another performance without an audience, the artist opens a closet and hangs on a hanger through her own clothes. In this other comment about the props that can guarantee femininity, it is more evident the criticism of the human objectification process, already identified as homo consumericus1. Clothes and women are so confused that they do not part. The garment that increasingly gains the power to define identity and status sticks to the individual, who no longer seems to mean anything without his symbol of placement and expression. Still under the approach of adherence and contamination of identity by clothes and consumption, Letícia Parente lies down on an ironing board. His fur suit is ironed. There are no tricks. The rawness of the act is one of the ways to amplify the urgency of his critical discourse, just as it was done in the 1970s, like the challenging and risky performances of Marina Abramovic and Chris Burden, among others.

The forcefulness of the image (which is directly linked to the truth, to reality) is a resource widely used by artists from the second half of the 20th century. Seeing is believing and in the case of Letícia, like many other artists, the action seen is the action practiced. Trademark, exponential work by the artist from Ceará, again appropriates the skin. No longer as a distinction between individual and consumption, but as a writing surface. The artist embroiders the words “Made in Brazil” on the sole of her foot in a large close-up of the camera. Even knowing that this recurring game in the northeastern hinterland does not hurt the epidermis and is reversible, the act causes apprehension and discomfort. The intention and the symbolic charge of his performance are evident: the belonging marked with severity and aggression that is eternalized in our imagination. The preference for the English language and the use of a traditional technique from his native region highlight another identity issue, the cultural one. A constant in Brazilian intellectual debates since Brazil's independence, questions about foreign influence and cultural colonialism resonate strongly not only in the country, but internationally, thanks to the process of political and economic independence that various societies have been going through since the 1960s , in addition to the increase in the flow of global immigration. These topics also serve as a background for Preparation II. A person applies vaccines against cultural colonialism, racism, political and art mystifications. The action is followed by filling out a conventional vaccination card.

“The man with the arm and the arm of the man” marks a later phase of Letícia Parente's investigations. His focus moves to a more comprehensive discussion of the body and includes affection and communication as catalysts for his work. The tone assumed in these works of the late 1970s tends towards the playful and assimilates the other (the artist ceases to be the protagonist of the actions and starts to orchestrate the works). In this video, Letícia talks about the mythology of the virility and resistance expected from the male body. A bright advertisement for a fitness center shows the tireless movement of a weightlifter contracting his biceps, in a clear display of strength. After a long period of exposure to the repeated sequence of neon, an image of a flesh-and-blood boy copying arm movement is superimposed. We see your attempt to keep the machine going and its gradual failure. Is it an anticipation of the gender discussion that has only recently updated feminist arguments?

Speculate and Who blinked first start from mirroring and complementation as an argument. In the first, we observe a process of dialogue and reciprocity. A couple seeks to clarify their listening process. With each speech, the conversation becomes more complex without the pair slipping in the mutual understanding of their actions. The second video places a couple facing a TV. We only see their reflections on the television set and we must pay attention to the cause of the end of the game. As soon as one of the two blinks, the video goes dark and the contest ends. Potentially a work of perception, Who blinked first also activates the ability to look at the other, to stop in someone's face, even though this encounter is mediated by the video. This affective aspect is completed by De Aflictibus, a sequence of slides of all types of body interlacing. Plastic experimentation that has become frequent in recent years, Letícia Parente rhythms images of body fusions with a phrase that looks more like a seriously chanted mantra. Current Brazilian contemporary production owes a lot to the investigation of this artist and her generation. Reigning amnesia hinders the emergence of poignant and not naive experimentalism.

 

1. Placement of Gilles Lipovetsky in Hypermodern Times, pp 122.

* Cristiana Tejo is director of the Museum of Modern Art Aloísio Magalhães