Conceptual artist Daniel de Paula creates sculptures and installations from objects and images he appropriates, borrows, and acquires from the public sector and corporate entities. An important aspect of de Paula’s practice is the thematization of his negotiations with institutions and the bureaucratic processes and legal procedures that enable his access to the objects and media he uses as raw material in his works. These frameworks broaden de Paula’s focus and dredge up intertwined histories of geological, social, political, and global economic developments. Imbued with these narratives, de Paula’s works materialize the undercurrents of power, capital, and, sometimes, corruption that influence the function and dysfunction of local and global systems.
Opening on January 20, 17:00 - 19:00 at Lumen Travo Gallery
GALLERY WEEKEND
SPECIAL OPENING TIMES :
Friday, January 19: 5-8 pm
Saturday, January 20: 12-6pm
Exhibition running until March 2, 2024
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to reach your studio
in a Niemeyer edifice,
I use the lift,
the operator’s hand gestures
unfold obsolete labor,
a press of buttons,
a heron gleaning prey,
peripatetic entity,
it whispers:
“there are no more jobs, money,
equatorial auroras”,
doors open
1000 meters over
—the world’s most modern mine—
under performance-enhancing substances
a limb drills and
is touched by the texture of a cut,
a flow of flesh,
someone else tasked to cleanse,
knowing further oozes will follow,
the scrubbing halts,
stains persist
his immobility
unfurls language, a stigma
—one’s time exchanged for
the maintenance of polished surfaces—
he snaps out of it, googles
how to remove blood:
“steel brush”,
all products were once mountains,
things made are erasure,
the floor shines
damage and job done,
now he writes and unionizes
I call my gallerist, she finger taps a password,
sparks a lighter
—capitalism is combustion,
everything available will burn—
and in planetary mourning
sells shadows,
emails, smiles,
dresses impeccably,
and asks me if
I came across newfound distrust
of totalizing ideological systems
I hang up,
the culmination of my steps
a knock, withheld
I think of you,
howl a stone as
my apology,
it glides, skips,
drowns,
the ripples reach you
—all materiality is a language—
and you “get things”,
you read with skin:
“I’m sorry
for acknowledging abstractions
—capital, property, labor, value—
I know it hurts,
my self-critique
our self-annihilation,
only traversing this distance
can I return to
love, transformed”
I can finally enjoy my mother’s epitaph:
to preserve her name
as “payer” of the house’s lighting bill
—not all infrastructure is evil—
a feel of light switches,
every powerline flicker
her voice
“cannibal spirits
do violence to words”[1],
redemption,
[1] the quotation, and title of the exhibition, “cannibal spirits / do violence to words”, is taken from Rosmarie Waldrop’s 1980 poem When They Have Senses