February 3–March 14, 2015
Opening: February 3, 19h
Galeria Leme
Av. Valdemar Ferreira, 130
São Paulo
Brazil
Hours: Monday–Friday 10–19h,
Saturday 10–17h
T +55 11 3093 8184
info [at] galerialeme.com
www.galerialeme.com
Galeria Leme presents, Autorretrato em branco sobre preto (Self-portrait in white on black), the first solo exhibition by Jaime Lauriano at Galeria Leme.
A story narrated in the first-person singular presupposes a lived event or a past history to the narrator. This subject, in turn, tells us, and through his oral performativity, reconstructs a situation in the listener’s imagination. A History, narrated in the first-person presupposes an experience of the passing of time, and attentive listening to the echo of the past in the present, lived through the narrator’s skin, which with difficulty departs from him. It is through orality that ancient mythologies are passed and are updated in their sacred narrators—Holy Fathers (Pais de Santo), Holy Mothers (Mães de Santo), shamans, among others. In Autorretrato em branco sobre preto (Self-portrait in white on black) there is not a story which is narrated orally, but the search for a rewriting of History as it is told, starting from the subject, his body and memory.
The role of language in the settlement process is one of the central issues in Jaime Lauriano’s works that are present in this solo exhibition. It can be seen in the sentences used by the military police against young black men, in the names of Catholic saints present in Umbanda, in the remnants of colonization remain alive. Thus, questions about the oral language, narration and of the ways to tell a story (either capital H or lowercase H) lead us to think about how colonialism goes beyond the material and physical subordination of the subject, also becoming embedded in the epistemological system. Language, in this case, not only transmits information, but also has an almost spiritual contingent upon the culture in which it is used—to intervene in language is to intervene in the subjectivity of a people.
Thus, Autorretrato em branco sobre preto (Self-portrait in white on black) seeks to elaborate historical traumas, by referring to the various forms of domination derived from colonial Brazil. Which still persist today, only performed by updated agents. How does the cultural apparatus elaborate this trauma? What is the role of museums and cultural institutions within this system? Is it to glorify the various cultures that have landed here as exotic signs of a distant past? Or, is it to investigate, unearth documents, archives, research and dialogues which elaborate a history of domination that goes beyond exposing handcuffs in a showcase, as if they were something that no longer exists? How does the meritocratic discourse feed itself back from the discourse of mestizaje, and vice versa? How is history performed and updated upon myths and rituals? How does the logic of private property and the desubjectivation of bodies intersect?
About the artist
Jaime Lauriano (b. 1985; São Paulo, Brazil) holds a degree in Visual Arts from São Paulo’s Centro Universitário Belas Artes. His work discusses the structures involved in the formation of public space and the history of the development of the Brazilian state. It uses strategies present in contemporary audiovisual productions (such as advertising), of archival materials and field research, to leverage its discussions.
Among his most recent exhibitions are the following solo shows: Impedimento, Centro Cultural São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, 2014; Em Exposição – Sesc Consolação, São Paulo, Brazil, 2013; Olhares, Escutas E Outras Histórias, SESC, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, 2010; and the group shows: PIESP Exhibition 2013–14/Programa Independente da Escola São Paulo, Casa do Povo, São Paulo, Brazil, 2014; Tatu: futebol, adversidade e cultura da caatinga, Rio Art Museum (MAR), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2014; Taipa-Tapume, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil, 2014; Espaços Independentes: A Alma É O Segredo Do Negócio, São Paulo, Brazil, 2013.
