2016 ''Pálpebras" Catalog (english version) by Tunga Mourão

TUNGA pรกlpebras

Paulo Sergio Duarte critical essay

agnut galeria millan

luhring augustine galleria franco noero

THESE ARE THE NEW LETTERS FROM CARLOS MATTOS ALLEN Paulo Sergio Duarte

Kigali, June 8th, 2016. Dear Paulo Sergio, I am truly shocked by Tunga’s death. I didn’t know that he was sick. I am here, in this remote location, alone, and suddenly I receive your electronic message. I am in Ruanda, and for me, believe it, that is better than being in Brazil. This is horrifying news. The horror of the loss of the person – Tunga – and the loss of art are, for me, an immense sadness. No one, not in Brazil nor in the rest of the world, has the slightest idea of what this means. That is what I feel – even more than sadness, I feel horror. I received that text you wrote some time ago for a publication for Inhotim that by the looks of it was never finished. The first passages are very much to my liking: “It is necessary to formulate the primitive question: why do we stand? Is it not what distinguishes us from other mammals? Energy transformed into desire and will has put us on our feet; we do not submit to the laws of gravity. Many of Tunga’s sculptures resemble us, standing due to an inner energy. The scattered magnets form an energy field and together create a body. Blades of steel or canes are the vertebrae around which the body of the work is constituted. At times traversed by the braids, the temptation to go further, far away, in the interlacing of continuous forms which do no more than bespeak the infinite possibility of the magnetic body contained in the fragments gathered by its interior energy. Such as the growth of the hair is also infinite. Poetry that rests in a tense field of repulsion and attraction. Neither braids nor combs are sidekicks in this story, they are protagonists. And what is rising, far beyond the metaphor of the body, is the poetic mass.” I find the image of an idea weaver a very successful one: “Tunga is like a weaver, making a beautiful and endless carpet: his work, which will never be finished, is made out of different lines that interweave and become entangled such as in the concept of quantic entanglement, in which the

quantic state of two objects can only be described globally, without separating

had written for Inhotim in full. I think that, as usual, I had only sent you frag-

one object from the other, even if they are spatially apart. This weaver, to whom

ments of it.

the concepts of lines and continuums are so dear, does not work with material lines. Those who see the continuous line as a visual appeal are mistaken. It is the

Thank you kindly,

bait that ensnares us in the hook of seduction, in its relentless beauty, so intelli-

Paulo Sergio

gent and current. Bodies that drift apart and together, reunited by the genitals. Well before the drawing; before anything else, the artist weaves with threads of

P.S.: The text I wrote for Inhotim

psychoanalytic, physics, mathematics and philosophy ideas; his carpet is bathed and dyed by philosophy, literature and poetry.” But this is not enough, not that it is insignificant, it is a lot, but I want more,

TUNGA – SOMEWHAT BEYOND SURPRISE

you don’t touch the erotic dimension of Tunga’s work. It is necessary to formulate the primitive question: why do we stand? Is it not With all my love,

what distinguishes us from other mammals? Energy transformed into desire

Carlos

and will has put us on our feet; we do not submit to the laws of gravity. Many of Tunga’s sculptures resemble us, standing due to an inner energy. The scattered ***

magnets form an energy field and together create a body. Blades of steel or canes are the vertebrae around which the body of the work is constituted. At times

Kigali, December 23rd, 2016

traversed by the braids, the temptation to go further, far away, in the interlacing of continuous forms which do no more than bespeak the infinite possibility of

My dearest,

the magnetic body contained in the fragments gathered by its interior energy.

In case you need a formal document, here it is: you are authorized to publish all

Infinite, such as the growing of the hair. Poetry that rests in a tense field of re-

of our correspondence.

pulsion and attraction. Neither braids nor combs are sidekicks in this story, they

Have a great Christmas and, we hope, an even better 2017.

are protagonists. And what is rising, far beyond the metaphor of the body, is the poetic mass.

Missing you tremendously,

Tunga is like a weaver, making a beautiful and endless carpet: his work,

Carlos Mattos Allen

which will never be finished, is made out of different lines that interweave and become entangled such as in the concept of quantic entanglement, in which the ***

quantic state of two objects can only be described globally, without separating one object from the other, even if they are spatially apart. This weaver, to whom

Rio de Janeiro, December 20th, 2016

the concepts of lines and continuums are so dear, does not work with material lines. Those who see the continuous line as a visual appeal are mistaken. It is the

My dear Carlos,

bait that ensnares us in the hook of seduction, in its relentless beauty, so intelligent and current. Bodies that drift apart and together, reunited by the genitals.

I hope you authorize me to publish these messages of ours regarding Tunga. I also want to publish our letters from 1996, which were published in 1999 in the catalogue for the Buenos Aires exhibition. I am sending you the text I

Well before the drawing; before anything else, the artist weaves with threads of psychoanalytic, physics, mathematics and philosophy ideas; his carpet is bathed and dyed by philosophy, literature and poetry.

A line, for example, that of the theory of the self, the illusion that we are whole, that we separate ourselves from our fragile, scattered body, that fills with joy and

parts of our body that stretch towards infinity until death, and even then they don’t stop growing until a certain time has passed.

will inhabit our imagination when, only a few months old, we are put in front of a

This immense time continuum, built by fragments, pieces and figures, precedes

mirror, is dismantled in this carpet of artistic truths, and is sewn into the var-

an interesting investigation that culminates in an exploration of the continuous

ious fragments and segments we are made of, before and after the imaginary

in the figure of the torus’ topological surface.

illusion of unity. How is this line of thought being explored by Tunga since the

Previously, in 1979, in the exhibition Pálpebras (I apologize for the long de-

1970s? Do you recall Vê-nus, from 1976? A rubber surface receives a perverse bite.

scription, but very few people saw the exhibition) at the Centro Cultural Candido

The one who did the biting was missing, or lost, all the teeth of the upper den-

Mendes, when it was still in the old Pax theater (today it has been turned into a

tal arch; the rounded teeth of the lower arch left their mark. The sculpture does

gallery of Forum stores) in Ipanema, Tunga explored the space of an ample room

not leave left-overs like Leonardo’s or Michelangelo’s marble; the left-overs are

in order to put it in an extreme state of semi-darkness. But, in order to enter it, one

parts of the piece and, in this sense, contain much more of the totality than the

had to walk down a corridor that was covered by a wallpaper of sorts that showed

all-encompassing representations of the human figure. The bitten thing is as

only flies, thousands of flies printed in black on white leading to the glass door, be-

much part of the sculpture as what remains of the rubber flesh. The remainder

fore entering the exhibition space; in reality, one was already inside the exhibition.

is not the remainder, it is a part integrated by joints built out of wires, clips and

There, on display, was the meeting of two extremes, black and albino, black rubber

the incandescent light that unites them in the shadow. It is there, on the wall.

plates, placed far apart from each other, submitted to an extreme state of perception:

The whole, the totality, the rubber fixated on the wall and tied to its parts, and

ultraviolet and infrared, the lights hidden behind the rubber plates accommodated

illuminated by the wires that snake down from it, its lights and – we should not

as well as possible on the wall, spilling the lights to the sides and their brims to the

forget – its shadows. Is it or is it not a Venus from our time?

floor. The work had a very, very slow pace. It contradicted any hurried fruition one

If we dwell on Lézart, 1989, shown that same year for the first time, at the

can have of art. Its pace was already a sign of revolt against the general commer-

Museum of Contemporary Art / Chicago, and in the year after that at Whitechapel,

cialization of all social relations of the time, and especially what would soon happen

in London, present today in Inhotim, Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brasil, we will

to art when, later on, it would experience its definitive insertion in the entertain

observe all those issues put into action, and one more: narcissism. Not that sec-

ment industry. On the wall opposite to the rubber plates there was a lead plate

ondary, psychotic sort, that invests all of its libido in the ego, leaving nothing for

on which a music box played “Smoke gets in your eyes” on repeat. This music box

the object. We are before a body that exercises primary narcissism, the type that

uncoiled and coiled a thread fixed to the ceiling that crossed four or five meters

hoists us, lifts us, and prepares us for a new day. This monster, as it was dubbed

of the room before reaching, in the space between the rubber plates, the wing of a

by critic Joseph Williams in 1990, is our current portrait, with its steel plates,

fly perched on a light switch. At the end of the thread crossing the room there was

magnets, braids, hair and combs. It is our skeleton on the metallic plates, our

a spider, cast in silver, which, upon landing on the fly’s wing, would alter the room’s

solid blood in the clustering magnetism, our image and, most important, don’t go

lighting by switching the light to the incandescent bulb, which would, in turn, light

thinking that the combs aren’t part of our body. What would be of us, day in day

up the room. Think of the time taken by our eyelids, switching every instant in the

out, without combs separating our hairs, individualizing them? What is a comb if

light of reflection, and think of the pace in which it is enjoyed, the pace in which

not the object that separates the collective in order to restore the individual? And

the thread is uncoiled, lasting hours, while you never cease to hear the phrase “Smoke

there are so many combs, but there is even more hair, millions of which together

gets in your eyes”. There was a formidable exchange between the black, the insect –

form a head of hair, splendid hair, but composed hair by hair, individuals that to-

the flies – even the arachnid: the spider. Organic actors in a play worthy of Beckett.

gether form a beautiful body; when separated, they have another form of beauty,

The figure of the torus provides another continuity, one that is not a repetition,

they come together and the comb separates them. The beautiful sculptures are

the continuum of the torus figure removes, the interruption and the resumption,

always the individual and the totality. And hair, as fingernails, are the only visible

the figure is absolutely continuous. The figure of a torus is that of an inner tube

full of air (without the valve, of course). To Euclidian geometry the torus is the ab-

Tunga is a sculptor that carves from the inside out when everyone else carves

solute solid. The torus is the figure generated by revolving a circle about an axis

from the outside in. It is as if the sculpture exists before having a physical form.

coplanar with the circle, but, in topology, the issue is more complex. Tunga was

The thought is so strong that when we encounter the result, it overflows: the ideas

aware of these issues when he started exploring them in his sculptures. He created

that maintain it become clear. Tunga’s work excludes any ethnographic concept of

the torus in different dimensions and fragmented it, interrupting its reign. In topol-

otherness. No culture can wholly contain it, despite occasional local references:

ogy, a torus is homeomorphic to the Cartesian product of two identic circles, and the

the bludgeons, the hammocks, the tipiti. Tunga can only be considered a Brazilian

latter is taken to be the definition in that context. The expounding of these mathe-

artist because he creates his work here, in Brazil. His poetics has always, after all

matical issues would be tiresome. Let us get on to what is of interest. Tunga not

these years, dared to be universal: it belongs to the Chinese, Americans, Brazilians,

only materialized the torus in sculpture, sectioned it, but also traveled in its inside.

Congolese, British, and, even, Argentinians. Because it was made out of the frag-

Ão, 1981, presented for the first time in the Centro Cultural Candido Mendes,

ments with which each of us are built. The carpet lying in front of us does not

in his new gallery in Joana Angélica str. in Ipanema, in 1981, is a never-ending

belong to anyone because it belongs to all who encounter art. And we are lucky

journey in the interior of a torus. The intelligences weaved into this work are

to encounter it, in bits here and there, as in Inhotim. This is our great weaver of

many, and since it is very hard to choose one, let us start with the more obvious

ideas. And what an even greater luck it is to be his contemporary.

ones. The artist chose a curving section of a well-known tunnel in Rio de Janeiro. He films this section of the tunnel, with the performance by Murillo Salles on

Rio de Janeiro, June, 2014

camera and photography, and reproduces it in a way to recreate the inside of a torus, a tunnel with no entry and no exit; a subjective camera prevails. A part of a

***

song, in the voice of Frank Sinatra, repeats itself: “Night and day, day and night”. Never before, I believe, has anyone experienced the feeling of being inside a torus,

New York, November 6th, 2016

even without knowing what a torus is. There is no way of entering or leaving what we see; but Tunga does not cease to provoke the spectator’s intelligence:

My dearest Paulo Sergio,

the loop is materialized – it does not restrain itself to the projector and a handful of film loops. The torus engulfs us, we are transported to the infinite journey

I was in São Paulo for three days at the end of October. I had the unique chance

and see ourselves physically entangled by it, by the movie that runs the perimeter

to see what André Millan did for Tunga. It was a feat worthy of a museum, yet

of the room and in its eternal, never-ending performance: the infinite continuous.

in Brazil is takes place in a privately run gallery. Having been away from Brazil

The spectator is placed inside the double tunnel: the one he sees and the one he

while traveling the world in the last fifty years it is hard for me to understand

traverses. A larger, lets us say, hermeneutic dimension is visible, an interpretative

such a thing. How was that exhibition not in an institution, but instead occupying

and existential dimension. Is there an exit, seeing as we exist?

both spaces of a private gallery, with all its production problems: security – there

We cannot avoid yielding to the demands of reflection: the piece is composed

was a formidable installation outside the gallery annex (I think you should say

of knowledge, dense, demanding. It does not compromise its duty to contemplate

something about those monumental continuous fingers), the exquisite historical

the act of contemplation through its development over the last decades. Let us

works such as the Vê-nus of 1976 and on of the Eixo Exógeno pieces, based on Beth

look at the more recent crystals, which occasionally coexist with the magnets.

Jobim? Aside from the monumental installation on the outside of the annex there

It’s obvious that traditions are present, not only the remote ones such as the ba-

were also pieces I had never seen before, and worst, had never imagined. There

roque, but also more recent ones, the constructive one, particularly its subsequent

was, in those galleries, minuscule, precious pieces, in boxes that were opened or

unfolding in the work of Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica. But his evidence should

closed, in which little tipitis were erotically engaged with fluid bodies. The boxes,

not abstract us from something that is presenting itself for the first time in art.

imagined, projected and built by Fernando Santana and approved by Tunga,

where a perfect way to present the small pieces, and more than that, they became

through the village. I am staying in a hotel by the port. I go up to the village every-

part of the artwork.

day to eat some yogurt, occasionally drink some ouzo and watch the young women walk by. It’s a little different. Everything is more tidy, but still the pace in Ios is that of a slow vacation. I miss our Jean-Marie Drot, who we lost last year, and his

With love, Carlos

collection of Haitian painters. He had a wonderful Antonio Dias bought from Ceres *** Rio de Janeiro, November 14th, 2016

Franco, at Olho de Boi, on Quincampoix street. I saw it in his house in Paris. Best wishes, Carlos

My dearest, *** I am with you and will not relent. It is a shame for all public institutions and private-run museum that that exhibition had to be done by André. During the exhibition I experi-

Rio de Janeiro, July 31st, 2016

mented an ambivalent feeling: I was very sad, for obvious reasons, and very happy to be seeing all of that together. I was strongly reminded of Tunga showing me his new works

Dear Carlos,

and asking: what do you think? What do you think? Tunga, who was very assertive in his works, was never so in person. He had doubts, and he was able to materialize those

I am sorry for taking so long to answer you. Tunga’s funeral was worthy of his memory:

doubts in his works. That is what was so fantastical about his poetics: the materializa-

he was buried in the São João Batista Cemetery in Botafogo, together with Gerardo

tion of a set of uncertainties. Tunga never pursued exactitude, it was always a problem

and Léa. Gonçalo recited a beautiful poem and Cabelo, wonderful as he is, recited by

for which he had no answer but knew he was the only one to have formulated it.

heart a wonderful poem by Gerardo. It was all very dignified, worthy of our friend. You

In one of our encounters at his house, he was with a French physicist working

can rest easy in Africa. Antonio is taking good care of everything. I am in contact with

on the world’s largest particle accelerator, situated in the boarder between France

Lilian and Cordelia is fine where she is with the indigenous tribe. Relax, take care of your

and Switzerland. That is were, in 2012, the existence of Higgs Boson particles was

Economics studies and your education. As for the dreams and nightmares, they are

confirmed. Tunga had just visited the accelerator, invited by the physicist, and I re-

inevitable. For me they have even become a habit. I go to sleep and wake up with them.

member well that Tunga said: “This accelerator is the Gothic Cathedra of our time.” Best wishes, ***

Paulo Sergio

Ios, August 15th, 2016

***

My dear Paulo Sergio,

Kigali, June 12th, 2016

I have come to Greece to rest a few days, on the island where we had such fun in the

My dear friend,

1970s. Trekking from the beach to the village is much more tiresome now. But all in

all life here remains the same. Mia birra, tomatos ramstés, ena kafelaki vari glikó.

I had a horrible nightmare. I was in a big Brazilian city where you and Tunga lived.

I haven’t seen any old men with traditional clothing or orthodox priests walking

It wasn’t Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo, it was a made-up city. Those buildings with

mediocre architecture, those charmless streets full of bars both of you would go to.

I am still suffering Tunga’s loss and I know that I will suffer it for a long time.

At least the weather was pleasant, it wasn’t as hot as here in Kigali. Tagging along

It was not easy to find him alive and still hopeful at the home of Charles Cosac,

with both of you was unbearable, you were always having fun and I felt dragged

surrounded by friends. Charles, with his unique generosity so familiar to us, was

through a never-ending party where there was no shortage of beautiful women

very important, as important as André. During one of these encounters, I went to

accompanying you and I was always alone, left behind. Suddenly there is this odd,

dinner with Tunga and Sandra at Cris and Zé Resende’s house; it was great. When I

improvised space, which you had invented in order to create installations inside it.

was here in Rio I would talk to him through the phone, but it was not enough.

It was a large space, but petty, dumb, squeezed in between two stores. Inside was

I went to visit him one more time at Charles’ house. There was another friend

a stupid installation made of plastic hydraulic tubes, which created a giant archi-

of Tunga’s who went there to support him and was able to get an apartment in

tecture of these things, interwoven through various connections, and a life-size

Charles’ building. That person transpired her friendship with Tunga. I remember

replica of a working ceramic Rolls Royce Phantom, made out of red clay. You in-

Lilian and Antonio’s eternal presence, they are both very special to me. I saw Tunga’s

sisted on showing me that that thing worked. Tunga was always accompanied by

relationship with Lilian being born, I saw Antonio being born. This happened

a midget – with whom he would do performances – and was having fun watching

soon after his relationship with Cristina Ohana. Enough reminiscing, let us get

how I was disappointed by everything I saw. I went to sleep and got separated

back to the things you wrote.

from you. On the next day I go back to the same place. Everything was destroyed:

I think I went a little further than that in this text. The first part, by the way,

there was nothing, no tube installation, no clay Rolls Royce replica. I cannot find

was used by Tunga in a video performance. I was very happy when seeing the

you, but I contact these beautiful young artists both of you had introduced me

video. At the time, Tunga had requested to upload it on his website. I asked him

to, and during days no one will tell me your whereabouts. Sometime later one of

not to, because as usual, there was the wish to continue that which was already

these artists, a beautiful blonde, tells me: “Tunga was murdered by a gangue”. You

finished. But you are right, in part. I have never directly dealt with the forceful-

had simply disappeared and Tunga had been murdered. I am writing this because

ness of the erotic dimensions in Tunga’s work, as in that video which, in fact, he

from here everything is more unbearable.

directed. The one with the crystals and coprophilia. Tunga’s oeuvre is, from the beginning to the end, mostly erotic. Bataille was

I am sorry, best wishes,

present from the beginning, the eroticism, first from Freud and then Bataille.

Carlos

Tunga knew everything from a very early stage. On the occasion of our first encounter, in Paris, 1976 (or was it 1975?), he showed complete control over the ma***

terialization of his work. He presented me with that little cardboard box with the photographic unfolding of those erotic pieces that were accompanied by an

Rio de Janeiro, June 9th 2016.

impeccable text written by Ronaldo Brito. At that time João Moura was very present, with his poetry and discretion.

My dearest Carlos,

I will not exchange messages with João at this present moment, in mourning, because it will do no good.

Are you in Ruanda? That’s great. Did you know that the 27th TWAS General

Back to the issue of eroticism. What isn’t erotic about Tunga?

Meeting will happen there? And do you know why? Because Rwanda is miles

His oeuvre is filled with eroticism, from the beginning to the end. In À la

ahead of Brazil when it comes to investment in education, science and technology.

lumière des deux mondes politics might have prevailed. But, once, in Bahia, I

Of course you already know this, and are only there because you are involved in

heard him talk about this piece without mentioning politics. It was extraordinary

the whole business. Let us go back to Tunga. Forget, for a moment, your reserva-

how he weaved the ideas and dodged more obvious readings. It is impossible to re-

tions regarding education.

produce Tunga’s discourse around his own work. It was richer than any criticism.

For me, À la lumière des deux mondes is still his most political piece

one needs only to observe his pieces. But the tipiti, used by Brazilian indigenous

(and maybe the only one, strictu sensu). And it was presented, for the first time,

people, has a different function originally: it is used to squeeze manioc in the process

in 2005, under the Louvre’s pyramid. There is a foolish occurrence in Brazilian

of making flower and extracting tucupi juice, initially poisonous. What interests

criticism. To say that Tunga was the first contemporary artist to hold an exhibit

me is the expansion of the braid to the tipiti. The braid is tight, constricted, it

at the Louvre. That is not true. The Louvre had been maintaining an exhibition

expands while the hairs grow. The tipiti is a hollow braid: empty inside, which is

programme of contemporary artists for years before Tunga’s exhibit. It was well

where things will enter. Heads, phalluses, all kinds of genitalia, of all sizes.

before Brazil was chosen as France’s country of the year. The Brazilian Ministry

Forgive me for writing so much.

for Culture seized the opportunity and inserted Tunga’s exhibit in a lineup that had already been set for some time. He was the first to claim the mall under the

With love,

pyramid to showcase his work. And that was definitive. Everyone who enters

Paulo Sergio

the Louvre takes the route that goes through the pyramid’s atrium. I was there with Sandra, the siege it was suffering by museum-goers was impressive.

***

In this piece, my dear Carlos, there is an issue clearly of political nature, to start with the title.

Kigali, June 15th, 2016

A giant skeleton lies, beheaded, in an immense hammock. A hammock that, one might add, Câmara Cascudo reminds us is called hamaka in tupi-guarani,

Dear Paulo Sergio,

hamac in French, hamaca in Spanish, hammock in English, but in Portuguese is rede de dormir (sleeping net). Also, the hammock was invented by indigenous

Thank goodness you are answering me. You are one of the few who answers my

South American tribes. On one side there are disembodied heads strung from

messages. It’s horrible to be here alone. I have many friends, but they don’t know

nets. On the other, a great tipiti squeezes heads from ancient civilizations. They

anything about art or about Brazil. As you said before, I am here only to work

are replicas of heads that compose the Louvre’s collection. Tunga’s register goes

on education policies. I am aware of the conference, and you only know about

beyond anthropophagy, it is necessary to squeeze the brains and not devour the

it because of Luiz Davidovich, currently president of the Brazilian Academy of

bodies. That is our revenge. Is it or is it not a grand political move. Tunga would

Sciences. Do you think I don’t know your “sources”? I am sorry it took me so long

be able to spend hours talking about the piece and not touch on anything political,

to answer you. I was devastated after hearing of Tunga’s death.

just like when we had dinner together in Salvador.

After patiently reading everything you wrote me, I can see that you are un-

I wanted to talk, also, about the development of the braids into the tipiti.

able to write about the erotic in Tunga. But you wrote very well about the political

Since you are always far away, you only see it once it is finished. On the website, in

aspect of “À la limière des deux mondes”. I liked the business about the braid’s

a few exhibitions. But I was with Tunga through it all, until the end, in a hospital

expansion into the tipiti. It is a great observation: the braid that expands into

in São Paulo, when I could still make him laugh at my foolishness, and here in Rio,

emptiness. The tipiti really is an expanded braid, you are right.

where he came to die. It was terrible, horrible, as you said in your letter.

See what you yourself have written:

But the development of the braids into the tipiti is something that is worth

“A line, for example, that of the theory of the self, the illusion that we are

thinking about. The braid was thought out as an interlacing of the continuous,

whole, that we separate ourselves from our fragile, scattered body, that fills with

using human hair as a metaphor. Something that is endless, as long as it is con-

joy and will inhabit our imagination when, only a few months old, we are put in

tinuously braided, and even thrown out the window to save oneself. The braid,

front of a mirror, is dismantled in this carpet of artistic truths, and is sewn into

beyond its philosophical elements tied to the notion of a continuum, also appears

the various fragments and segments we are made of, before and after the imagi-

in fables and is associated to femininity. Tunga used them in all possible manners,

nary illusion of unity. How is this line of thought being explored by Tunga since

the 1970s? Do you recall Vê-nus, from 1976? A rubber surface receives a perverse bite. The one who did the biting was missing, or lost, all the teeth of the upper dental arch; the rounded teeth of the lower arch left their mark. The sculpture does not leave left-overs like Leonardo’s or Michelangelo’s marbles; the left-overs are parts of the piece and, in this sense, contain much more of the totality than the all-encompassing representations of the human figure. The bitten thing is as much part of the sculpture as what remains of the rubber flesh. The remainder is not the remainder, it is a part integrated by joints built out of wires, clips and the incandescent light that unites them in the shadow. It is there, on the wall. The whole, the totality, the rubber fixated on the wall and tied to its parts, and illuminated by the wires that snake down from it, its lights and – we should not forget – its shadows. Is it or is it not a Venus from our time?” With love, Carlos

CARLOS MATTOS ALLEN’S PAPERS Paulo Sergio Duarte

much more trouble than Tunga, the younger, hard-working artist. They have one more thing in common with me besides school: this disgrace called Fluminense. P.S. Everyone has already noticed that, contradicting my father’s writing instruc-

tions, I tend towards informal language. As it seems, so do Carlos and João. For Tunga’s exhibition in Buenos Aires, I decided to publish the fragments from 1996 of the text by Carlos Mattos Allen as well as João’s correspondence concern-

A FOREWARD

ing the artist. I am well aware that these fragments of text and letter, when isolated, can give a terrible impression. But, to be honest, I can’t seem to find the time to organize everything Carlos left me before quitting the university in Rio de Janeiro

There are two basic reasons for which I have not presented this study on Tunga

and going off to live with Andaluz, the horse breeder, in the outskirts of São Paulo.

in the same form as others who have established a style of art criticism in Brazil.

I do not expect to be able to perform this task in a deserving manner. But, slowly, I

First of all, I must confess that after so many years, the practice of a certain kind of

am sorting out these stacks of paper and floppy discs. There is a lot more material

writing bores me and is increasingly compensated by the time I dedicate to read-

on Tunga to be published, not to mention his vast correspondence with João.

ing (along with my dedication to tobacco, my biggest vice). Particularly possessed

The following fragments present the form that Carlos desired his study on

by a habit of searching the ataraxia caused by any good read for, if not pleasure, at

Tunga to take. Remember, at the time the soccer team Fluminense had just been

least temporary suspension in the long wait for the next day, I have discovered that

downgraded, for the first time, to the second division; imagine how many facts

if I did not include the chapters with João’s letters I would never finish this study

are presently obsolete, since it has been stipulated that we must all accept that

in time (my wife does not need to be jealous, she has always been present).

everything moves faster now. The texts don’t add anything new, but they also don’t

Besides, I believe that his traversed gaze, that of an art world outsider, although

add any trivialities, especially when we think of the sort of thing we have to digest

unusually informed for someone of this trade and of our generation, was always

in the catalogues written by curators et caterva. I honestly think this traversed

useful to me. The fact that he became a friend of Tunga’s, but, above all, that he un-

text is worth the read. João authorized him to incorporate the letters, and I am

derstood Tunga’s work in his particular manner, is something that stimulated me.

sending the legal documents to those responsible for the edition. Carlos left me a power of attorney notarized in the presence of witnesses invited for the occasion –

I hope the eventual reader suffers the minimum amount of boredom possible, which is already a grand hope considering this is a text about art.

José Almino Alencar and Paulo Venancio Filho –, that guarantees me complete power over the edition, including the power to implement cuts and alterations in

Carlos Mattos Allen

the texts. Knowing him as well as I do, and deducting by the comprehensiveness of the power of attorney, I can imagine the importance that horse breeding has taken

ONE

on for him. He will soon end up in the outskirts of Paraná. João sent me a simple statement granting me the power to publish the letters to Carlos with the cuts I deem necessary. The editors will not need to worry about future legal squabbling.

October 15, 1996.

I have done what I can, faced with the urgency and pressures of the deadline. I have not learned, as the rich, to live without haste. Because of that, I cannot guar-

Marlene, who will dress as a duchess for the carnival parade, lets me know that

antee the following notes and fragments will be well edited. All I know is Carlos and

she is going for a costume fitting and will be back at five, and that she hasn’t

João are a lot more interesting than most of the art critics around these days. In the

finished her work yet. The Flamengo fans are on my case because my team was

end, these schoolmates of mine who enjoy life, these bon vivants, end up giving me

downgraded to the second division. Despite all that is traversing my day, João’s

letter saved my morning, which was spent attempting to use the telephone in Rio

wanted to light a cigarette. She was very tall, practically my height. Slender.

de Janeiro. João writes me about his adventures in Italy and Germany, after par-

Fortunately I had a lighter. She actually just wanted to light her cigarette and she

ticipating in a gynecology congress in Switzerland. What was an economist doing

left afterwards. (…) But these guys are suspicious. All theses guys with briefcases,

in a gynecology congress? Did his infatuation with the female genitalia bring him

folders and other things they carry with them are suspicious. I know. They look

to such lengths? He is after a female doctor, for certain. But did he need to go all

rich, but they are not, let alone executives. Rich people don’t carry anything and

the way to Switzerland? He also tells me that he met a friend of mine, Tunga. That

are never in a hurry. Haste and luggage are only for the poor. But these guys, well

is the reason why I am starting what should be an essay with this page. Along with

dressed and careless, carry big briefcases, and here there is no train station or

the letter in a Venetian hotel letterhead, very well done in inkjet printing, came

airport. They could be filming for a movie, but I don’t see a crew. Weird, my black

a manuscript written on various sheets of ruled paper of a sort I hadn’t seen in a

friend beckons me to a corner and tells me that today won’t do. He also thinks it’s

long time. It is actually a sort of continuation of the letter, which resumes during

strange. And even without seeing any police he feels something in the air. It’s cold

its course. Here I transcribe what I was able to make out since his smallish hand-

and I walk on. (…) Ilka shows up, fifteen years later, and that’s good. Her wide

writing, which already poses some difficulty to my current lens prescription, was

thighs (Ilka is sensual and delicate, but can fall in love). There is no time for Ilke,

terrible, giving out signs of his inebriated state (the paper had a faint odor of gin,

I spend a week with her, I have work to finish. (…) I knew it. The guy dropped his

and another indication was the use of a ball point pen, which he had always hated,

briefcase and, open, I saw the dismembered body, head and limbs, no torso.

since our school days). The style lacks its elegant economy and the meticulously

So clumsy. All of them show their open briefcases pretending it was an accident.

calculated bursts that punctuate it are missing. But it retains the mental agility

A disaster; there is a world there: earth and jelly. Grains and dough. Continuous

that escapes us when we want to narrate a simple event. Besides that, in spite of

and discontinuous. Do you recall the sand and Wittgenstein? And I’m here, in the

its slightly verbose character, there are commentaries on art that I find very in-

cold. The cadaver is a dismembered sculpture. Standing afar, with a bemused and

teresting. Of course, a series of references – many of a personal nature – may not

slightly cynical air, I see the cadaver’s look-alike. I wonder if this trip is causing

be of interest to the reader. Others might need footnotes, in which I will attempt

me harm? It can’t be, the only city I feel bad in when I am alone is London.

to be as brief as possible.

Because of the bank I have already traveled alone to northern Thailand, to Chiang Mai, and to the extreme south, in Hay Yai. Even to Djibouti, where I slept in the ***

cargo cabin before taking the train to Adis Abeba. I also didn’t like Moscou, the prostitution mafia and the excessive harassment, more intense than in Brasilia, bothered me. I wonder how it’s holding up today, old Russia. This unease, Carlos,

Chicago, October 8, 1996.

cannot be from the trip because I like travelling alone. The guy who looked exactly like the dismembered body disappeared. It is the possible self-portrait, the paint-

My dear friend,

ing that does not fit the canvas. Aren’t we allowed to paint anymore? Are we back to that pre-classical stage? The young men sit on the sidewalk next to briefcases

(…) I have only one thing to tell you: there is an individual and a briefcase. Alas,

not bothered by the fact that they are dirtying their elegant suits. On the other

there are various individuals and briefcases. I do not like the indifference of these

side I can see a big hat moving down the street. It’s like a light-colored topological

suspicious subjects. They are alike, but not the same, I would say they are quintu-

disk wandering in the street. Enormous, it must be over three meters tall, part of

plets, or even more. There are no more characters in the city’s streets. They all

a planar section until the non-planar center. These things that you critics taught

look alike, poor, rich, except for the ragged and the millionaires, increasingly

me. I’ve already accidently encountered the same image to represent the spatial

harder to find. After all, everything is now serialized. Good were the days when

distribution of the economic income in Milan during the 50s and 60s, one of the

series were only numbers. (…) The other day I ran into a girl, good-looking, she

diagrams that illustrate my doctoral thesis – a comparative study on the income

distribution and market formation in Italy and Brazil, presented in Chicago,

I hate as much as the so-called installations. But it pleases me, passive spectators

in the distant year of 1971. I can no longer be called a ‘young economist.’ And who, in

clap when it goes by, Venice rejoices. (…) I received the book by Rodrigo Naves that

these days, is interested in income distribution? And the girl’s legs remind me of

you sent me. It was one of the best things I have read about Brazilian art so far,

the Christ of Mantegna di Brera, of the tears of Maria, of a primitive in the Museum

and I will write to you again on this subject. But I also enjoyed it because the book,

of Verona who painted the Virgin with one of her breasts over her shoulder and

along with the performance of the walking sculpture with the nymphets, brought

Thomas touching Jesus’s wound as if he were putting his finger in a vagina.

me back memories. Who, nowadays, dares to talk about memories? Your friend

And of the days I spent in Antonio’s house in Milan, after all, our only friend in

Rodrigo Naves brought back, during the whole book, the memory of the ideas my

common back then. What a trip, to Dürer’s apostles, Grünewald’s monsters, the

mother had about art. I can see the prophets and their gothic cut-outs under the

wise confusion of Cranach and the balance of Riemenschneider, years later, in

mild afternoon sun of Congonhas. And I recall my mother explaining to me the differ-

the company of another close friend that you introduced me. All of that in those

ence between Guignard and Aleijadinho. One had built the city for the Portuguese.

years that were so good for many, including for me (at least from the material

Thinking of its essential parts, its organs, Saint Francis, made out of malleable

point of view – after all, it was thanks to those years that I can do things today that

material, healthy for the curves, soapstone, scale, the mental dimensions of a ma-

you will never be able to with that teaching profession of yours), terrible for a few,

gistral black man who knew how to import form through a customs agency of

such as you and your friends, and the same as usual for most. The topological disk

ideas where Catholic mysticism, social climbing and Leibnizian genius were able to,

is an immense moving hat and, it seems to me, in pure Panamá style (When João

by paying minimum rate, translate the Jesuit teachings of Prague and Lisbon in

is drunk he mixes everything up, who would of thought of that, Panamá!!!).

the bustle of mining in the mountains of Minas Gerais. For Alda, the coin used by

It would be a contemporary De Chirico. It’s not just the peculiarity that attracts me.

Aleijadinho to pay for those imports was the faith that had materialized as never

After all, we’re already used to that. When it passes it empties streets and town

before in the baroque. A Catholic faith, and therefore concrete and historical, a

squares and turns everyone nearby into passive characters of the scene. That ab-

faith that was forming itself. Not abstract faith, with no images, capable of be-

solute passiveness to which we can only associate death. Those ridiculous, badly

coming a coin of trade in the religious barter of the of the market world. Guignard

painted zombies by De Chirico. It even manages to stir up a reverse wind. I’ll ex-

was a subsequent genius. As any true reactionary, descending from northern

plain myself, and it’s obvious: (…) there are skulls over the hat and beautiful young

landowners, instructed by decadence to take free and paid work as universal,

legs that excite it. It isn’t like Holbein’s anamorphosis, it’s an anamorphosis of

starting with her own father’s, she had no sympathy for any sort of dictator. And

ideas. It is necessary to look from the right angle to understand that the topolog-

she interpreted Guignard in the light of the Brazilian Estado Novo. My mother

ically conceived space, reduced to what we think of as a plain, supports the pres-

could come to the point of understanding dictators, except those who her maids

ence of extremes, the life of female youth, fertile, and the icon of death, on the

liked. All of that, you well know, just to contradict my father, who had collaborated

clothing accessory that has fallen out of fashion. It is also modern filmmaking, a

(what a term, huh?, collaborated, applied to the Estado Novo) with the Vargas

long traveling shot through this city where, in the West, it is still possible to hear

dictatorship. Guignard managed to understand everything: Brazil had no ground

people’s steps, having the whistle of the “vaporetti” in the background of foggy

and a platonic Ouro Preto had to be recreated in the clouds. The origin of Brazilian

days. I refuse metaphysics, not even for fear of thinking about transcendence –

nativism had to float and be susceptible, now, to the greater flexibility of the atmo-

after all, I am a Christian –, but mostly due to my notorious lack of talent for

sphere, so much greater than that of the colonial solidity – already very flexible – of

speculation. I confess that the only thing I fear, such as a friend who went to Mex-

soapstone. The fog on which Guignard’s Ouro Preto rests was his way of giving an

ico and never came back, is Shintoist immanence. (…) I like Venice better in the

answer to what he considered the “modernist nonsense” of Tarsila and Portinari.

winter. Of Carpaccio and the poor victims of the dragon, like ragged dolls, popu-

Alda, as you recall, would forgive only Ismael Nery and a critic, a certain Navarra,

lating a scene of Saint George’s triumph. Eventually, the town square over floods.

because he was friends with Murilo Mendes. Our Mário Pedrosa, of whom she

I know it is a performance, the genre that invaded art during this century, which

was a childhood friend, she regarded only politically and to disagree with, and

her other modern friend, Santa Rosa, she thought would drink too much, which

away in the Paraíba. I’m sorry, my dear, but “The Ghost that Walks” is not a char-

only harmed his art. As if Guignard were sober. What interested her was the inef-

acter of a comic book, he comes from Rome and has passed through the Northeast,

fable in which Guignard floated the myths of Brazil and the Inconfidência, the joy

Ouro Preto, Congonhas, through the São Bento monastery in Rio de Janeiro, has

of sad parties, the balloons, the churches, everything murky, because clarity

gone to Austria and Portugal, reached Prague and there are those who have spot-

wasn’t belonging to earthly thoughts. Everything acquired the same statute of our

ted him in Macau. He has seen Glauber’s movies and read Gregório de Matos’

art, trying to paint a country with no ground: between the natural scenery and

poetry, embodied blacks and whites, indigenous and mulattoes. After that [the

human things, the fog. That was Guignard’s great invention: a painting that would

following passage is illegible] (…) Jacques Lacan, who you have always had more

start from nothing, from the air, and thus was the Brazil that had to pretend it

respect for, there is no use denying it, was a surrealist, Breton’s brat, he collabo-

didn’t have a past in order to avoid looking at the result of three hundred years

rated in the Minotaure, but until his mirror stage his psychoanalysis owes noth-

of slavery. Always, and especially during that moment. For her, a country that

ing to Karen Horney’s. Had he not known and incorporated Kojève (Hegel) and

applauded a dictator could only have a great painter if he would turn the air into

Lévi-Strauss (Saussure) he would have been less important than Erich Fromm.

the country’s baroque and mythical origins, because that ground did not deserve the

That gangue had quite a fate, those who believed in the disappearance of the subject.

images of an artist. Images, that was the key-word for her to understand form.

The first son in law of his favorite psychoanalyst defenestrated himself, having

But, for her, Guignard was capable of maintaining the dignity of the baroque, it

written a book: Marxism and Structuralism. Poulantzas, who loved to flirt with

was the baroque that was possible, and in order to survive it had to be elevated

the girls at parties, also committed suicide. Althusser strangled his wife, con-

and suspended delicately in miniaturized images. Only when reduced, small,

fessed to never having read Capital, and died considered a mental invalid by the

would the monuments make sense to oppose the giant’s compliment; only the

French justice. The last one was Deleuze. For these reasons and others I prefer

curves of the clouds, sloping delicately towards the churches and houses, could

Chicago, Pascal and the probability theory. (…) There are these foreigners, mixed

support the world. One day, I was listening to one of Wolf ’s lieder, she called me

with art criticism and culture, greedy for France: they discovered Tel Quel during

over to her and showed me the opposite of everything she had told me before: how

the Reagan years. It is a very melancholic thing to throw away years of the wisdom

Guignard’s brush does not falter, how it is narrow, almost hard, faltering only

of a Schapiro, of a Rosenberg, of a Greenberg or of a Steinberg, brilliant Jews who

when he desires it to. It was a portrait. “Un peintre génial d’un pinceau trébuchant,

turned American art into something intelligible, through that verbiage of pedan-

quand il veut.” And, while showing me another Guignard, one who didn’t fear the

tic syntax and empty semantics. The conversation with Tunga went great, we

decorative elements and clear, distinct lines, far removed from the city that dissi-

laughed a lot about you, your Frenchness, and about how you waste your time.

pates into the air, she told me that that was how good art would look like in this

We also talked about the portrait of the buffoon Calabazas by Velazquez in the

country, whilst it didn’t reconcile itself with its baroque tradition, divided be-

Cleveland Museum, which you also don’t know.

tween two paths, two artists, two gazes in one, one that remembers and one that forgets. (…) While in João Pessoa, I will visit the restored Hotel Globo, where we drank beer at nightfall looking at a landscape from the times of Frans Post, where

TWO

the waters of the Sanhauá and the Parahyba rivers meet (I wonder if this geographical memory of mine is correct) by the green plains. I will go the São Bento

This study deals with the power of artwork, of its potency, through Tunga’s sculp-

church and the Santo Antônio convent, the seminar in which my father studied

tures, installations and drawings, during historical conditions that were adverse

(together with yours), with its magnificent chapel, and I will visit Ajuda. They say

to the manifestations of this strength. It investigates an affirmative movement:

Santo Antônio is now showing a collection of popular art, but quite inferior to the

that which takes place through the esthetic evidence in dialogues, facets of tradi-

collection of Jacques Van de Beuque. I will learn things from Iracema and Iveraldo

tion, vigorously bringing about the presence of these values in the complex form

Lucena, the only teachers who still teach by their life’s example and who are hidden

that mixes together ideas that were kidnapped from science with literary fiction,

psychoanalyses with history, constructivist rationalism with expressive exuberance.

characters imbedded in the work. The vitality of this presence is also guaranteed

An art form that unearths its individual poetics in the games between space and

through another aspect: dated elements, for example psychoanalyses and topol-

the body, time and matter, between so many others that it makes available. At last,

ogy, are traversed by a specific theme that could be declared timeless, inasmuch

we would be in the heart of what is referred to as “post-modern” culture, were it

as it encompasses all western thought, from Greece to today’s world: the question

not the investment in a form that preserves premises that demonstrate the perma-

of the continuum. The successful dislocation of the philosophical and scientific

nence of values instated by Cézanne and cubism.

fields to an individual poetic of the “continuum” theme is, yet, responsible for

To interrogate the diverse layers that make up form in Tunga’s work can be

another presence: the organic integrity of Tunga’s work that we observe even

the equivalent of searching the geological image for what sustains the surface of

when it faces the challenge of working different materials, ranging from complex

appearance. Remembering that, from the magma comprised of the desire for art,

forms to drawings.

to the layers that suffered successive coolings on occasion of the ordination of

The world makes itself present in the work through ideas, some of them,

concept and invention and that overlap each other, and that correspond to different

the dated ones, representative of a certain period, and others that are present

forms of knowledge, there is – in each of these stages – a reservoir of cognitive

throughout the course of civilization. And that is how the world becomes visible,

potency with its own time and its own history.

without any prosaic appeal or use of contaminated clichés, whether by daily life,

But the work soon denies this structural metaphor that, through its own

or by the notion of art history as an institution. That is its intimate existence pro-

movement, implies stability and accommodation and points to the temporary

cess, which allows it to escape the grid of a naïve positivity. One can say that, in

character of the model. This movement is the movement of a being in permanent

Tunga’s poetic, the dialectic between form and history shapes itself essentially

formation and organizes all the instances to bring them to the surface and make

by incorporating history as a world of ideas in movement, an element that does

them visible, because that is its power: to make visible that which is present.

not fixate itself statically as accumulated temporality – a deposit of references –

Who is present? Before all else, the complex interaction between form and

nor as a sort of dialogue of form, similar to the echoes of nature and of a social life.

history. A crucial point in Tunga’s art is the dialectic between the work’s formation

It is the configuration of precious moments, which the artist chooses in the his-

and the world as current and present history. Here, the world is not on the outside

tory of thought and knowledge, that will be ingrained in form. In this construc-

of the individual, in the “objective reality”; nor is it the totality, in which the indi-

tion there are also operations present that indicate how the form will add new

vidual inserts him or herself as one of its cogs. It was already indicated that its

elements, among them connective ideas that take on images with a large amount

presence cannot be reconstructed by a genealogy, nor by study of layers that form

of power, when it comes to establishing the presence of movement in the world:

the piece. These “worlds”, which are part of the work, are microcosms that articu-

shocks of braided hair, teeth, tori, goblets, bells, a whole bestiary – Siamese hair

late themselves according to the needs of a poetic that guides the whole. The world

twins, two-headed lizards with opposing heads, headless lizards with opposing

will not be detected by the reconstruction of a genesis that presumes a ranking of

tails, bugs and so on. One could call them “figures of conceptual representation”,

decisive moments in the determination of the work. The world is not a stage, nor a

taking into account the irony and good humor they themselves possess. Strange

set, nor a backdrop. The world is present in Tunga’s work as current history, in the

but familiar at the same time, they are the testimony of the modern individual’s

strength that spurs the poetic fabric.

mutilation, whose integrity can only survive as a myth that establishes ethical

Throughout the whole trajectory of the work, we can observe the articulation

and moral norms.

of the microcosms that make up the world’s framework around themes such as

This presence of the world, impulse of form and movement, is also a call

philosophy and science, and that take turns, always covered by an imaginary

for self-reflection, ever present in Tunga’s work, and its experimental character,

construction in which invention inhibits the schematic character that could take

which can be observed from the risky physical contraptions – where they assume

over in the presence of these elements, symbolic of western tradition. History

the risk of maintaining the construction’s balance at its limit – to the audacious

manifests itself through stories in which philosophy and science become fictional

association between concepts.

THREE

itself, a space that isn’t space, it is plane; a line that isn’t a line, it is a surface; it is programmatic character, in every way, and the illusion of aesthetically pervading

The first nuclei of sculptures is born from the constant exercise of drawing

social instances that are being productively denied. There are so many formalist

and its repetition, accompanied by a critical reading of great themes of contem-

remains that can no longer survive when wax is wax, felt is felt, and the idea that

porary culture. They are objects in which form and matter are organized to create

caused them to walk hand in hand has shifted to a semantic richness that escapes

a piece marked by the founding problems of psychoanalyses: repression and the

any immediate data and suggests a conversation of another intelligence.

circulation of libidinal energy. Already we are inside a complex poetic operation.

But it is still necessary to clarify how this embodiment comes about, even

Since the start, the concept in question has been of dislocating the representation

in denial, since it’s not about overcoming it (in Tunga’s work there is always a

of our mimetic processes to procedures that evoke theoretical constructions but,

preoccupation with ontological difference). I am not reconstructing a genesis.

at the same time, suggest metaphors of a strange and fragmented body. Conjunction

It would be the exact opposite of all the procedures, embedded in the work that

and disjunction, logical operations, are transformed into subtle maneuvers that

provokes me.4 In the dwelling place of Tunga’s work – his language – there are var-

maximize the matter, treated as a substance that is conductive of meaning. It is

ious constructive empathies, aside from the taste for reason. The distance from

necessary to recall that we are in the beginning of the 70s, and that this equation

the immediate is a criticism to what is gratuitous and instinctive, the pulse cannot

will be disseminated throughout various later artistic productions in Brazil.

be transmitted without an order that demands it, therefore, the expressive ele-

Each object is a poetic proposition where the cognitive potential no longer

ment of the gesture is precarious. The possibility of the permanence of affection as

resides – as in surrealism – in the ideal of libertarian illustrations of the uncon-

the conducting element of senses must be submitted through the filter of concepts.

scious, but in creating different possibilities of compositions that can run in par-

Besides, despite Tunga’s familiarity, he owes nothing to Brazilian constructivism,

allel in evocations of Freudian theses regarding the psychic mechanism. The idea

if that is indeed where he learned these already existing lessons.

is to give strangeness an intimate connotation. The encounters are not the same as

During the first half of the 70s, the shift of materials in Tunga’s work ac-

the ones of Lautréamont’s formula of disparate objects, but of the materials them-

quires even more importance because it already points to elements of compre-

selves and their attributes, such as those found in wood, metal, felt, wax, honey.

hension of his work that are still present to date. A mythological construct con-

It is the encounter of different combustion points, conductors and insulators –

nects to the work, but with a latent discourse that is embedded in the esthetic

thermal and electrical –, physical and biological energy reservoirs, work as will

evidence, made explicit in sporadic manner. Two paths are created, with a humor

and action.

that effects a permanent distancing. We are far from any possible shortening of

There is an intentional shift of the materials with which Beuys worked.2

the distance between the subject and the object, something immensely common

By manipulating materials such as felt, wax and wood under physical tension and

in lyrical poetics. That sort of work discourse is extracted, on one hand, from the

linking them to ideas extracted from the psychosomatic universe, Tunga trans-

mythology that is dominant in our time – the scientific discourse – and on the

fers these materials from the mythology founded in the double combination of

other, a trail is invented through fantastic narratives, sometimes assuming a sort

biography/German3 ethnicity into another poetic field: body/mind. Heat, source

of absurd autobiographical experience, in which the narrator evokes the invisible

of energy, nature, ironically, can be associated to universal poetic constructions,

story of the work that is standing before us. It is quickly made clear that there are

and not to the particular story of one individual or ethnicity.

other consequences: subsumption of the artist-subject by a key structure does not

We know we are facing an oeuvre that inherits the constructive intelligence

occur, and the romantic element is relativized with irony. Present since the first

of the Brazilian art that preceded it, but the appropriation of this heritage is not

works, this critical operation has consequences. Tunga is fueled by elements that

done by some mimetic contamination or literal reproduction of methods. Its start-

enjoy a different universality than an ethnic or local tradition. Universal grav-

ing point is the acute consciousness of the depletion of this source for the sake of

itation is not English, topology is not North-American, nor are psychoanalysis

the art created in the project. It’s the constructivist piece’s virtual character in

and hysteria Viennese. The discourse field finds itself polarized between fantastic

fiction that centers on absurd experiences, and, on the other extreme, references

models or artistic forms that contaminate the social world and its objects, or even

to the universe of contemporary science. We know, as Venturi reminds us, that

question these boundaries. They are, before all else, devices that capture charac-

“Art and nature run in parallel lines and can never meet”. Tunga’s game consists

teristic traces of modern culture – in this case, the discovery of the unconscious

of suggesting the possibility of contradicting this metaphor for the Euclidian

and how it works through the mechanism of repression, and the incorporation of

postulates, by producing contact zones between narrative and artistic construc-

theory by art and its transformation into a poetic body. His strategy – if we can

tion within the impossibility of contact between art and nature. These tangential

call it that – is to act without giving up aesthetic integrity.

points between the words and the artwork are neuralgic, and connect each other

From the beginning, we have drifted beyond what is conventionally called

through stimulus, like synapses that conduct energy through a field that encircles

conceptual art. The small sculptural objects incorporated and unfolded disperse

the work. But let us return to the first stages of this construction. We will be able

issues of the vast and diverse territory of contemporary, post-constructivist art,

to have more clarity regarding its poetic nature.

which were developed in parallel to the minimal and pop-art phenomenon.

In the beginning, when standing before Tunga’s works, we are possessed not

One of these works will be the object of a literal deconstruction operation.

by images that have been stolen from reality, but by a game founded in the ma-

The piece is a new lesson in anatomy. A demystifying act in the exposure of the

teriality of the visible, the latter being a conductor of the substance’s attributes.

material composition and the physical rules of construction. Given this material

We are before an ironic device, operating on Freud’s original language. To be able

substrate, the perspective loses its balance. The fetish of the object as something

to describe the complex processes of the unconscious, psychoanalysis’ founding fa-

that is finished and able to serve as merchandise is destroyed by the artist’s wish

ther was forced to resort to the substantialist terminology available to him, inherited

of reducing it to the documentation of the inverse process of its construction.

from the organismic theories of the 19th century. We can identify organic materials

Or better yet, the process only occurs if it relinquishes the preservation of the ma-

in the small sculptures, gestures that accompany the “displacements” and “conden-

terialistic mystification surrounding production and the apology of the art piece

sations”, “latent” and “manifest” presences. But, to this present dimension or layers,

as work, which came to replace the ideology of creation. Integrated to its poetic

another immediately opposes: the metonymic juxtaposition and its attributes – lead

field, the operation evokes the derepression mechanism, when the unknown

and felt, wax and honey, string and wood – that present themselves as displace-

interior element surfaces to the conscious mind: deconstruction is realization.

ments of the “signifiers”, coming across, in the syntax that constitutes the body of

A lesson in modern anatomy would require the incorporation of psychism to the

the object, in its internal construction, an equivalent that evokes Lacanian anal-

somatic elements in order for the body to be complete. The English language has a

yses regarding the unconscious. It is the simultaneous presence of two different

fortunate term to define the totality that corresponds to the integration of body and

moments of the doctrine of the unconscious.

mind: self. Plastic evidence and latent or manifest discourses that, in these works,

The small totalities resist, through their own shapes, to any semiotic reduction.

find themselves under the command of the same type of dynamics that establish the

Its structure and dynamic goes beyond the idea of sign, as if they refused to in-

notion of self. Representation is shifted from its conventional, stagnant function,

habit the economy of the concept; in its strange plastic presence, it highlights that

a prisoner of mimesis, to return to the cognitive dimension of the Renaissance

this complex spirit can live only in that body. We are closer to Spinoza’s potency

master – arte é cosa mentale – following the demands of a new historic moment.

than to Descartes’ reasoning. We can see that the encounters and associations

The Vênus (1976) adds attributes to Tunga’s sculpture on which we need to

have multiplied to become different floors of a same building. The sculptural ob-

reflect, since they are responsible for subsequent developments. Of course, sculp-

jects, strange and at the same time intimate and portable by its scale, acquire a

ture can no longer be matter sublimated in image, nor can it be the reinvention of

monumental dimension.

space in itself. Space that is created through a combination of planes, in the molds

They are monuments, pervaded by the ideas that articulate them. The move-

of the best constructivist experiences in Brazil. It was this plane that, worked

ment is opposed to that of constructivism. The intention is not to create aesthetic

over by the neoconcrete movement, yielded the possibility of a reflection that was

native of the fringe regarding an artistic movement that had been imported from

productive world view, and is reduced to art objects. Let us think about the century,

Europe, and that will now morph into a new form.

about how many lives, how many dreams, but, above all, how many hours on the

The plane is lowered to the empirical surface on which the artist’s operations

divan could have been reduced to these objects.

will occur. The basic material is the sheet of black rubber, monumental skin of a body mutilated by a teethed species that divided it in two. The flexible material

FIVE

distances itself even more from the ideality of the plane. The sculpture dilates, expands and divides itself: one part is fixed on the wall by suckers, the other, a sort of “left over” on the floor, maintains the possibility of restoring an alleged original

Dear Carlos,

integrity. The divided body made out of isolating material has its parts connected by metallic chains, a material that is an electrical and thermal conductor. Both in

I should have written to you sooner. That last letter was pitiful, I know. But never

the title and in the lexicon of the material at stake we are close to the evocations

mind, let’s cut to the chase. I am going to answer what I owe you. Oh well.

of the sexuality and of the troubled path of the libido through the shortcuts of

As for my health, do not worry, my pancreatitis was cured while I was still in

perversions, but form imposes itself, and a new physical scale is introduced with

Egypt. It cost me. I have reduced my alcohol intake as much as possible, and now

Tunga’s black Vênus. It is the body’s human scale inserted, although through a

drink only the eventual distillate (the day I sent you the letter was an exception).

metaphor, as a standard unit, a new meter in Tunga’s sculptures, on the basis of

And I still have one certainty: unlike you, I will not die of lung cancer.

which future installations will measure themselves. A body that is whole, but at

On what you call the evolution of the “economic thinking over the last thirty

the same time divided or mutilated, whose complimentary parts need opposing

years”, I think you are joking. I have no doubt that there is a thought – not in

materials to connect each other: insulating and conducting.

the sense we understand the word – regarding money. But “economic thinking” is

This impression is at first due to the scale, but, even then, we should dwell

laughable. Later I will, if possible, relate to you personally what is going on. At the

on the matter in order to understand how this powerful element of his sculptures

moment, I can tell you that there are very sophisticated techniques of detecting

is elaborated. One knows that in art the issue of scale cannot be reduced to sheer

clouds (of money, obviously) in motion. There is a game theory, may Von Neumann

physical dimension. A bicho by Lygia Clark is of small, portable dimensions, but

forgive me, that bets on the formation of a cloud in its beginning and its end,

exhibits a monumental aspect because of the way we understand the spaces it

before the rain. All of contemporary economic theory, with good economists who

creates, while other unsuccessful experiments in great dimensions would have

are mathematicians and the true statistics people, are involved in this financial

been better resolved, due to their structural debility, had they been in a miniature

game. It doesn’t matter were it came from or where it will end. Don’t wait around

size, placed on tables. Sculptors like Amilcar de Castro and Franz Weissmann had

for papers that will enlighten you; what is written about the subject is too distant

already solved the problem of scale in modern Brazilian sculpture, in a phenom-

from what you have learned and you wouldn’t understand. There is a huge amount

enological approach where subjective experience and physical materialization

of money involved in this business, really massive, and daily (this is how the fight

interact and shuffle the intimate aspects and public propensity of certain works.

against drugs should go, instead of those ridiculous police actions). Planning,

But, however much we try to locate these neoconcrete artists with hermeneutic

such as we learn it, is a science as dead as the flight engineer profession. When

pirouettes, in a specific cultural context the abstract and universal propensity of

we were in school, Detroit would take about three years to launch a “new” car

a constructivist object will always prevail.

model. They would change a panel, some fishtails and that’s it. In Silicon Valley a

There is a clear resistance to positivist ignorance. But resistance is not stupidity.

new product is launched every thirty days. And worse, they advertise what wasn’t

One recognizes the operational power. It is used and manipulated all the time, we

there six months ago. As for the macro, nowadays it seems like a conversation

can see, throughout the works. The agility of reasoning and of the true proposition

between Volkswagen mechanics: fix this, fix that. In fact, professor Celso Furtado

are explored. The science of the unconscious, although doubtful for a Popper, is a

had already said that a long time ago. We come from a time when it was believed

that the economy should serve. It did not have a life of its own. In face of the econ-

ground, that the sculpture multiplies the scale of the body to reunite itself in the

omy’s autonomy, the autonomy of your art even seems kind of funny. But that is

head of the artists, cast in steel. The shock of hair does not collapse with gravity,

what pleases me, not the pages of the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal.

it dilates the gaze in the vertical field.

I hope you’ve already run into Tunga after my time with him in Venice. It has

When we find ourselves facing one of Tunga’s recent great sculptures, rare

been a long time since I had a conversation with an intelligent artist. Tunga is

in Brazil, but that have been shown ever more frequently in Europe and North

pleasant and cultured. You did say. No one in Brazil knows who Maria Zambrano

America, we have the impression of standing before new ingredients of Brazilian

is. We can count the amount of people who know about the Old Lady on our fin-

art. To what measure that impression can be replaced with certainty is what we

gers. Tunga knows, and so we were able to talk about Saint Augustine in a man-

will find out.

ner outside of the folklore that has been created around our philosopher which, I don’t know why, is now in vogue.

END OF THE MATTOS ALLEN PAPERS

We talked a lot about the invention of Europe and the division between the Western world and the Orient. During that conversation I remembered the Code of Constantine. I am almost certain that the Code forbade representation in perspective, it wasn’t about the perspective as we understand it, but it forbade the represen-

NOTES

tation of the illusion of depth. The plane needed to be shown, because it was the truth. The whole of the Orthodox Church’s representation tradition obeys this byzantine

1. Ver: Williams, Joseph. The humour of reptilian art. In: http://www.tungaoficial.com.br/

principle. The flat nature of the icons obeys a theological principle. And with that we

pt/exposicao/exposicao-individual-new-gallery-audiovisual-rooms-whitechapel-gallery-

moved on to Russian avant-garde. All of Catherine’s will was now strong enough to

-londres-reino-unido/. Acessado em 14/06/2014.

wash away nine centuries of tradition. We can understand Malevich’s constructivist venture much better. The white on white square and the black on black square are

2. I think that, had it been noticed at the time, this operation would qualify as one of the

much better explained if the representation in planes was a condition for painting.

most interesting artistic elaborations of the beginning of the 70s, a time in which, one

There is no radical rupture of tradition. Unlike the West, where our Cézanne, Braque

might add, Beuys’ work did not penetrate outside a restricted circle of experts, thanks to

and Picasso had to destroy an illusion. Malevich and all the other Russians had that

the universe of political dispute he himself had introduced in the Academy of Düsseldorf.

big advantage: their tradition had not been interrupted by the Renaissance. This West and Orient, Rome and Greece – the invention of Europe – by the African son of Saint Monica, will explain a lot. What I felt with Tunga, that I do not find in other artists, is capability (…)

3. The reappearance of romanticism in Beuys’ work will be subsequently explored in extremis

suis rebus by Kiefer, by eliminating the biographical element that shaped the individuation of Beuys’ work and investing only the collective aspect of the Germanic myth, restricted to the formal exploration of the practice of fine arts, with potential interventions in sculptu-

HERE END THE FRAGMENTS OF 1996

res and installations. 4. I must confess that Luiz and his letters and crazy texts influenced me.

SIX There is the plunge, the intentional fall. The body that falls and fails is one thing; the one that dives is another. It is from that directed fall of a great metallic shock of hair, which dives from a height of fifteen meters (?) and piles up in circles on the

T. Pra q Para fazer aparecer o que não há Praq Praq aparecendo ele exista no mundo Praq Para que ele revele coisas que antes não víamos e agora vemos Que são coisas que vejo sozinho E praq Pra que vejas em ti o que vejo por mim Mas pra q Pra que vendo q vês vejas o mesmo que eu e que eu veja o que ves Pra q Praque sintamos a sintonia Que sintonia De estarmos juntos vendo e vivendo A mesma coisa Praq Praque nos sintamos unos no tempo do ver e no espaço dessas coisas feitas que falam Praq Pra que sejamos um só ouvindo o que falam e o que vemos Praq Praque sendo um em dois, o dois se completa e pode fazer 3 Praq Praque o terceiro seja um e veja o que nós vemos Praq Praque assim faça outro ver e assim sucessivamente

130

131

pequeno aviso sobre os escritos do Tunga: Tunga não fazia arte, vivia arte. O tempo todo pensava, anotava, rascunhando idéias que mais eram prazeres de sua forma de vida. Estes escritos que aqui colocamos não são idéias fechadas, pensamentos definidos formalmente, mas caminhos para se perceber seu constante raciocínio poético.

fullblack

SUBTITLES

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

(detail) resin artist’s collection

resin 130 x 55 x 60 cm artist’s collection

(detail) resin artist’s collection

PÁLPEBRAS exhibition view, 2016

Millan Gallery, São Paulo

PHANOGRAPH OF POLYCHROMATIC DEPOSITION, 2008

wood, fabric, glass, mirror, crystal, resin, steel strand and chromatized water 83 x 34 x 31 cm artist’s collection

wood, fabric, iron, glass, fabric, mirror, crystal quartz and chromatized water 83 x 34 x 31 cm artist’s collection

wood, fabric, glass, mirror, resin, steel strand, silver and chromatized water 83 x 34 x 31 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, 2008 glass, hammer, steel strand, crystals, silver and chromatized water 87 x 106 x 106 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, 2008 bronze, crystal, pearl, ceramic 22 x 80 x 80 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, 2008

147

wood, glass, mirror, crystal, rock, steel strand, fabric, and cromatized water 83 x 34 x 31 cm artist’s collection

wood, bronze, resin, rock 131 x 60 x 60 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, 2008

resin, crystal, ceramic, steel, glass and bronze with silver 32 x 45 x 30 cm artist’s collection

ceramic, crystal, bronze with silver patina, pearls, wood and fabric 50 x 50 x 170 cm artist’s collection

glass, crystal, natural sponge dyed, ceramic, wire and spoon 34 x 31 x 29 cm artist’s collection

(detail) glass, crystal, wood, iron, steel strand and chromatized water artist’s collection

UNTITLED, 2008

(detail) glass, pearls, and chromatized water artist’s collection

(detail) glass, crystal, silver, and chromatized water artist’s collection

PHANOGRAPH OF POLYCHROMATIC DEPOSITION, 2008

UNTITLED, 2008

(detail) steel strand, pearls, sponge and glass artist’s collection

PHANOGRAPH OF POLYCHROMATIC DEPOSITION, 2008

(detail) rock, steel, glass, crystal, and resin artist’s collection

(detail) crystal, steel, resin, and glass artist’s collection

(detail) resin, silver and iron artist’s collection

148

UNTITLED, 2008

(detail) of the artist’s studio glass, chromatized water, iron, steel strand and sea shell artist’s collection

glass, steel strand, resin and chromatized water 34 x 35 x 16 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, 2008 glass, crystal, silver and chromatized water 29 x 34 x 31 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, 2008

glass, steel strand, sponge, pearls and chromatized water 33 x 34 x 31 cm artist’s collection

glass, silver, steel strand, resin, crystal and chromatized water 32 x 45 x 30 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, 2008

AT YOUR FEET, 2015

(detail) glass, crystal and steel strand artist’s collection

bronze with make-up 15 x 110 x 8 cm artist’s collection

iron, leather, resin and black tourmaline 720 x 350 x 500 cm artist’s collection

(detail) iron, leather, resin and black tourmaline 720 x 350 x 500 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, 2008

AT YOUR FEET, 2015

(detail) glass, crystal, wood, iron, steel strand and chromatized water artist’s collection

(detail) iron, leather, resin and black tourmaline 720 x 350 x 500 cm artist’s collection

PÁLPEBRAS exhibition view, 2016

(detail) steel strand and amber artist’s collection

149

Millan Gallery, São Paulo

FOUR MOONS, 2015

iron, plaster, mirror and bronze variable dimensions artist’s collection

(detail) iron, plaster, mirror and bronze variable dimensions artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 60 x 72 x 42 cm artist’s collection

resin 71 x 53 x 26 cm artist’s collection

resin 80 x 63 x 40 cm artist’s collection

FOUR MOONS, 2015

view from MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014 resin dimensões variáveis artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 55 x 100 x 33 cm artist’s collection

resin 86 x 70 x 50 cm artist’s collection

resin 52 x 50 x 17 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 55 x 30 x 24 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 29 x 50 x 58 cm artist’s collection

resin 54 x 50 x 20 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 66 x 48 x 35 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

(detail) iron, plaster, mirror and bronze variable dimensions artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 81 x 63 x 40 cm artist’s collection

resin 97 x 48 x 23 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 26 x 92 x 33 cm artist’s collection

resin 55 x 73 x 39 cm artist’s collection

resin 71 x 53 x 26 cm artist’s collection

resin 55 x 47 x 41 cm artist’s collection

resin 41 x 30 x 23 cm artist’s collection

150

151

resin 75 x 63 x 25 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 91 x 24 x 57 cm artist’s collection

resin 105 x 36 x 27 cm artist’s collection

resin 52 x 30 x 16 cm artist’s collection

resin 60 x 72 x 42 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

PHANOGRAPH OF POLYCHROMATIC DEPOSITION, 2008

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 100 x 40 x 32 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 68 x 37 x 70 cm artist’s collection

(detail) resin artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

Tunga in his studio,

FOUR MOONS, 2015

2013

2014

resin 68 x 37 x 70 cm artist’s collection

resin 66 x 56 x 25 cm artist’s collection

Rio de Janeiro

(detail) iron, plaster, mirror and bronze variable dimensions artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 52 x 85 x 30 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

resin 75 x 63 x 25 cm artist’s collection

UNTITLED, from the MORPHOLOGICAL series, 2014

(detail) resin artist’s collection

152

(detail) glass and pearls artist’s collection

153

(detail) resin artist’s collection

Realization MILLAN / AGNUT

Critical Essay PAULO SERGIO DUARTE

Art Direction LILIAN ZAREMBA IRENE PEIXOTO

Graphic Design ANA CARNEIRO PAULA DELECAVE RARA DIAS

Photography GABI CARRERA

English Version BARBARA MASTROBUONO

Print Tracking LILIA GÓES

Acknowledgements Dados Internacionais de Catalogação na Publicação (CIP) (Câmara Brasileira do Livro, SP, Brasil)

BETH JOBIM CHARLES COSAC FERNANDO SANT’ANNA

Tunga : pálpebras / [realization Galeria Millan ; critical essay Paulo Sergio Duarte ; translation Barbara Mastrobuono]. -- São Paulo : Galeria Millan, 2017. ISBN: 978-85-68152-06-5 1. Arte - Exposições - Catálogos 2. Arte contemporânea I. Galeria Millan. II. Duarte, Paulo Sergio. 17-02015

Índices para catálogo sistemático: 1. Arte : Exposições : Catálogos 700.74 2. Catálogos : Arte : Exposições 700.74

CDD-700.74

JOSÉ RESENDE PAULO SERGIO DUARTE TATIANA GRINBERG THIAGO ROCHA PITTA

This book was composed with the fonts Fayon and New Paris, and printed over eurobulk 150g and vegetal 112g papers by Ipsis Grรกfica e Editora in February 2017.