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Three channel installation, SD video, Colour, Sound
The series “I don’t want to see nothing” (Não quero nem ver), initiated in 2004, was first exhibited in June 2005 at Paço das Artes, São Paulo-SP. At first, the work featured five photo-performances plus the video There Are Women (Há Mulheres). Later that year, it was exhibited at the 5ª Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre alongside three other videos in a large installation.

In this series, Lenora de Barros acts as the character, which is a recurring feature in her work. The images from the performances carry, metaphorically, a combative attitude, of affront, and at the same time, the option of recollection to female subjectivity. Another tension proposed in this work lies in the fact that the images were suggesting a feminine activity, which is knitting, with its lines and needles. However, the result refers to other meanings that transcend the pullovers or caps that our aunts knit one day.
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Poems vocalized in the videos
1. Tato do olho 1’00
The touch of the eye 1’00
A mão
Que tapa
O tato
Do olho
Não vê
Que olho
Não vive
Sem toque
The hand
That covers
The touch
Of the eye
Cannot see
The eye
Doesn’t live
With no touch
2. Ela não quer ver 4’04
She doesn’t want to see
Eu não quero ver
Ela não quer ver
I don’t want to see
She doesn’t want to see
3. Já vi tudo 9’50
I’ve seen it all
4. Há mulheres 59’
There are women
a mulher
o corpo
o corpo da mulher
o corpo de idéias da mulher
o corpo de imagens da mulher
há mulheres.
há mulheres que pensam o corpo
há mulheres que pensam o próprio corpo
há mulheres que pensam com o corpo
há mulheres que pensam através do corpo
há mulheres que pensam para o corpo
há mulheres que pensam a partir da idéia de corpo
há mulheres que pensam a partir do corpo da idéia
há mulheres que pensam a partir da imagem de corpo
há mulheres que pensam a partir do corpo da imagem
há mulheres que pensam
a mulher.
There are women 59’
The woman
The body
The woman’s body
The woman’s body of ideas
The woman’s body of images
There are women
There are women who think the body
There are women who think their own body
There are women who think with the body
There are women who think through the body
There are women who think for the body
There are women who think from the idea of body
There are women who think from the body of the idea
There are women who think from the image of the body
There are women who think from the body of the image
There are women who think
The woman.
Lenora de Barros graduated in Linguistics from Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and started her artistic career in the 1970’s, a time of intense experimentalism in Brazilian art, marked by a strong constructive and avant-gardist bent since the 50’s. The first works created by Lenora de Barros can be placed in the field of visual poetry springing from the concrete poetry movement from the 1950’s. Words and images were her initial materials.
In 1983, de Barros published the book Onde Se Vê [Where One Sees], a set of rather uncommon poems. Some of them dismissed the use of words, being constructed as photographic sequences where the artist herself acted out different characters in performance acts. This book announced Lenora de Barros’ transit into the field of visual arts, what eventually came to happen. Since then, the artist has been following her own personal path, marked by the use of diversified languages such as video, performance, photography, sound installation and construction of objects.
Among the recent exhibitions and activities stand out the solo show ISSOÉOSSODISSO (THIS IS THE BONE OF THIS), curated by Priscila Arantes at Paço das Artes, São Paulo, Brazil, 2016; Riso e Lágrima não tem sotaque (Laughter and Tears Have No Accent), curated by Fernanda Brenner, with Cibelle Cavalli Bastos and Daniel Albuquerque, Camden Arts Centre, London, England; XÔ-DOR, Parede da Gentil, Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil; Soft Power – Arte Brasilin in tandem with Eli Sudbrack and Cid Campos, Kunsthal KadE, Amersfoort, Holland; Space to Dream: Recent Art from South America, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, curated by Zara Stanhope and Beatriz Bustos Oyanedel, Auckland, New Zealand; Resistance Performed — Aesthetic Strategies under Repressive Regimes in Latin America, Migros Museum, Zurich, Switzerland 2015; L’Eloge de l’heure, MUDAC – Musée de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2015; Encruzilhada, curated by Bernardo Mosqueira, Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2015; Umas e Outras (Some and Others), curated by Glória Ferreira, PIVÔ, São Paulo, Brazil, 2014; ULTRAPASSADO I e II, Broadway 1602, New York, USA, 2014; Pregação (Nail action), curated by Daniel Rangel, ICCO + Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY, USA; wehave nothingtosay, Mandragoras Art Space, in tanden with Laura Lona, New York, USA.
Las update 25th May, 2017.