projeto para desenhar o chão
The concern with space is a constant in the work of Lygia Eluf. If we look at her production as a whole, we see a continuous interest in the many possibilities of construction of a space, specially through the use of color. In this exhibit, this interest takes new aspects. Both the title of the exhibit (projeto para desenhar o chão or, in a loose translation, Project to draw the Ground) and the artist’s statement on the genesis of the set of drawings showcased point towards an experience: to walk, to look at the ground (and also upwards, although not mentioned). All this can sound as a mundane experience – which, in fact, is – but the results brought by these drawings show something deeper. In them, we see a space in formation, which reveals itself bit by bit to the attentive eye. An old problem in the world of arts, it is certainly difficult to find a language that can manage an experience that is, at the same time, personal and objective, even more an experience as disconcerting as existing in the world.
The space of what is lived is very different from the one of the natural sciences. There is no coherence for the objective phenomena, but there is, an interwoven set, majorly confusing, of relations of the far and the near, the tangible and the intangible, the familiar and the strange. Bringing all of this to the world of drawing arts is not that simple. Even with the existing intimate relation between images, the space and the “presence” (Foucault, commenting on an important text by L. Binswanger, reminds a phrase by Stefan George: “Space and presence [Dasein] are only in the image”), Lygia Eluf’s proposal is not very common. It is not about representing space or personal experience, but perhaps about finding the means for the experience to occur in the drawings.
Paulo Mugayar Kühl
These new elements appear in the drawings we see here and we are never certain of how to look at them: as windows to the world, as overhead views, like an intersection between land and sky. The desire is to look at them, sometimes, from top to bottom, on the ground; in other moments, hanged on the wall, or even the ceiling. Or, often, the same drawing brings varied experiences: something that sinks, that emerges and leaps and soon escapes. The vitality in the colors have here a fundamental role: it is through it that space happens. It is not about a mere game, but a demand the work brings us: look at it, with attention, review our gaze over the world, learn, in fact, to see.