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cross-cuts, chapter 2 | paul ramirez jonas and berna reale
january 19 – 23, nara roesler new york
curated by luis pérez-oramas
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Paul Ramirez Jonas (b. California, US, 1965) and Berna Reale (b. Pará, Brazil, 1965) are contemporary artists interested in the notion of public space: its practice, its image, its politics, its aesthetics. Both artists have addressed this subject through performance and participative works where the public is invited to take part.
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Berna Reale, Palomo #5, 2012
mineral pigment on Premium Luster photographic paper
100 x 150 cm / 39.4 x 59.1 in
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Palomo (2013) consists of a performance registered on video and a series of photographs of the action by Berna Reale. The work refers to one of the canonic forms of monumental representation: the equestrian portrait, which since antiquity has been used to represent figures of authority, key political and military heroes. The artist, in androgynous costume wearing a black uniform and a dog muzzle, rides a horse painted in vivid red while she goes through the deserted streets of a Brazilian city. A figure embodying enraging authority is transformed into a moving, dynamic emblem of ambiguity as a means to question legal violence and police abuse in Brazil.
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"I am always working to represent both sides because both sides draw attention. Not only the victim but also the person who has the power, the one who censures. They also are an important element. Sometimes, I dress up like them, to provoke a reflection. And other times, I dress up as the victim, like when I undertook the role of the woman who pushes the bones of cadavers (Ordinário, 2013). I am there, I am a person, a mother, a woman, a daughter who pushes the bones. In that case, I am the victim of an act of society. When I am on top of a red horse (Palomo, 2012), I am the oppressing power, the censure."-Berna Reale
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'The Commons' by Paul Ramirez Jonas acquired by the Brooklyn Museum
On the occasion of the two-people show that includes works by Paul Ramirez Jonas at Nara Roeler's New York , we are thrilled to announce the acquisition of The Commons (2011) by the Broolyn Museum, now composing the permanent collection of the space.
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Ramirez Jonas has produced an entire repertoire of works based on historical facts as part of collective imagination, drawing from themes such as Magellan's world circumvallation, NASA's exploration of the Moon, the early history of aviation, world's time and weather zones, anthems, chance games, etc. Berna Reale has consistently questioned the politics of violence and authority in her native country, as well as geo and biopolitics in general.
The juxtaposition of two different bodies of work, Palomo by Berna Reale, and the series Ventriloquists by Paul Ramirez Jonas, embrace diverse perspectives around the common concept of monument.
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Paul Ramirez Jonas, Ventriloquist III, 2013
cork, pushpins, notes contributed by the public
177 x 46 x 46 cm / 69.7 x 18.1 x 18.1 in
The German philosopher Lessing, when thinking about the differences among the various types of art, wrote that sculpture could only embody the human voice in the form of a hole, the dark openness of a muted mouth. Made out of cork, the busts on pedestals by Ramirez Jonas refer to public personalities and have pins attached to their bodies so the public can interact by pinning down a message, comment or any fragment of paper to them. This way, the muted and sometimes severed busts become a support for public voices. This way, Paul Ramirez Jonas enables the Other's voice to be pinned to the muted monument, questioning the very meaning of monumental representation and giving a new sense to its political effect in the public space.
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In this installation of Cross-Cuts the two most common forms of sculptural monumentality in the Western world are therefore twisted with acerbic wit through ironic and sarcastic criticism.
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" The bust of historical figures is one of the classic forms for a monument. Ventriloquist is a monument that subverts that form by deliberately obscuring the identity of the figure through angular cuts to its face. Most monuments are made of permanent materials, and are often out of reach - in this way they inscribe the public space permanently. Ventriloquist welcomes the viewer’s inscription. It is made of cork instead of stone and bronze. It is covered in pushpins to enable the pinning of messages. [...] Ultimately, Ventriloquists proposes that the public voice does not have to be permanent and singular; but that it can instead reflect (through materials, form and the mode of interaction), the fragility, impermanence and plurality of our voices."-Paul Ramirez Jonas
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Berna Reale | Pablo Saborido | 2019
Berna Reale was born in 1965 in Belém do Pará, Brazil, where she lives and works. Reale is mostly known for her performance based work, which she has been developing since the 1990s. She first received public attention in 2006 at the 25th Art Salon of Pará, following her presentation of Cerne. The work consists of a photographic intervention carried out at the meat market located in Ver-o-Peso, a traditional center for street markets and stands bustling with tourists and local shoppers in Belém, Brazil.
Since then, the artist has been exploring and developing the idea of using her own body as the central aesthetic element of her images and performances, through which she aims to denounce social problems and injustices. Her work critically engages with the theme of violence, exploring its symbolic and physical representations, and the inevitable shadow of censorship, as a means of revealing the importance of image-making when it comes to maintaining freedom of thought. The strength of Berna Reale's imagery lies in eliciting a desire to get closer, countered by a sense of repulsion - an ambivalence reminiscent of the irony in Brazilian society's fascination for and disgust of violence.
Importantly, Berna Reale's work has come to heavily depend on photography as a tool for not only registering, but also perpetuating and disseminating her actions once the performance is over.
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Recent solo shows include: While You Laugh, at Galeria Nara Roesler (2019), in New York, NY, USA; Festa, at Viaduto das Artes (2019), in Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Deformation, at Bergkirche (2017), and Berna Reale – Über uns / About Us, at Kunsthaus (2017), both in Wiesbaden, Germany; Berna Reale: Singing in the Rain, at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMoCA) (2016), in Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Vazio de nós, at Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR) (2013), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Recent group shows include: 3rd Beijing Photo Biennial (2018), China; 56th Venice Biennale (2015), Italy; Brasile. Il coltello nella carne, at Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea Milano (PAC-Milano) (2018), in Milan, Italy; Video Art in Latin America, II Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (II PST: LA/LA), at LAXART (2017), in Hollywood, CA, USA; Artistas comprometidos? Talvez, at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (FCG) (2014), in Lisbon, Portugal. Her works are included in important institutional collections, such as: Instituto Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil; Kunsthaus Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, Germany; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP), São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and JW Collection, Atlanta, GA, USA.
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Paul Ramirez Jonas | 2020
Since the 1990s, Paul Ramirez Jonas has produced a varied body of work, ranging from public installations and monumental sculptures, to drawings, videos and performances. Though his education was focused on painting, the artist's practice is geared towards understanding and engaging with the possibilities of participation or exchange between artists, the work and its viewers. Ramirez Jonas' work departs from the idea of reading or reinterpreting elements of everyday life. By using objects such as newspapers, old pictures and music scores, the artist seeks to give the spectator an interactive role, whereby their actions constitute and validate the work, rather than merely contemplating it.
In fact, in making the viewer's engagement a central part of the work, Ramirez Jonas strives to create a community, albeit temporary. Always encouraging collective communication of ideas and stories, his works can often be much more characterized as monuments, rather than as sculptures. Notably, for the 28th Bienal de São Paulo (2008), as part of his presentation, Ramirez Jonas gave viewers keys to the main door of the pavilion where he exhibited. Two years later, for Key to the City, he distributed twenty-four thousand keys opening both public and private spaces of the city of New York. Both examples show the way in which the artist creates collective and radical experiences through simple gestures, or objects. -
Paul Ramirez Jonas was born in 1965 in Pomona, CA, USA. He currently lives and works in New York, NY, USA. Recent solo exhibitions include: El Palacio de Cristal, at Museo Jumex (2018), in Mexico City, Mexico; Half-Truths, at New Museum of Contemporary Art (2017), in New York, NY, USA; Atlas, Plural, Monumental, at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) (2017), in Houston, TX, USA, and Public Trust, site-specific in Dudley Square, Kendall Square, and Copley Square, in Boston, MA, USA. He has participated in the 53rd Venice Biennial (2009), Italy ; in the 28th Bienal de São Paulo (2008), Brazil and in the 7th and 10th editions of the Mercosur Biennial (2009 and 2015), in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Recent group exhibitions include: New Monuments for New Cities, at the High Line (2019), in New York, NY, USA, at Bentway, in Toronto, Canada, at 606, in Chicago, IL, USA, at Waller Creek, in Austin, TX, USA, at Buffalo Bayou, in Houston, TX, USA; Metrópole, at Galeria Nara Roesler (2017), in São Paulo, Brazil; Núcleo Nómada/05 Arte contemporáneo emergente en Honduras, at Centro Cultural de España en Tegucigalpa (CCET) (2015), in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. His works are part of numerous institutional collections, such as: Blanton Museum, Austin, TX, USA; Bronx Museum, New York, NY, USA; Instituto Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil; Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö, Sweden; New Museum, New York, NY, USA.
