Zipper presents the exhibition Bem-vindos (Welcome), featuring the works of 6 artists, newcomers to the group represented by the gallery. Colombian Adriana Duque photographs disturbing yet attractive characters, children dressed luxuriously in baroque settings which, as if in a fantasy, is seemingly superimposed over the reality of inside modest homes. Posing as little monarchs, the children have the same pair of blue eyes and wear a crown, typifying contemporary design as it is also a pair of earphones. The luxury that this crown resonates keeps them in a secret world of sounds (or muffled silence) which only they can hear and which supports the alienated fantasy. From Mexico Ricardo Rendón sends us carefully pierced pieces of felt, synthesising craft and mental processes. From one felt rectangle the artist produces dozens of different ways of emptying it of matter, extracting hundreds of little discs, which surprisingly do not vanish, but rather regenerate strengthened in their new form. From Portugal, Rodrigo Oliveira looks at Brazil and, through reference to modern architecture and stereotypical industrial items like rubber sandals and replica designer bags, reveals the paradoxes of a society that amalgamates abundant resources and social deprivation. Daniel Escobar makes use of graphic productions like travel guides or bits of billboards designed to convey an unequivocal message, transforming them into open works which incite criticism of methods of social control. Marcelo Amorim recalls childhood in images also borrowed from manuals and photographs that dictate rules of conduct, reproducing them by hand, veiling them with a milky layers, which renders them diffused and precisely undefined just like the processes of assimilation of pre-adult standards of conduct. Camille Kachani revives the dead wood of broomsticks and hoes, benches and boxes, as if the tree brought down to produce utility objects had come back to life, rejecting a servile function.
To them all, welcome to Zipper.
Paula Braga, 2013
