Rivane Neuenschwander

misunderstandings is the first survey exhibition of Rivane Neuenschwander (Belo Horizonte, 1967), one of the main figures of the 1990s generation. The show gathers 24 works and series made since 1999; its title points to the exhibition’s paths. The small Misunderstanding consists of an egg half-submerged in a glass of water, so that its bottom half seems enlarged through the glass that, with the liquid, works as a magnifying lens. What we see is an egg whose image is split, doubled, and mismatched. It is not an optical illusion as much as a proof that even seemingly transparent materials and surfaces such as glass and water may distort our fine perception of reality. The question is: does a fine perception and representation of reality actually exist? That is the core issue in much of the arts and sciences, crossing fields like philosophy, history, anthropology, psychoanalysis, linguistics, semiotics, cinema, and photography. In the plural form and written in lower case, the synthetic Misunderstanding between the egg, the glass, the water, and the human eye hovers over the exhibition, inviting us to reflect upon the status of what we see.

The first room is an eloquent beginning: crosswords with letters sculpted on oranges and lemons in maze-like architectures (Scrabble) are juxtaposed to edible alphabets composed in horizontal diagrams with 26 different spices and powdered foods (Edible Alphabet), facing drawings made with altered typewriters so that they type only numbers and punctuation marks (Sane and Altered). It all seems to emerge from a crisis of representation and its codes, of language and its alphabets, and from a desire to develop alternatives that although they do not discard the grid (be it geometric, architectonic, scientific, or linguistic), they also cross error, chance, affection, life itself.

Participation of the other—be it the audience, a museum’s employee, or authors of works that are incorporated to the exhibition—is fundamental and brings in the dimension of affection. The Involuntary Sculptures (Speech Acts), the groceries lists (in Harvest), the typewriter drawings (in Sane and Altered), and the memories of First Love were given or collected by the artist, who now invites the audience to take part in the sequence of First Love, to play with the letters of Scrabble, to make sounds by stepping on Quem vem lá sou eu/Alarm-Floor, and, finally, to take home and perhaps take care of the coin made of minted salt in Monstra Marina.

As we open different paths of reading and participation, we find multiple possibilities of access and perception—this is the exhibition’s path. There is no language without lapse, no communication without mistake, no alphabet without gap, no theory without fantasy, no memory without oblivion. Surely other misunderstandings will come.

Adriano Pedrosa