Galeria Leme presents Marcelo Moscheta’s second solo show. In Atlas, the artist’s constant search for the reconstruction of a total landscape approaches issues of geography, geology and cartography. Moscheta is aware that the limits of the known world go far beyond the parallels and meridians of this planet; so he asks: which of our actions determine the importance of a certain place? Which actions converge territories into landscape? The works in this exhibition lean upon this idea of joining the place’s memory and formal construction, they mix diagrams, models and numbers to create new topographic tools.
Atlas, the installation that also entitles the exhibition, is composed of 8 drawings of the planets in the solar system. The planets are reproduced according to the proportion between them while a steel cable supports the whole group hanging from the gallery’s wall. This element refers to the Greek titan who’s been sentenced to keep the entire universe in balance.
The idea of supporting the world is also present in the pieces Valsassina, Terminillo e Pouliguen. Images from old postcards work as a reference to the applied graphite drawing upon black expanded PVC boards. Two mountains (at Valsassina and Terminillo, both in Italy) and a cave (at Pouliguen, France) are placed over rocks, on the ground. They are sustained not on the gallery’s wall verticality but rather on the rocks that seem to belong to the original landscape. It shows a frail balance relation between the place itself and its representation. These images, which have traveled through time in touristic cards, inhabit the imaginary of those who have never been there, and enhance an iconic and romantic relation we have with certain places.
In the photographic series Parallax, images of sand and dirt grains simulate another planet’s landscape. Parallax is the name given in optics to the visual displacement effect or of the apparent difference in position of a certain object seen from two points of view. Here, the calculations and fake scales were added to the (real) images of sand. They create a perception displacement effect to the universe of NASA released images from other planets. It is the very archetype of place.
About the artist
Marcelo Moscheta (born in São José do Rio Preto, SP, Brazil, 1976), live and works in Campinas, SP, Brazil
Recent solo shows: CONTRA.CÉU – Capela do Morumbi,SP (2010); MARE INCOGNITUM – Centro Universitário Mariantonia, SP (2010); TERRA INCOGNITA – Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milano (2009); GRAVITY – Galeria Leme, SP (2009) ; Latitude – Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt(2008)
Recent group shows: REALISM: ADVENTURE OF REALITY – Kunsthalle der Hypo Kulturistifung, Munich (2010); CONVIVÊNCIAS – Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre(2010); Ponto de Equilíbrio, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, SP (2010) ; XV Bienal de Cerveira, Portugal ( 2009 ) ; Paralléles // 22°S – 50°N, Museum of Fine Arts of Verviers, Belgium; ( 2009) .
Prizes and grants: popular jury cathegory – Prêmio Pipa- MAM-Rio de Janeiro (2010) ; Bienal de Gravura de Liège, Bélgium (2009); Bolsa Iberê Camargo para a École des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, France ( 2007 ) .