Above all you have to keep
Emerson Dionísio
Art Critics and Art HistorianConsidering the thoughts of Hans Jonas in his book The Principle of Responsibility, the time of responsibility of a man for the things that he creates is extremely interlinked with his capacity of destruction. The more fire for selection and extinction we have, the more responsible we become for the constructions that dispute our affective memories. It is in this sense that MarceloMoscheta´s exhibition offers us the contemplative capacity of answering, in a responsible and conscious way, by our own selections and affections. A call that valorizes, our disposition with the human being, with a landscape that talks not about a place that is familiar, or not familiar, but a record, maybe a codice that remains unveiled. His masterpieces are exactly about this, the capacity of creating and of destroying remembrances, and the responsibility that this action denotes. Moscheta´s work evidences how capable we are of eclipsing or, of bringing to light in our own stories hided quotidian spheres. In this sense, we are eternal prophets.
To remember ourselves of this dubiety, Marcelo Moscheta presents us masterpieces developed in an alterity game between the artist and his Italian grandfather. In his work, we find landscapes of the region where his grandfather was born- the city of Treviso - and lived until immigrating to Brazil. This is part of a work developed since 2002, which has already been worth of two consecutive prizes at MACCampinas. In 2003, the series “The Other´s Memory”, was worth a prize. However, now the project is developed towards other directions. It goes beyond the rebuilding of urban landscapes based on postcards, it reaches the complex process of (un)building the memory, in other words, it is just like the artist was than, in a process of remembering, and now, in a process of forgetting.
It seems an obvious unfolding, if we consider his trajectory, which, like many other’s contemporary artists, lies his work in auto-references and in memory. However, the complexity is not limited to the nomenclature. Instead, it lies on the process. The artist has, never visited the places shown here, they are virtual in the praxis, but belong to him just like belong to us. His landscapes elucidate the game of memory, and above all, the final experience that lead Moscheta to dive for his own emotional roots, in a sincere aim to recover them. Here, we find the manipulation of the image as an exclusive source to provoke the temptation to see beyond, what is rarely experienced in the Contemporary Art. The artist captures his spectator, through the sight, without requiring conceptual juggling. The seeing is nothing more that an unrestful need of tyranny targeting the things locked deep down in each one´s soul.
By etching, his natural form of expression, the artist decomposes the landscape into million parts that only together form the desired image. However, the more we call this fragmentation, once they are compacted, to deposit in our souls the completude of San Tomaso Door, the more are we locked in the old dilemma: it is not enough to group the fragments in order to see. The fragments seen from long distance might, mediate the distance, but they certainly do not point out directions. The landscape is built in us, it searches in our associative memories the desired outline in order to turn the unformed image into a familiar object. In this game, where the act of seeing is imposed over the other senses, the operation hunts out gaps and pathways. There is exactly where the poetics of the artist lies.
However, it is not appropriate to think about Moscheta as an artist that seeks the rereading of this past or any other rescue of his memories. His aptitude with the visual material has a role of translation rather than of assimilation. By this point of view, the line is a gerative particle, and the drawing a cell that mutates towards etching or collage techniques. The artist, here, meticulously uses each part of the paper in order to circumscribe lines arranged according to the logic of virtuosi capable of being well applied, but uncapable of defending anything. The patterns of Moscheta´s traces point out the knowledge concerning to a greater or smaller existence, and even the control over what he is looking at. His work, is therefore, the methodical gathering of what he intends to create and the way he does it. By not separating these aspects, the artist, scratches, stains or erases (what become so obvious in the three drawings of Tower of the Astronomic Observatory of Padova) gives us clues of the possibilities for the unfolding of the lines, the speed of the scratches or the necessary pressure to obtain certain configurations. This junction goes further, when predicts the poetry to be built, that does not distrub, but quietly come to the paper and reveals itself. This is not the kind of work that is left in the corner begging for the slightest sign of attention and approval. The lines seek each other. They meticulously connect themselves by means of calculus at the same time that they preserve a certain level of gratuitousness. Moscheta builds his huge architectures with moderate, small and discrete gestures. They all have the dimension of the hand, even though they try to escape from it all the time. The silk screen insertions with ornaments typically from the Portuguese and Provençal tiles, inform us that such images are the quiet combination between what served him as row material - the images in old Italian postcards -, and its imagetic construction.
It is rare to find such a successful encounter between serenity and audacity. Above all you have to keep, is one of these moments in which the worthiness of a work lies in the building of a cohesive, technically competent, and provocative exhibition, all at the same time. Considering these aspects, Marcelo Moscheta´s exhibition is a great exercise of seeing. His creation is able to build a fantastic scenic game, in which we are throw to the images like they were able to say everything. In fact, they are quite discreet, and smart, hiding its most precious secrets, for they know that what says everything cannot be considered Art.
