Space by contrast

Making sense of space by contrasting live with lifeless configurations: this was the idea Luiz Henrique Viera gave me through his work “Celebrating in the space” (“Celebrando no espaco”, http://celebrando-no.blogspot.com).

But, it was one gentle comment by Luiz that highlighted this idea to me. He mentioned a contrast, in a pic, between me - smiling like a fool, and for the very first time experiencing the snow- against the colourless background of the winter of 2004. From this, I started to realize how much this same concern drives his photos, a sort of lens through which his artistic view has produced such captivating shots of people jumping in space, playing with water or leaves.

I previously knew the work of Luiz - probably three or four years ago - through my friendship with Otavio, Celma Albuquerque and Flavinho, and I got a really strong impression on seeing his site at http://www.luizhenriquevieira.com/. His exhibition entitled "Auto-retrato a partir de Dados Alheios" (“self portrait based on someone else’s data”) impressed me not only with its technical skill in coping with graphical qualities but also by its ability to engage with conceptual ideas without being solipsistic, as unfortunately happens to be the case with most contemporary artistic expressions nowadays.

In “Celebrating in the space” Luiz emphasizes the body in its spatial expression - people jumping against many backgrounds. Using his own lens to analyse his current works, Luiz establishes a contrast between the dynamism of the captured movement and the static presence of elements, creating a fluid sense of space through which his characters can potentially keep moving, showing off their vigorous sense of life. Avoiding an outcome that could look like the work of a taxidermist, each visual element in his pics contributes to the imprinting of an appropriate sense of balance, freeing them enough to reorganize themselves in a lively way in front of our eyes, via our careful contemplation. In scrutinizing his photos, one will probably discover that what is frozen is, as a matter of fact, his/her look that commonly pervades everything - how many seconds do people stay looking at each photo in Luiz’s site? Should be this discover a reaction against the reification of the contemporary vision? Against a vision that dissects everything with staring eyes and systematically removes all traces of desire, ruling the reality with the power of an ocularcentric hegemony that denies touching, smelling, tasting… Once more, by contrasting our lifeless look with the generated space, Luiz’s points of views affirm their strength acting as a shock over our sleepy body and, by mimesis, we ourselves project us over the scene, in order to wake up.

I mentioned with Luiz this kind of contrast when, in some photos, he shots against a background made on the most familiar elements, as the following pic.

Photo by Luiz, http://celebrando-no.blogspot.com/

The pathetic visual presence of the complexity given by shadows, common furniture details, small pieces that lost the meaning against the foreground jump, establish a strong correlation with our body: whoever tries to jump like that will need to forget himself - as Luiz has commented in his blog – will need to put down his ethos for a moment. It reminded me Gustav Klimt with all the profusion of pathetic decorative elements backgrouding ethic themes, despite some of them very meaningful, creating a contrast with the very moment. In Luiz’s works, the solemnity of such ethic celebration is given by the freedom of life.