OLVIDAR ES MORIR

Reference is made to a peculiar and now fashionable practice within cities across Brazil: in these,  people interested in declaring their love, affection, friendship or any other feelings towards others, do so by means of cotton  they commission from specialised companies.

                                                                                                                The resulting painted banners containing personalised messages are then hung high across streets used routinely by the persons targeted in their daily commutes.

These banner “products” have a standardised look: all bear composed phrases written along horizontally and diagonally disposed lines in juxtaposition, mixing typography and colours in the process.

What interests me in this procedure and constitutes the focal aspect leading to “Olvidar es Morir” – To Forget Is To Die – is the ambiguity contained within a statement, which, in being made public, is pretentiously intended unconditional.

Along the virtuous strokes of a banner painted by a third party, someone who open heartedly states “Jill, you are the best lover in the world” may pretend to be in a state of having nothing to conceal and to be asking for nothing in return.

The public at large will be allowed to know that “you Jill are the best lover in the world” while I the author, remain hidden in the safe haven of anonymity warranted by the hand painted strokes of someone else.   

Then again, however, this apparent detachment is poor at concealing the crippling and shameless intention of someone whose aim, clearly, is the entrapment of his or her beloved one in a network of notoriety and fame. 

This specific visual media, which involves commerce and publicity of subjective feelings, has the power to seal the imagination of the one desired, aside from keeping him or her distant from the public who after being exposed to the message more than once foresees that “Jill” has lost. 

The greeting banner operates, in its own way, like a “woodu”; while contemplative gazing by the public rests time and again on “Jill’s qualities and specificities, the result is the ultimate dismissal of her attributes.

“Olvidar es Morir” is an allegory of such a relationship.

Homage is made when a self-locking message chosen from a parking area (Park.) is grid locked at the intersection formed by a name and a temporal reference (Hoje:Today, Sempre:Forever)

Once the message is trapped, the author takes the key away.  In doing so, he not only gains possession of a situation which is significant to him but that is also contained within the art piece.

Once 24 people (number of padlocks) have gone through this process, the piece will acquire a ‘definitive’ transitory shape...

For the La Habana Biennal period there is no possibility of taking the key away. It will be to each person to maintain the image of when he was able to capture someone's soul.

PATRICIA FURLONG

PERSONAL INFORMATION

BORN 1955, PORTO ALEGRE, BRASIL

EDUCATION

GRADUATED FROM DEPARTMENT OF ARTS, FUNDAÇÃO ARMANDO ÁLVARES PENTEADO, SÃO PAULO, BRASIL

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

1998 - OSWALD DE ANDRADE CULTURAL WORKSHOPS, SÃO PAUO

1997 - OSWALD DE ANDRADE CULTURAL WORKSHOPS, SÃO PAULO

1995 - SÃO PAULO MODERN ART MUSEUM, SÃO PAULO

1991- ALFREDO ANDERSEN ART MUSEUM, CURITIBA

          OSWALD DE ANDRADE CULTURAL WORKSHOPS, SÃO PAULO

1984 - NATIONAL SERVICE OF COMMERCE (SENAC), SÃO PAULO

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

1993 -MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, SÃO PAULO

1992 - SÃO PAULO ART GALLERY, SÃO PAULO

1989 - KRAMER ART GALLERY, SÃO PAULO

1988 - SADALLA ART GALLERY, SÃO PAULO

           ARTE&FATO ART GALLERY, PORTO ALEGRE

1987 - LYNGBY KUNSTFORENING, KOPENHAGEN, DENMARK

           CASA DO BRASIL ART GALLERY, ROME, ITALY

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTED)

2002 - PINACOTECA DO ESTADO, SÃO PAULO

2001 - PAÇO DAS ARTES, SÃO PAULO

2000 - VII HABANA INTERNATIONAL BIENNALE, HABANA, CUBA

           UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM, UBERLÂNDIA

           DRAGÃO DO MAR ART CENTER, FORTALEZA

           MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART , NITERÓI

1999 - MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, SÃO PAULO

           METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM, CURITIBA

           ESPAÇO DOS CORREIOS, RIO DE JANEIRO

           MARINA POTRICH ART GALLERY, GOIÂNIA

           NARA ROESLER ART GALLERY, SÃO PAULO

1996 - HUMBERTO PRIMO, SÃO PAULO

           PAÇO DAS ARTES, SÃO PAULO

           MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART , SÃO PAULO

           SESI ART GALLERY, SÃO PAULO

1995 - MADISON MEMORIAL UNION, WISCONSIN, EUA

1994 - SÃO PAULO ART GALLERY

            RENATO MAGALHÃES GOUVÊA ART GALLERY

1993 - FUJITA VENTE MUSEUM, TOKYO, JAPAN

1989 - SANTA CATARINA ART MUSEUM, FLORIANÓPOLIS

           MONTESANTI ART GALLERY

1987 - MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, SÃO PAULO

           SADALLA ART GALLERY

           PAÇO DAS ARTES, SÃO PAULO