sobre Luzia Simons
Identidade como uma construção cultural é um tema central na obra de Luzia
Simons. Suas fotografias, performances e filmes frequentemente contêm esse
questionamento, por mais que seja sutil. Na série “Stockage”, por exemplo, a artista usa tulipas para questionar identidade social e cria uma metáfora da globalização. Originárias do Irã e da Turquia, e posteriormente levadas para a Holanda,
essas flores se tornaram objeto de desejo e símbolo de status social. Nas suas
imagens, a artista também questiona a natureza morta holandesa. Congela o
efêmero no tempo, questionando aquilo que nos fornece raízes e identidade hoje,
no mundo globalizado, na era da transitoriedade.
Inspirada na prática dos fotogramas, registos fotográficos feitos sem câmera,
em papel fotográfico originalmente introduzido por Man Ray, Simons desenvolveu
seu próprio tipo de registo, o escanograma, como uma nova forma de ver, sem
um ponto de vista ou foco central, ao contrário das fotografias comuns. Por meio
dessa técnica, os objetos são colocados diretamente sobre um scanner industrial
que capta os menores detalhes e variações de cor de forma linear. Esses escanogramas, expandidos em larga escala e dotados de uma iluminação dramática tipicamente barroca, habita um espaço indefinido entre o registo simples e a metáfora.
Luzia Simons nasceu em 1953, em Quixadá. Vive e trabalha em Berlim. Flowers
and mushrooms (Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Áustria, 2013), Kreise | circles
(Museen der Stadt Bamberg, Bamberg, Alemanha, 2013), Wenn Wünsche wahr
werden (Kunsthalle Emden, Emden, Alemanha, 2013), Lost paradise (Mönchehaus
Museum Goslar, Goslar, Alemanha, 2012), Flowers in photography (Tokyo Art
Museum, Tóquio, Japão, 2012); Time, death and beauty (Foto Kunst Stadtforum,
Innsbruck, Áustria, 2011); e Nature forte (Kunstverein Wilhelmshöhe, Ettlingen,
Alemanha, 2009) são algumas das mostras coletivas de que participou nos últimos
anos. Suas exposições individuais incluem: Luzia Simons (Pinacoteca do Estado de
São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil, 2013); Luzia Simons (Kunstverein Bamberg, Bamberg,
Alemanha, 2012); Instaprondleiding (Museum de Buitenplaats, Eelde, Holanda,
2011); Luzia Simons (Centre d’Art de Nature, Château Chaumont-Sur-Loire, França,
2009).
Tem trabalhos em coleções públicas como as de Graphische Sammlung der Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Alemanha; Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, França;
Casa de las Américas, Havana, Cuba; University of Essex Collection of Latin American Art, Essex, Inglaterra; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil;
e Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, entre outros.
about Luzia Simons
Identity as a cultural construct is a central theme to Luzia Simons’ works.
Her photographs, performances, and films usually contain that inquiry, subtle
though it may be. In the Stockage series, for instance, Simons uses tulips in
order to question social identity and create a metaphor for globalization: originally from Iran and Turkey, and later taken to The Netherlands, these flowers
have become an object of desire and a symbol of social status. In her images,
the artist also questions the Dutch still life; she freezes the ephemeral in time,
and thus questions what lends us roots and identity today, in the globalized
world, in the age of the transitory.
Inspired by the practice of photograms, camera-less recordings on photographic paper originally introduced by Man Ray, Simons developed her own
type of recording, the scanogram; as a new way of seeing, devoid of a point
of view or central focus, unlike usual photographs. In this technique, objects
are placed directly upon a huge industrial scanner which captures the smallest details and color variations in linear fashion. The scanograms, expanded in
large scale and endowed with dramatic, typically baroque lighting, inhabit an
undefined space in between the simple recording and the metaphor.
Luzia Simons was born in 1953 in Quixadá. She lives and works in Berlin.
Recent group shows include Flowers and mushrooms (Museum der Moderne,
Salzburg, Austria, 2013), Kreise | circles (Museen der Stadt Bamberg, Bamberg,
Germany, 2013), Wenn Wünsche wahr werden (Kunsthalle Emden, Emden,
Germany, 2013), Lost paradise (Mönchehaus Museum Goslar, Goslar, Germany,
2012), Flowers in photography (Tokyo Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2012); Time,
death and beauty (Foto Kunst Stadtforum, Innsbruck, Austria, 2011); and
Nature forte (Kunstverein Wilhelmshöhe, Ettlingen, Germany, 2009). Recent
solo shows include Luzia Simons (Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São
Paulo, Brazil, 2013); Luzia Simons (Kunstverein Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany,
2012); Instaprondleiding (Museum de Buitenplaats, Eelde, Holland, 2011); Luzia
Simons (Centre d’Art de Nature, Château Chaumont-Sur-Loire, France, 2009).
Her works feature in the public collections of the Graphische Sammlung der
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany; Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris,
France; Casa de las Américas, Havana, Cuba; University of Essex Collection of
Latin American Art, Essex, England; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São
Paulo, Brazil; and Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, among others.
Using modern scanning techniques, the artist produces images of flowers. In this way,
her images not only come to include the ideal forms of blossoming beauty, but also
faults, malfunctions and the start of irrevocable decay. Simons’ art, however, is not
primarily concerned with the warning of vanitas - the reminder of the transience of all
being in the old paintings -, but with the rather rambling tale of a cultural symbol. The
tulip thus becomes a metaphor of mobility, globalisation and intercultural identity.
stockage
Stockage 69 2009
scanograma, montagem em metacrilato/scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed 6 -- 100 x 300 cm
Stockage 48 2006
scanograma ampliado em lâmbda, montagem em metacrilato/scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed 1/6 -- 45 x 120 cm
Stockage 49 2006
scanograma ampliado em lâmbda, montagem em metacrilato/
scanogram enlarged on lambda print, mounting on dia sec ed AP -- 70 x 270 cm
Stockage 75 2009
scanograma, impressão sobre papel fotográfico, montagem em metacrilato/
scanogram, photographic print, mounting on dia sec
ed 3 -- 60 x 250 x 2 cm
Missão beleza
Christoph Tannert - 2010
Mission beauty
Christopher Tanner - 2010
Na arte, muitas vezes nos sentimos como se estivéssemos em um jardim paradisíaco. A pós-modernidade super-estetizante consegue expressar justamente os
seus discursos oscilantes e pluralistas apenas por meio de “floreios”. Do ponto
de vista da metalinguagem, a primavera é „floristicamente“ mais bonita, quando
o jardineiro percebe florescer aquilo que jamais esperava. Nesse contexto, não
há suavidade que baste para retratar o objeto e para amolecer o radicalismo da
liberdade e do super-ego. Edouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe,
Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, entre outros, lograram fazê-lo.
Se nos escanogramas de Luzia Simons se constrói nobreza sobre altas hastes,
se a beleza ainda vive por um curto espaço de tempo no pathos de sua efemeridade, cresce o reconhecimento de que o anseio pela felicidade precisará ficar
restrito apenas ao próprio anseio e que a morte exige o seu quinhão. Quer parecer que essas imagens seriam parte de um rito de anseio nostálgico, através do
qual deverá ser suspensa a efemeridade, mas que essas imagens enquanto peças
móveis com perspectiva em profundidade, estranhamente cimentam o efêmero.
Aqui, uma tulipa no momento em que abre sua flor, auratizando a sua substância de anseio nostálgico, sorvendo-nos para dentro de um átimo de tempo
fantástico, num turbilhão de acontecimentos diante da escuridão do fundo, difícil
de absorver de imediato, deixando o observador levemente aturdido olhando
para fora do canteiro. Acolá, arrebatamentos de pétalas, que, aliás, Luzia Simons
não vai buscar em um repositório de imagens, mas transfere diretamente do
vaso para o scanner, nos mostra o drama secreto que transcorre na natureza: a
luta de morte, secreta, sob a bela superfície, que faz com que as frutas apodreçam no prato ou as flores murchem.
Trata-se do pathos da efemeridade, que domina cada uma dessas imagens de
Luzia Simons, do luto pela beleza já perdida, apesar de toda a aparente exuberância, constituindo um hino a Eros e Tanatos.
Temos de adaptar aos ambientes os nossos desejos de idílio, observando que
as verdadeiras catástrofes sempre transcorrem às escondidas.
Flores não podem florir em beleza eterna. A beleza eternizada, que Luzia
Simons busca implantar em suas imagens, contra o tempo que passa, é um
relato da atração que exerce a efemeridade da vida, assim como da delicadeza e
da eufonia que florescem a partir do nada e que ao nada retornam. A memória
torna-se uma categoria que move a arte. Ela explicitamente torna-se sujet.
Incomuns em seu efeito claro-escuro, de concepção barroca mesmo, os
escanogramas de Luzia Simons parecem reverenciar as imagens de Francisco de
Zurbarán, com a tênue diferença de que a existência das tulipas colocadas sobre
o scanner tem uma sonoridade trazida do silêncio para o rumor barulhento da
metrópole, voltando depois ao silêncio. É por isso também que a encenação da
exposição de Luzia Simons no Estúdio 2 do Künstlerhaus Bethanien, complementada por instalações de piso com doces turcos (lokum), atinge um grau máximo
de calma, apresentando apenas poucas obras pontuais nas paredes.
Art often feels like a paradisical garden, whose paths of changeable and
pluralist discourse have been laid out by its over-aestheticising creator, postmodernism, in a disarmingly roundabout way. And springtime is at its most
beautiful when, along such paths, the gardener discovers an unexpected
bloom. Such finds can never be lovely enough to pacify the radicalness of
freedom and the super-ego, as Edouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Georgia
O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and others have all successfully shown.
When floral noblesse trumpets from Luzia Simons’s scannograms, when
beauty flowers for a little while still in the pathos of its transitoriness, the
realisation occurs that the striving for happiness must remain a striving, and
that death demands its tribute. It almost appears as if these images are part
of a rite that, instead of effecting the longed-for abolition of transitoriness,
strangely enough cements it as tableau with depth perspective.
Here a tulip has just opened its petals, to release its aura of yearning and
draw us into a short, fantastical period of time in which events swirl before
a background darkness, almost overtaxing our ability to take them in until we
extract our gaze, lightly intoxicated, from the flowerbed. Here one of Luzia
Simons’s peaceable petal reveries – which are not taken from photographic
material, but directly from vase to scanner – reveals to us one of nature’s
secret dramas: the death struggle, hidden beneath the gorgeous surface, that
rots both fruit and flower.
It is the pathos of transitoriness that dominates every one of these images,
the sorrow for beauty already lost amidst the apparent splendour in a hymn to
Eros and Thanatos. Our desire for the idyllic must be adapted to our realities,
in which the true catastrophe always takes place unseen.
Flowers cannot bloom for ever. The everlasting beauty with which Luzia Simons, in defiance of the passing of time, imbues her images, tells of
the charms of life’s transitoriness, of tenderness and melodiousness, which
emerge from and return to the void. Recollection becomes a category of art,
becomes its explicit subject matter.
Remarkable in their chiaroscuro, almost baroque in their composition, Luzia
Simons’s scannograms amount to a negation of the images of Francisco de
Zurbarán, with the subtle difference that the existence of the scanned tulips
has a sonority, which is called out of silence into the metropolitan din and
returns to silence. This is why the staging of Luzia Simons’s exhibition in Künstlerhaus Bethanien’s Studio 2, with its floor ornamentation of Turkish lokum
candies, radiates a high degree of stillness in its presentation of only a few
works in a focussed hanging.
Because of their deafening silence these images contain within them a
quiet sphere of retreat, something out of the ordinary, to whose energetic
capacity Friedrich Hölderlin, for example, in “Hyperion”, refers when seeking
to espy the holiest in the most beautiful.Those whose mission is beauty are
Devido à sua filiação ao inaudito, as imagens da artista embutem uma esfera
de retração silenciosa, algo extra-ordinário, a cujo potencial energético p.ex.
Friedrich Hölderlin se refere em seu Hipérion, quando vislumbrava no mais belo
também o mais sagrado.
Muitas vezes atribui-se vaidade àqueles cuja missão é a beleza. Mas apenas
aquele que acreditar na beleza da natureza conseguirá adorar flores.
Vários artistas e estudiosos da arte do século XX ressaltaram que o pendor
para o belo era uma tendência implícita da arte. Herbert Marcuse encerrou uma
palestra com a seguinte frase, em tradução livre: “Aquele que recusa o belo na
arte, é reacionário no sentido objetivo”(1). Trata-se de nos atermos à autonomia de categorias estéticas, até mesmo quando determinadas obras de arte
as negam. De fato, a arte oscila de ponta a ponta entre a bela aparência e sua
contestação. No entanto, trata-se de diferenciar entre a beleza que surge pela
forma estética, portanto também na apresentação do feio, e a beleza buscada
ostensivamente enquanto tal, ou seja, enquanto afeto no observador.
Se Barnett Newman vê o impulso da arte moderna no desejo de destruir a
beleza, então Luzia Simons pertence a uma facção de artistas que não segue o
ductus da negação radical. Reconhecimento e ampliação da percepção são vistos
por ela num „renouveau“ (no sentido usado por Jean Clair), no renascimento
de categorias estéticas que o vanguardismo combatia. Com a redescoberta e a
revalorização do barroco, articula-se em suas imagens um interesse ao mesmo
tempo novo e antigo pela beleza e pela sublimidade, ou seja, por termos opostos
à estética radical de vanguarda que preconiza subversão e da negação: o espírito
da negação, portanto, converte-se, voltando-se para o positivo.
Luzia Simons recusa-se a aceitar o presente como se aceita uma tempestade
de neve. Suas imagens, objetivando hedonisticamente o agora, pleiteiam com
ênfase estética a realização do belo e do verdadeiro no instante mesmo, favorizando um “paradise now”.
swiftly accused of vanity. But only those who believe in the beauty of nature
are able to idolize flowers.
That the love of beauty is an implicitly artistic tendency has been emphasised
by many twentieth-century artists and art theorists. Herbert Marcuse concluded
a lecture with the words: “Those who reject beauty in art are in an objective
sense reactionary.”(1) It is necessary to hold to the autonomy of aesthetic
categories even when individual artworks negate them. Art does in fact oscillate
between surface beauty and its denial. But we need to differentiate between
the beauty that emerges through aesthetic form – i.e. also in the presentation
of the ugly – and the beauty that is demonstratively sought as such – i.e. as an
affect in the viewer.
If Barnett Newman sees the impulse of modern art in the desire to destroy
beauty, then Luzia Simons belongs to that group of artists for whom radical
negation is not characteristic. She finds insight and heightened perception in a
“renouveau” (in the sense of Jean Clair), in a renaissance of the aesthetic categories that were attacked by modernism. In their reassessment of the baroque
her works give articulation to a new-old interest in beauty and the sublime,
i.e. in counter-concepts to the radical avant-garde aesthetic of subversion and
negation. The spirit of negation thus becomes one of affirmation.
Luzia Simons refuses to be snowed under by contemporary tendencies.
Her images, hedonistically aimed at the present moment, vote with aesthetic
emphasis for the instant fulfilment of the beautiful and the true, for a paradise
now.
Stockage 54 2009
scanograma, montagem em metacrilato/scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed of 6 -- 90 x 180 cm
Stockage 46 2010
scanograma, montagem em metacrilato/scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed 6 -- 78 x 180 cm
Stockage 115 2011
scanograma, impressão jato de tinta, montagem em metacrilato/scanogram, inkjet print, mounting on dia sec
ed of 5 -- 200 x 83 cm
Stockage 13 (tríptico/triptych) 2005
scanograma ampliado em lâmbda, montagem em metacrilato/
scanogram enlarged in lambda print, mounting on dia sec
ed AP -- 120 x 330 cm
Deblooming Tulips
Michel Métayer - 2006
There is hardly anything more peculiar than scanning tulips. The result is
puzzling: images which are both remindful and not of photographs. Stockage 2
shows several scans in a fragile arrangement, a scattering of leaves forming a
subtle mingling of colour and movement, of nuances and shadows, like a ballet
with seven dancers wearing seven wide silk gowns, each different and colourful, hovering above our heads, so close and yet so far away, and as elusive as
frescoes in baroque churches. The splendour of the sky on a single image on
the wall – on the scanned image, which contains everything, omnis in unum
– transgresses its own limits and spreads to the left, to the right, above and
below, indefinitely: the edges of the petals are similar to lace, showing infinite
numbers of folds. These images are all about seduction, they are pure temptation, progressively freeing themselves from their open closing yet letting a
lasting veil recover their inner life, unbeknownst to the world. While the pistil
emerges from the middle of the chalice to grasp the light, the tulip stoically
refuses to expose itself. What if the secret it withholds is unspeakable? Seduction can never be complete. The slight pressure of the flower against the glass
and the few flattened leaves – despite the absence of actual weight – are
subtle indicators of their materiality and the Earth’s attraction, proof of the
bodily constituency of this celestial ballet of folds and colours.
Luzia Simon’s works do neither intend to capture the shape and colour of
the tulips – as would be the case in Flemish painting – nor to show the entire
flower, let alone a bunch of flowers. Neither structure nor composition really
matters. The scanogram’s format, which at times resembles panoramic views,
allows them to concentrate on a few details, displaying the flowers like landscapes to be discovered. The closer parts appear magnified ten-fold, maybe
hundred-fold, their sheer size capturing the human eye, which keeps its focus
and blends out everything that does not belong to them. It would not make
sense to take a closer look at what surrounds them. Once the petals slide into
the background, their outlines and colours dilute and become bright spots.
Further away from the scanner’s glass panel, they fade into darkness. The
close-ups, however, have a disturbing bodily presence. The more detailed, the
stranger they seem.
Gilles Deleuze has identified the fold as a characteristic feature of Baroque.
Clothing, he writes, frees the folds from the finite body; elements such as the
air or the wind sneak in the space between the clothing and the body, elements which are in turn composed of folds, or are cause for the emergence
of new infinite folds. This autonomy of clothing and cloth unfolds in a game of
intensity and expression.
Luzia Simon’s scanograms share the same features than Baroque painting.
Matter expands in diluted panoramas, excluding the existence of a horizon
line and leading the gaze back onto the object which is represented on the
image or is imaginable beyond its frame. Even though the tulip transgresses
the formal limits of this first medium in order to take shape in gigantic mosaics
formed of yellow and pink Turkish delights, it nevertheless remains an offered
tulip. Matter invests the entire space, severing all links with the spirit as well.
The tulip is no more than an allegory, but an allegory that has lost its sense.
The more precise the details, the greater the importance of the skin; the more
size and presence impose themselves, the more the artist is assailed by them.
All of them require access to form, all demand to be treated and represented
with the greatest possible sense of equality. One is tempted to be impartial
and pay tribute to them. But any attempt to do so would be vain. As a matter
of fact, is impossible for the artist to take their profusion into account: the
more attention she grants them, the quicker she must back away from them
and let anarchy take over. Their opulence diverts the gaze from the totality of
the image, signifying merely itself. Empty – this allegory is empty because it
signifies too much. It moves in suspension, only seemingly bearing a relationship to a centre which no longer exists, which has never existed – no more
today than in the 17th century.
Installations, and particularly scanograms, affirm a presence composed of
form, illusion, disappearance and a dizzying of the senses. The softness of the
colours, the movement, the whirl and the intense sweetness of the Turkish
delights; everything concurs to shroud outside reality. The tulips deflect the
absence of a potential centre onto themselves, not because they intend to occupy it but because conflicts and violence in the world submerge us and force
us to forget.
These images, these installations are nothing but vanities in that they
reveal the existence of the world’s futility. Their utter beauty induces excessive
fragility. The panoramas are neither interior nor exterior panoramas but mere
partial views. The installations made of Turkish delights are so immoderately
big that the gaze cannot encompass them, nor can they be observed in full
from a grown-up’s perspective. The gaze loses itself in the vast ornamentation on the ground, eventually reaching the tulip by picking up the sketch. They
are vanities of a world that ceaselessly looks at itself and makes detail seem
essential.
Stockage 57 2008
scanograma, montagem em metacrilato/scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed PA -- 180 x 300 cm
Stockage 86 2010
scanograma, montagem em metacrilato/scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed 3 -- 180 x 294 cm
Stockage
Claudia Emmert - 2006
Na obra de Luzia Simons, a natureza morta torna-se um complexo testemunho da diversidade cultural e sócio-política. A artista se confronta com a história
da tulipa, que se transformou em um importante símbolo de identificação cultural
tanto no ocidente como oriente. Partindo desse contexto histórico, a tulipa
passa a ser vista por Luzia Simons como metáfora da globalização, da identidade
intercultural e do nomadismo cultural. A artista questiona o enraízamento do
indivíduo nos tempos atuais. O que nos dá o sentimento de pertença, o que nos
confere identidade ?
Suas exposições em Istambul, Konstanz e Ostfildern giram em torno de dois
elementos centrais: as imagens em grande formato e uma instalação de piso formada por doces turcos, os “rahat lokum“. Enquanto as imagens de tulipas scaneadas, retomam, numa linguagem contemporânea, referências à tradição pictórica
holandesa da natureza-morta, a instalação de “rahat lokum” cita os ornamentos
turcos florais das tulipas de folhas pontiagudas.
Com seu ciclo “Stockage”, Luzia Simons propõe um interessante fio condutor,
partindo do século XVII até a atualidade, refletindo os aspectos típicos da globalização e das marcas da multiculturalidade. A diversidade de alusões metafóricas,
que lidam explicitamente com temas atuais de nossa sociedade, transforma a
flor, este sujeito aparentemente “gracioso”, em um meio discursivo instigante .
Stockage 128 2011
scanograma, impressão sobre papel fotográfico, montagem
em metacrilato//scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed PA2 -- 501,5 x 349,0 cm
Stockage 127 2011
scanograma, impressão sobre papel fotográfico, montagem
em metacrilato//scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed PA2 -- 501,5 x 349,0 cm
Stockage 82 2011
scanograma, impressão sobre papel fotográfico, montagem
em metacrilato//scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed PA2 -- 501,5 x 349,0 cm
Stockage 114 2011
scanograma, impressão jato de tinta, montagem em metacrilato/
scanogram, inkjet print, mounted on dia sec ed 5 -- 126 x 180 cm cada/each
Stockage 89 2013
scanograma, montagem em metacrilato/
scanogram on dia sec
ed PA -- 130 x 120 cm
Stockage 63 1996
scanograma, montagem em metacrilato/
scanogram, mounting on diasec
ed 5/6 -- 28 x 25 cm
Stockage 80 2010
scanograma, montagem em metacrilato/scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed 6 -- 130 x 65 cm
Stockage 136 2013
scanograma, impressão sobre papel fotográfico,
montagem em metacrilato/
scanogram, print on cotton paper, mounted on diasec
ed 6/6 -- 140 x 100 cm
Stockage 135 2013
scanograma, impressão sobre papel fotográfico,
montagem em metacrilato/
scanogram, print on cotton paper, mounted on diasec
ed 6/6 -- 140 x 100 cm
Stockage 114 2011
scanograma, impressão jato de tinta,
montagem em metacrilato/
scanogram, inkjet print, mounted on dia sec
ed 2/5 -- 126 x 180 cm
Luzia Simons
Prof. Werner Knoedgen - 2006
Luzia Simons
Prof. Werner Knoedgen - 2006
A máquina fotográfica é construída como o olho humano. Em suas características físicas da óptica, dadas pela natureza, sua construção corresponde à composição de lente convexa, feixes de luz focalizados e imagem reproduzida com
foco central. Temos, então um ponto de vista individual, dotado de uma área de
recepção sensível à luz, onde surge uma reprodução bidimensional da realidade.
A dimensão da profundidade, nesse contexto, é compensada pelo teorema da
„perspectiva“.
O scanner, em oposição à máquina fotográfica, não tem mais um “ponto
de vista”. A posição outrora assegurada do observador entrou em movimento,
sendo agora „modo de vista“. Feito para a digitalização de documentos, o scanner não possui lente nem foco. Ele não aceita centro, nem profundidade, nem
ponto de fuga. Ele nada conhece além do justaposto, tateando como um cego,
arquivando ponto a ponto da imagem com precisão, impiedoso. Tudo o que aparece em primeiro plano tem, para ele, igual luminosidade e nitidez, tudo o que
aparece mais ao fundo, perde-se numa escuridão incerta, sem perspectiva.
Quando Luzia Simons coloca flores reais sobre o scanner – e não uma reprodução feita anteriormente – ela toma uma decisão de amplo alcance para um
instrumento implacável, que de todo e qualquer volume reconhece como válida
apenas a área de superfície. É como se colocasse lado a lado a globalização
iminente e a técnica adequada de medição. Neste contexto, a escolha do motivo
das tulipas não é aleatória. Uma vez que a tulipa, outrora valiosa como o ouro,
não é originária da Holanda, mas sim do Irã e da Turquia, onde até hoje simboliza
a vida de uma pessoa, ela poderá representar de modo especial o interesse
artístico de Luzia Simons. O fato de todo transplante, toda mudança de cultura
representar uma perda dolorosa de continuidade, mas no contexto da dialética
de todo e qualquer intercâmbio significar também um enriquecimento não menos
importante da identidade, é um tema que a artista vem desenvolvendo há bastante tempo („Transit“, „Face Migration“, „Luftwurzeln“ [“Raízes aéreas”]).
Novamente, os motivos encontram-se fragmentados, mais que evidentes
em seus detalhes e ampliados até uma dimensão inverossímil. Beleza barroca e
efemeridade de peças florais clássicas são, aqui, citação irônica. Ao contrário,
essas tulipas apresentam uma postura decidida, teatral, como se fossem atores
de um grande drama cromático – mesmo parecendo tratar-se aqui menos de
indivíduos do que de “estrelas” curiosas, ou seja, de representantes. Os corpos
das flores, reproduzidos de modo pouco usual e a irrealidade dos percursos
cromáticos de ricas nuances lembram, é bem verdade, as pinceladas saturadas de
cor dos antigos retratos e naturezas-mortas. Mas a chapa de vidro do scanner,
que revela bruscamente o peso nunca antes experimentado de pétalas, comprovando, como o suporte do objeto sob o microscópio, até mesmo o menor resquício de pólen, caído por acaso – esse scanner trata a divisória transparente entre
realidade e reprodução como se fosse uma pele fina e sensível. Do indivíduo,
restou apenas a vulnerabilidade; de sua beleza oculta e latente, restou apenas a
observação.
Como se não bastasse, Luzia Simons coloca os escanogramas, geralmente de
grande formato, no contexto discursivo de uma instalação no espaço – entre eles
inúmeros dípticos e trípticos, cujos elementos ela entrementes libera também
The camera is built like the human eye. In terms of the physical conditions of a convex lens, the focused directing of rays, and imaging in a
high-resolution center, its construction corresponds to the natural laws of
optics. There is consequently a single focal point, equipped with a lightsensitive receptor surface, on which a two-dimensional depiction of reality
arises. The dimension of depth is thereby compensated by the theorem of
perspective.
In contrast to the camera, the scanner no longer has a “point of view”.
The viewer’s once secure site has been set in motion and become a “way
of view”. Constructed to digitalize documents, the scanner has neither a
lens nor a focus. It accepts no center, no depth, and no vanishing point.
It knows nothing but proximity, feels its way forward like a blind person,
and registers pixel after pixel with merciless precision. For it, everything in
the foreground is equally bright and sharply focused, and everything going
deeper is lost in uncertain darkness lacking perspective.
When Luzia Simons places on the scanner real flowers– and not, for
example, a previously prepared reproduction – she makes a far-reaching
decision for an inexorable instrument that admits only the surface of any
volume. It is as if she were providing the fitting measuring technology for
the coming globalization. The motif of tulips is not coincidental. The tulip,
once as valuable as gold, does not originally come from Holland, but from
Iran and Turkey, where to this day it is an emblem of a person’s life, so
it can stand especially well for Luzia Simons’ artistic interest. That every
transplantation, every move from one culture to another means a painful
loss of continuity, but at the same time, in the dialectic of every exchange,
also an enrichment of identity, is a theme the artist has long pursued
(“Transit”, “Face Migration”, “Luftwurzeln” [aerial roots]).
Once again, the motifs are fragmented, super-sharp in detail, and
enlarged to the point of improbability. The baroque beauty and transience
of classic flower pictures are thereby more an ironical quotation. Instead,
these tulips bring a theatrical resoluteness with them, as if they were actors in a great drama of color – even if it seems they have less to do with
individuals here than with wondrous “stars”, i.e., with representatives.
The strangely flatly reproduced bodies of the flowers and the unreality of
the highly nuanced color gradients may be reminiscent of the saturated
brushstrokes of old still life and portrait painting. But the glass plate of the
scanner, which suddenly reveals the never before experienced weight of
flower petals and, like a microscope slide, shows even the smallest, coincidentally-shed pollen, thematizes the transparent wall separating reality
and reproduction, as if it were a sensitive, thin skin. All that remains of the
individual is vulnerability; and of its cryptomer beauty, the viewing itself.
Not content with that, Luzia Simons places the usually large-format
scanograms – including numerous diptychs and triptychs, the composition
of whose elements she sometimes leaves to the viewer – in the discursive
context of a room installation. She arranges several hundred kilograms of
lokum – Turkish sweets – in strictly arabesque, again tulip-shaped mosaics
para a composição por parte do espectador. Com vários quilos de lokum, um
doce turco, ela compõe mosaicos organizados em rigorosos arabescos, novamente em forma de tulipa, recobrindo grande parte do chão, criando, assim,
caminhos arbitrários e distanciamentos que chamam atenção para os quadros na
parede. Não raro, o menor escanograma pode estar exposto na parede ao fundo
de uma tulipa de solo especialmente grande. Como uma reversão conceitual de
contradição em conhecimento, trata-se, nesta instalação, do resultado midiático
ainda mais ampliado de uma transgressão cultural. É mais do que mera alusão
aos primeiros „pixels“ da Antiguidade européia, mais do que apenas convocação
interativa do espectador para que se torne, ele mesmo, „scanner“ de um mosaico no chão: trata-se do gesto oriental primevo do excesso, significando uma
devoção humana. E, inesperadamente, instala-se assim uma ligação ainda maior,
que irá se conectar com as lembranças de infância da artista, justamente dos
mesmos doces – no Brasil.
that cover much of the floor surface, thus creating arbitrary paths and a
distance to the wall pictures that sharpens attention. The smallest scanogram often hangs at the end of an especially large floor tulip. In this installation, as in a conceptual toppling from contradictoriness into knowledge,
the aim is the again expanded media finding of a cultural attack. It is more
than an allusion to the early “pixels” of European Antiquity and more than
an interactive summons to the viewer to now become himself the “scanner” of a floor mosaic: It is the oriental primal gesture of profusion that
means human devotion. And quite unexpectedly, this also spans a much
greater arc to the artist’s memories of childhood and to precisely the same
sweets – in Brazil.
Stockage 85 2010
scanograma, montagem em metacrilato/scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed 1/6 -- 100 x 100 cm
Stockage 84 2010
scanograma, montagem em metacrilato/scanogram, mounting on dia sec
ed 1/6 -- 100 x 100 cm
Blacklist 2013
escanograma, impressão sobre papel fotográfico,
montagem em metacrilato/scanogram,
print on cotton paper, mounted on diasec
ed 1/6 -- 120 x 86 cm
Blacklist 2013
escanograma, impressão sobre papel fotográfico,
montagem em metacrilato/scanogram,
print on cotton paper, mounted on diasec
ed 1/6 -- 120 x 86 cm
Blacklist 2013
escanograma, impressão sobre papel fotográfico,
montagem em metacrilato/scanogram,
print on cotton paper, mounted on diasec
ed 1/6 -- 120 x 86 cm
Luzia Simons: between performance documentation and a cornucopia of
botanical poetry
Marko Schacher - 2009
Those who enter the main exhibition room find themselves once again in
the middle of black and white vegetation, in an oversized accessible herbarium.
Initially one might lose and immerse oneself into the only partially recognisable stems, leaves, and flowers, which have been drawn directly onto the
wall in emulsion paint, permanent marker, charcoal, crayon and pencil. Yet if
one stays longer, the supposed picture of a romantic idyll is broken. Simons’
garden is visual art, no idyll of nature. The disproportionate drawings on the
wall accentuate the aesthetic value of nature and extract this into the world
of art. Almost exclusively in white and grey lines, Luzia Simons has transferred
the outlines of the plants into the exhibition room.
Here the artist picks up on a popular subject of art- and cultural history.
In her murals she unites the subjects still life, garden views and depictions of
landscapes, then again almost implicitly broaches the issue of the functionality
of flowers and gardens in the present.
Those who are well-versed in botany or read the annotations of works
realise that the artist has used plants here, which are commonly described
as weeds. Luzia Simons has searched the surrounding area of the Ettlingen
Kunstverein beforehand for wild, rampant plants. She was not interested in
the particular plant genus but rather the variety of forms. The chosen samples
were copied, put in her sketch book and thus conserved. Different drawings were then composed on the computer to a playful overall composition.
Fragments of the drawings were then projected by means of an overhead
projector onto the wall of the Ettlingen Kunstverein. With no clear proportional
relationship to the white walls, the oversized illustrations with various accents
of black and white appear to dance weightlessly along it. The structure of the
development process remains perceptible. The mural can also be perceived
as the result of a performance, which has taken place under the exclusion of
the public in the run up to the exhibition. Most of the lines are not accurately
drafted, many surfaces are not precisely coloured in and outlines are frayed
because the artist has engaged with the existing idiosyncrasies of the room
and its woodchip wallpaper. A diverse yet all together well balanced cornucopia
of the Ettlingen flora emerged.
Actual works on paper and a Flash animation, which pick up on, work
through, combine and confront similar forms in different configurations, show
the great poetic potential of Simons’ drawings.
einzelfahrt
transit
vista da exposição/exhibition view
SESC Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil (2001)
vista da exposição/exhibition view
SESC Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil (2001)
1953
born in quixadá
lives and works in berlin
1998
Camera Obscura, Fotografie Forum international, Frankfurt, Germany
Camera Obscura, 12, Internationale Photoszene, Cologne, Germany
selected solo exhibitions
group exhibitions
2014
Blütezeit, DZ BANK Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
2014
Prática portátil, Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil
2013
Segmentos, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil
Stockage, Festival of Light, Berliner Dom, Berlin, Germany
Im kabinett, Fabian & Claude Walter Galerie, Zürich, Switzerland
2013
Blütenzauber, Museum Bad Arolsen, Bad Arolsen, Germany
XX Bienal de Curitiba, Curitiba, Brazil
Flowers and mushrooms, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria
Kreise | Circles, Museen der Stadt Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany
Wenn Wünsche wahr werden, Kunsthalle Emden, Emden, Germany
BLUMEN / FLOWERS / BLOMSTER, Galerie Mikael Andersen, Berlin, Germany
2012
Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Kunstverein Bamberg, Germany
2011
Instaprondleiding, Museum de Buitenplaats, Eelde, Holland
2010
Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil
2009
Centre d’Art de Nature, Château Chaumont-Sur-Loire, France
2008
Rien ne va plus, Galerie Vero Wollmann, Stuttgart, Germany
Light around, Galerie Andrieu, Berlin, Germany
2006
Stockage, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany
Festival L’Été Photographique, Lectoure, France
2005
Stockage, Institut Franceis d’Istambul, Programma paralelo da 9th Bienal d’Istambul,
Turkey
Stockage, Kunstverein Konstanz, Germany
Städtische Galerie, Ostfildern, Germany
2002
Face migration: sichtvermerke, Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, Germany
2001
Transit, Museu de Arte Sacra de Belém, Belém, Brazil
Através de los espejos, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam, Havana, Cuba
Face migration, Südwestrundfunk Galerie, Stuttgart, Germany
1999
Camera Obscura, Städtische Galerie, Erlangen, Germany
Hinter den Spiegeln, Markgrafentheater, Erlangen, Germany
2012
Lost Paradise, Mönchehaus Museum Goslar, Goslar, Germany
New Media Reloaded, Photography & Video, Galerie von Braunbehrens, Munich, Germany
Power Flower , Blütenzauber in der zeitgenössischen Kunst, Galerie Abart, Stuttgart, Germany
Landscapes, Fabian und Claude Walter Galerie, Zürich, Switzerland
Fleur fatale, Forum Botanische Kunst, Thuengersheim am Main, Germany
Flowers in Photography, Tokyo Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Art Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Kunst 12 Zürich, Fabian und Claude Walter Galerie, Zürich, Switzerland
Stockage, Fototage Trier, Berlin, Germany
Flowers , Contemporary Photography, Fundação Alfred Ehrhardt, Berlin, Germany
2011
Time, Death and Beauty, Foto Kunst Stadtforum, Innsbruck, Austria
Flower Power, Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung, Berlin, Germany
Bloemen! Museum de Buitenplaats, Eelde, Holland
Twenty-Five, Fabian & Claude Walter Galerie, Zürich, Switzerland
Fototage Trier in Berlin, Germany
2010
Vorreiterin, Gabrielle Münter Preis, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin & Frauenmuseum, Bonn,
Germany
Wild Things, Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark
Glück happens, Kunstpalais, Erlangen, Germany
Time, Death & Beauty, Moving Gallery, Omaha, USA
LEBEN elementar, Fototage Trier, Stadtmuseum Simeonstift, Trier, Germany
Beauty, Flowers in Photography, Festivals PhotoSpring, Beijing & Alexander Ochs Galleries,
Beijing, China
2009
Metafísica do Belo, Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil
Nature Forte, Kunstverein Wilhelmshöhe, Ettlingen, Germany
Landscape, FotoTriennale, Brandts Museet for Fotokunst, Odense, Denmark
2008
Flora, Ar / ge Galerie Museum, Bozen, Germany
In voller Blüte, Museum Villa Rot, Burgrieden-Rot, Germany
Garden Eden - A representação do jardim na arte desde 1990, Städtische Galerie
Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany
performances
concept and direction
2007
Garten Eden, Kunsthalle in Emden, Germany
La Passione secondo ABO, Villa Rufolo, Ravelo, Italy
Kunst treibt Blüte, Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, Germany
DSV Kunstkontor, Stuttgart, Germany
2006
Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, Brazil
Kunstmuseum Heidenheim, Germany
Museu de Arte Moderna, Coleção Joaquim Paiva, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2005
Galerie Hoss und Wollmann, Stuttgart, Germany
Stadt - Ansichten, GTZ, Eschborn, Germany
Redefining Maps and Locations, UECLAA, Colchester, England
Territoires Croisés, Artothèque, Caen, France
Art Karlsruhe, Galerie Hoss und Wollmann, Stuttgart, Germany
2004
Installation Urbain Grafittis, 6, Internationale Foto-Triennale, Rahmenprogram, Esslingen, Germany
Coleção Pirelli MASP, Galeria da Caixa Econômica, Brasília, Brazil
2003
Casa France-Brazil, Coleção Pirelli / MASP, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Museu de Arte de São Paulo, 12, Pirelli / MASP, São Paulo, Brazil
Testimonianze nomadi, Fotografia - Festival Internazionale di Roma, Galleria Candido
Portinari, Italy
Foto Arte Brasília, Brazil
2002
Memory Error, Fotografie - Forum International, Frankfurt, Germany
2001
Premio de Fotografía Contemporánea, Casa de las Américas, Havana, Cuba
2000
Schwarzweiss, Photography Now, Berlin, Germany
Space Hotel - Heimat-Kunst, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
1999
Odyssee, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany
1998
The body in the mirror, Musée de L´Elysée Lausanne, in Photographic Center of Skopelos, Greece
1995
Le corps photographié, Artothèque Caen, France
MEMORY ERROR
Zwischen Orient und Okzident, Aalen 2004, Germany
Space Hotel, Heimat-Kunst, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
Städtische Galerie Böblingen, 1999, Germany
Städtische Galerie Erlangen, 1999, Germany
Fotografie, Tanz and elektronic music (with Iris Meinhardt and Michael Knoedgen)
SAVE AS JULIA
Fotografie, Tanz and Soundtrack (mit Julia Nachtmann)
Zapata, Stuttgart, Germany
seminars
2012
Visual Traces in the Restless Present, Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie, Berlin, Germany
public collections
Artothek Fellbach, Germany
Artothèque Caen, Caen, France
Casa de las Américas, Havana, Cuba
Centro Wifredo Lam, Havana, Cuba
Coleção Joaquim Paiva, Brasília, Brazil
Collection University Colchester, Essex, England
Deutsche Leasing AG, Bad Homburg, Germany
Deutsche Sparkassen Verlag, Germany
Domaine de Chaumont sur Loire, France
Ernst & Young, Stuttgart, Germany
Fonds National d Art Contemporain, Paris, France
Fonds Régional d Art Contemporain, Basse-Normandie, France
Graphische Sammlung der Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany
Graphothek der Stadtbücherei Stuttgart, Germany
Kunsthalle in Emden, Emden, Germany
Kupferstich-Kabinett der Staatl, Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany
Landesbank Baden -Württemberg, Germany
Lutz Teutloff Sammlung, Germany
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Museu de Arte Moderna São Paulo, Brazil
Museu de Arte Sacra, Belém, Brazil
Pirelli/ Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil
Regierungspräsidium des Landes Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Sparkasse Euskirchen, Germany
Sparkasse Siegen, Germany
Sparkasse Werra-Meißner, Eschwege-Witzenhausen, Germany
Luzia Simons é representado pela Galeria Nara Roesler
Luzia Simons is represented by Galeria Nara Roesler
www.nararoesler.com.br