See and Read, Read and See

"When Seeing is More Than Reading"
If Pablo Picasso showed that words are figures before they are concepts, and therefore an object of art discourse, it was with the writings, designs and drawings assembled by Marcel Duchamp, called “Green Box” that the prolegomena of contemporary poetics related with language arose. With that work (1912 and 1923) there was a marriage between visual and linguistic concepts, unpublished until then *.
When considering his ideas, reflections and projects as integral parts of the work itself (the Green Box brought together the material of The Great Glass), Duchamp made it clear that the work of art preceded and was not exhausted in the realization of the object and that the signification could use words and images or things to express itself.
In fact, art is both a phenomenon of signification and communication **, hence the possibility of equivalence of the use of visual and linguistic concepts in the arts. The present exhibition discusses and makes explicit the varied and complex relations among these domains, discovered and developed by contemporary art.
The main discursive matrices with which the seventeen contemporary artists reflect on the theme "See and Read" in this show are two. One of them is organized around the signifiers of visual discourse and the other around their meanings. It is worth noting that the structure of this exhibition is a great advance for the specification of the debate on the subject, due to two main reasons. The first one is that contemporary art took itself, that is, its own language, as the object of reflection of itself (work on the signifiers), as the exhibition evinces. The second reason is that the domains of knowledge, fields of acquaintance and activity that the visual arts take as the object of research, have become unlimited.
Finally, there is at least one great lesson to be drawn from this exhibition: everything that is seen is read, but not everything that is read is seen. What corresponds to say that one always interprets what one sees and that this interpretation interferes with the vision and precedes it. You only see what is already known, since theory comes before experience and builds it. Hence the difficulty of throwing a new look at what is already known and, even worse, the tendency to interpret the new with the old concepts. Therefore, paradoxical as it may seem, it is necessary to unlearn to "read" to be able to see, says the present exhibition that the visitor has the privilege to observe.

(*) Cfr. FREIRE, Cristina, Arte Conceitual. Rio de Janeiro, Jorge Zahar, 2006.

(**) Cfr. CALABRESE, Omar, A Linguagem da Arte. Rio de Janeiro, Globo, 1987.

In Vicencia Gonsales’ work, the line remains as a structuring element, and has permeated her creative process for the last years. Lines formed with roughly cut and sewn newspaper strips bring the writing with its contents, letters, drawings, forming a new reading, another drawing, another object flowing in space.

ANTONIO CARLOS FORTIS
Anthropologist

Data sheet:

Title: "Fluxus"

Technique: Installation with cut and sewn newspaper strips.

Dimensions (approximate): 4.0m (height) x 3.0m (bottom diameter)