LABINAC - What we always did
Casa Zalszupin 25/11
What we whays did
We always did.
Travel.
Stayed.
A while.
Set up a house.
Built.
a chair
a table
a lamp
a vase
Left…
Stay.
LABINAC
"Is this art?"
A recurring question in the realm of contemporary art, this query is often met by professionals in the field with a resigned air of superiority. It's as if such a basic question is, in reality, only a testament to the inability to understand something that should be obvious and evident. Personally, I have always found it to be a thought-provoking question. Is it really art? Does it make the slightest difference whether something is considered art or not? And what is art, after all? For distinct social groups and cultures, across time and space, art has meant and means different things, much like almost everything we see in the world can signify different things to different people. Thankfully.
LABINAC was founded by artists Maria Thereza Alves and Jimmie Durham. Their work ethic, tireless advocacy for the rights and culture of indigenous peoples, and constant questioning of tense binaries, crucial for a genuine understanding of the world we live in (natural-artificial; autóctone-exotic; pure-contaminated, among others): all of these aspects make them essential artists and thinkers of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. LABINAC was not conceived by its founders as an artistic project but as "a design collective initiated with the dual purpose of designing and making things and supporting the craftwork of indigenous peoples in Latin America."
The poem above implicitly places the genesis of the project in an understanding of life as a choreography of movements and pauses. What most immediately characterizes these pauses, which for people and peoples under constant threat often become temporary, is the construction of a house and, especially, what makes us feel at home: 'a chair, a table, a lamp, a vase.' The objects that accompany us while eating, writing, thinking, dreaming of perhaps another life and another world. Things that "we always did." The poem, even if unsigned, seems carved into stone or wood in the unmistakable style of Jimmie Durham's poetic writing (who, in addition to being an artist, was an extraordinary poet) and projects LABINAC's objects into a realm that transcends the boundaries of what we commonly call design because it is laden with an authentically philosophical, universal, and timeless dimension.
LABINAC – What We've Always Done is an exhibition that takes place in two very different spaces, where these particularly special objects are placed in relation and friction with contexts that allow different readings of them. At Casa Zalszupin, the dialogue is primarily with objects produced by the architect and designer himself, within a domestic environment that, despite being evidently extraordinary, maintains a familiar feel. Meanwhile, at Galeria Jaqueline Martins, within the relatively aseptic space of an art gallery, the main conversation is with works where 'a chair, a table, a lamp, a vase' often appear in the background — objects we usually don't pay much attention to or simply consider as "furniture."
In 1917, Erik Satie introduced an expression that was almost inconceivable until then: musique d’ameublement (furniture music). These compositions were designed to be played live in diverse and unconventional contexts where Satie hoped the audience would not pay attention, and the music could be heard as a background, like something that just exists, like furniture. From a certain point of view, the experiment was a failure; people stopped to pay attention. Perhaps there is some kind of lesson there, one that involves the importance of noticing things we have long overlooked, stopping the use of expressions we have used for a long time, understanding that what is around us, even when invisible, is never neutral, always carrying powerful messages and meanings.
This text began with the stereotypical question of the bewildered visitor in front of a contemporary work of art: "Is this art?" It makes sense that it ends by reversing the question: "Is this furniture?"
JACOPO CRIVELLI VISCONTI
