morlan

Companhia Aucareira Vale do Rosrio. The faded yellow label stuck

on an old poster is barely readable, but hints at the image that expands
beyond the field of the record at hand. As there is a photograph of the
set exhibited in Requadros in which the artist inserts digital images of
geometric shapes, this rectangular object reminds us of the coloured
interventions Mariana Tassinari has discretely and consistently developed
over several series since 2005.

Requadros is perhaps the closest sample of Tassinaris work to

architecture; indeed, before deciding to study art, she spent some
years working as an architect. It also represents a more silent instant
in the artists work; with her taking more time to select the images to
be developed and exhibited. However, such clippings, so subtly modified,
make stronger connections back to the specificity of those records.
A great deal of Requadros was taken at the Morlan metal works, in
Orlndia, near Ribeiro Preto, in inner-state So Paulo. The old purple
earth there, which drove the caf com leite (coffee with milk) policy of
the First Brazilian Republic (1889-1930), is now a land of mass-produced
sugar cane, dotted with processing plants of still considerable economic
power. In these privately-owned fields, the Morlan plant, founded by
Tassinaris grandfather, has a particularly interesting history. The
building was designed by Eduardo de Almeida, one of the leading names
from the paulista school of architecture, highlighting structures and
choosing concrete as one of the artistic elements of the works, and it
combines simplicity with a permeable character that runs through the
whole construction. This is evident in Tassinaris photographs, with
an obvious affective connection having spent several holidays in the
regions as a child and teenager - in relation to the building, and carefully
extracts images that serve as the basis for her series.

a melancholic atmosphere, these elements emphasise a moment of

particular fragility in the paulista school of architecture, an offshoot of
the brutalism and modernism in the region, demonstrating the robust
nature of the materials and dialogues between this presence and the
empty spaces created in the buildings. It is as if this line of Brazilian
architecture, which enjoyed its heyday of international acknowledgement
up to the 1960s, were no longer welcomed, lost interlocution and crumbled
on its own forms. It seems that the egalitarian aspect, effectively reflected
in the designs of Almeida and other great names, has retreated and
nowadays, with the odd honourable exception, has succumbed to far more
individualist and less public projects one can cite the neoclassic style,
closed condominiums, shopping malls and skyscrapers on the verge
of marginal highways to witness the decline of the model. Therefore,
the splendour of an authentic, auteurist movement in the area seems to
live on only in memory, making the remnant character so highlighted by
photography theorists such as Susan Sontag and Franois Soulages, and
developed by Tassinari, an attitude of resistance and political expression.
A photo is not a proof, but a trace of the object to be photographed [...];
it is, therefore, the articulation of two enigmas, that of the object and that
of the subject1, Soulages underlines.
The sensitive geometry created by the artist is gradually revealed.
Whereas in Requadros the coloured interventions are less present,
the work applied over the pictures, using superimposition, reframing,
cutting and off-field references, remains strong, but is not visible a
priori to the observer. In diptychs, triptychs and polyptychs done in 2008,
one of her most productive years, there was a redefinition of the trivial
registrations that, through her edition and reordering, moved towards
questions of painting, for example. In other series, Tassinari seemed to
be emphasising that she was not simply a post-production artist, and
inserted over photographic images the mark of highly delicate drawings.
Today, in Requadros, she seems to have assimilated more of what is
given, of that, in view of the chaos of information and images, could be
collected and reinterpreted, but from a less ostensive angle. She speaks
to the solidity that surrounds us, embodied in the sober furnishings she
creates as a multidisciplinary proposition, comforting and stimulating
our vision in the most ordinary, but no less powerful moments.

The grey walls, the green blocks, the faded yellow posters, the ochre
armchairs, and especially, the ice-white stone fittings generate chromatic
relations that drive the visual seduction of the ensemble. Combined in
1. SOULAGES, Franois. Esttica da Fotografia Perda e Permanncia. So Paulo, Senac SP, 2010,
p. 346

mario gioia
A graduate from the ECA-USP (So
Paulo University School of Arts and
Communication), he curated Ela Caminha em Direo Fronteira, by Ana
Mazzei, the first solo exhibition of the
ZipUp series in 2012, the projects second year at Zipper Galeria (which has
also exhibited Julia Katers Lugar do
Outro, Transmission, by Geraldo Marcolini, ntima Ao, by Carolina Paz,
and Planisfrio by Marina Camargo
this year). In 2012, he has also curated Miragem, by Romy Pocztaruk, and
Distante Presente, by Gordana Manic
(Galeria mpar). In 2011, he inaugurated the ZipUp project with the collective exhibition Presenas, aimed at
new artists (which has also included
the exhibitions J Vou, by Alessandra
Duarte, Areos, by Fabio Flaks, Perto Longe, by Aline van Langendonck,
Paragem, by Laura Gorski, Hotel Tropical, by Joo Castilho, and the group
exhibition Territrio de Caa, with the
same curatorship). In 2010, he was
responsible for Incompletudes (Galeria Virgilio), Mediaes (Galeria Motor)
and Espacialidades (Galeria Central),
as well as providing critical reviews
of the Ateli Fidalga at the Pao das
Artes. In 2009 he curated Obra Menor (Ateli 397) and Lugar Sim e No
(Galeria Eduardo Fernandes). Mario
was a reporter and editor on arts and
architecture for the Ilustrada section
of the Folha de So Paulo newspaper
from 2005 to 2009 and currently contributes to various publications, including the magazine Bravo and the UOL
online portal, as well as the Spanish
magazine Dardo and Italian Interni. He
is the coauthor of Roberto Mcoli (Bei
Editora) and a member of the Pao
das Artes critics group, where he reviewed Black Market (2012), by Paulo
Almeida, and A Riscar (2011), by Daniela Seixas. He is a guest critic for the
2012/2013 Photography Program of
the CSSP (Centro Cultural So Paulo).