ExhibitionSeptember 10, 2020
Thiago Rocha Pitta’s “Noite de Abertura ( opening night)” inaugurates in Brazil
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro recently inaugurated the solo exhibition of Thiago Rocha Pitta titled “Noite de Abertura ( opening night)” as part of Programa Intervenções ( Interventions Program) which commissions visual artists to create projects for external areas of the institution, at Aterro do Flamengo. The opening took place on Wednesday, September 2nd, date that marks two years of the tragic fire that destroyed the Museu Nacional - the work Noite de Abertura presents a video and a sculpture by Thiago Rocha Pitta, both newly commissioned, inaugurates the curatorial program of Fernando Cocchiarale and Fernanda Lopes.
The artist from Minas Gerais, based in Petrópolis (RJ), constantly engaged in promoting transformations of material, took as a starting point the relationship between inside and outside spaces of the museum. The study of a formulation on analytical topology, called "cloppen", states that the concepts open and closed would not be one of rupture, but cyclical continuity. According to this principle, in a clopen system it is possible to be simultaneously open and closed, inside and outside.
In the foyer of MAM Rio, The Clopen Door, a large projection, will present a film in which a fire burns continuously, until total destruction of a wooden door located at its highest point. Thanks to the architectural configuration of the place, the image goes beyond the limits of screen and reflects, not only on the black granite floor, but through the glass walls of the museum, transforming the space into a large fire image.
On September 2, the video was shown precisely at 7:24 pm, time when Rio de Janeiro Military Fire Brigade was activated in 2018, due to the fire at the Museu Nacional. From this memory, other historic fires that hit the cultural sector in Brazil and Rio de Janeiro will be remembered, such as MAM Rio itself, in 1978.
The video will be presented to the public daily only at the times when the institution is closed: always from sunset until 10 pm. “It is an innovative experience for the museum to receive a work that will be activated only at night, during the closing period”, evaluates Fabio Szwarcwald, executive director of MAM Rio.
Rocha Pitta says that the study of topology reminded him of another artist, the Brazilian artist Tunga, with whom he worked. "He went deeper into the subject and adopted the concept a few times in his work, as in the video Ão (16mm film and sound installation, 1980)", he comments.
"I have been burning this door for about three years, maturing the work as sculpture and video. It is interesting that it is publicly established at the moment when we see a problematization of open-closed also in the political field. The fire of Museu Nacional, which is a scientific and educational institution, it was a great voodoo of what happens today in Brazil. We can associate that fire to the burning in Amazon, the extermination of indigenous populations and the dismantling of education and culture. In 2018, anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro proposed that the building be left in ruins, with its ashes, as a monument to our ignorance", recalls Thiago.
According to the curators, the use of fire and images related to it (like the bonfire) is one of the elements that mark the trajectory of Thiago Rocha Pitta, who in the last two decades has been developing a reflection based on the observation of the time actions, nature phenomena, chemical and physical reactions, the "ruinification" of things, and transformations occurring at the planet. "Fire is considered the greatest achievement of human beings in Prehistory. If in the Middle Ages, alchemists believed that fire had properties of transmutation of matter, transforming ore without value into gold, there are many cases throughout history when fire played a destructive role", comment Cocchiarale and Lopes.
Pitta warns that the work is not a celebration. The artist creates a space that is no longer a place of representation to become an environment for action. "It is a very painful memory, but necessary for it not to happen again. That fire is still burning", he says.
For additional information visit: https://www.mam.rio/
The artist from Minas Gerais, based in Petrópolis (RJ), constantly engaged in promoting transformations of material, took as a starting point the relationship between inside and outside spaces of the museum. The study of a formulation on analytical topology, called "cloppen", states that the concepts open and closed would not be one of rupture, but cyclical continuity. According to this principle, in a clopen system it is possible to be simultaneously open and closed, inside and outside.
In the foyer of MAM Rio, The Clopen Door, a large projection, will present a film in which a fire burns continuously, until total destruction of a wooden door located at its highest point. Thanks to the architectural configuration of the place, the image goes beyond the limits of screen and reflects, not only on the black granite floor, but through the glass walls of the museum, transforming the space into a large fire image.
On September 2, the video was shown precisely at 7:24 pm, time when Rio de Janeiro Military Fire Brigade was activated in 2018, due to the fire at the Museu Nacional. From this memory, other historic fires that hit the cultural sector in Brazil and Rio de Janeiro will be remembered, such as MAM Rio itself, in 1978.
The video will be presented to the public daily only at the times when the institution is closed: always from sunset until 10 pm. “It is an innovative experience for the museum to receive a work that will be activated only at night, during the closing period”, evaluates Fabio Szwarcwald, executive director of MAM Rio.
Rocha Pitta says that the study of topology reminded him of another artist, the Brazilian artist Tunga, with whom he worked. "He went deeper into the subject and adopted the concept a few times in his work, as in the video Ão (16mm film and sound installation, 1980)", he comments.
"I have been burning this door for about three years, maturing the work as sculpture and video. It is interesting that it is publicly established at the moment when we see a problematization of open-closed also in the political field. The fire of Museu Nacional, which is a scientific and educational institution, it was a great voodoo of what happens today in Brazil. We can associate that fire to the burning in Amazon, the extermination of indigenous populations and the dismantling of education and culture. In 2018, anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro proposed that the building be left in ruins, with its ashes, as a monument to our ignorance", recalls Thiago.
According to the curators, the use of fire and images related to it (like the bonfire) is one of the elements that mark the trajectory of Thiago Rocha Pitta, who in the last two decades has been developing a reflection based on the observation of the time actions, nature phenomena, chemical and physical reactions, the "ruinification" of things, and transformations occurring at the planet. "Fire is considered the greatest achievement of human beings in Prehistory. If in the Middle Ages, alchemists believed that fire had properties of transmutation of matter, transforming ore without value into gold, there are many cases throughout history when fire played a destructive role", comment Cocchiarale and Lopes.
Pitta warns that the work is not a celebration. The artist creates a space that is no longer a place of representation to become an environment for action. "It is a very painful memory, but necessary for it not to happen again. That fire is still burning", he says.
For additional information visit: https://www.mam.rio/
