All That and a Bag of Chips
Bryan Giuseppi Rodriguez Cambana, Michael Dohr, Yulia Iosilzon, Luisa Me, Nana Wolke
9 December 2021 - 29 January 2022
Three men stand together on a rocky seashore, one is singing, the other two clapping. They wear red t-shirts, old jeans and white trainers. In the background, what seems like half an hour away, a glimpse of the port city of Callao is littered with cranes, ship to shore cranes, mobile harbour cranes, rubber tyred gantry cranes.
Que Linda is the third instalment of La Mar Brava trilogy by the Peruvian artist Bryan Giuseppi Rodriguez Cambana. It comprises a set of films shot entirely on colour super 8, taking a hybrid approach to the lives of a group of people living in Callao, Peru. Callao is an afro-centric port city which served as a trade and exchange quarter of enslaved Africans during early European occupation. La Mar Brava is the name of the beach portion of the ocean located near one of the most marginalised sectors in Callao; making the name La Mar Brava or “Rough Sea” resonate with its heavy influx of narcotics via its port, the community of consumers who live on the actual beach, and the strong, unwelcoming, and violent tides.
Time seems to stretch endlessly on the languid faces of these three men “…ya no me ames (don’t love me anymore)…”. It stops. The sunset in La Mar Brava is pink, it waits for you yet it does not want your love “…ya no me ames…”. All three films cast members of the artist’s family as protagonists who participate in developing situations stemming from real and fictional dilemmas reminiscent of what they/we find gripping in telenovelas and Hollywood fantasies. A process of becoming that implies trade and smuggling which, in becoming one piece becomes a separate whole, but retains its state of precarity. The artist invents narratives out of curious facts by mapping, finding that inventive moment from where we can start. From the words of Irit Rogoff “…even erased memories leave behind a rhythm”.[ ¹ ]
Misremembering episodes can go back to memory distortions, where information one learns after an event can interfere with the way they recall it. Luisa Me, a duo of Italian artists based in London, wear tinted glasses. Projecting their own desires by handing those glasses to their audience. The artists know all too well that our experiences, bias and associations shape our expectations, affecting the relation between memory and emotions. Their figures look solemn, marmoreal. Yet they are, actually, fragile as cookies left in the oven for too long. These personaggi (characters) often perform rituals and play games emphasising the naivety of their half-fictional worlds. Luisa Me’s practice stands at the intersection of the idealised calmness and silence of jouissance and the realisation that human modern life exists only within the constraints of desire and production.[ ²] Their paintings become softer throughout the years, as if faded by sunlight.
Nana Wolke Are you ok, bro?, 2021 breaks the gallery in two with its breathtaking, blood-soaked reds, its vibrant greens and blues, and a hint of yellow-orange. Its bizarre perspective alludes to something that might not quite be right, attracting us to look closer into the sandy texture of the painting. Wolke’s practice tests vantage points of recalling by restaging moments that are caught from the corner of her eye. Ultimately, one cannot be too sure of what is happening.
A comforting feeling of zoning-out coats Yulia Iosilzon’s Ochre Sand and Deep Dark Blue Waters and Almost It’s Hugging You, 2021, translating to perfection into her silky canvases. Like translucent curtains in an Italian summer house, the blocks of colour in between her sketched characters are reminiscent of negative spaces behind coral reefs, from where you can see only deep-dark-blue. On the opposite side of the room, Michael Dohr’s Palm Tree with Doughnut or Large Hadron Collider, 2021, looks like a pink icon installed within the sanctum of a temple. Drawing inspiration from the structures of the natural world as well as from the industrialised society that surrounds us, the artist contemplates on the gradual process of influencing and manipulating nature on our path towards a digital and technological society. Where Iosilzon narrates hypnotic transitions that dissolve into mellow canvases, Dohr speculates between an organic past and a technological future through heavy textures and bold symbolism.
[1] Rogoff I. , Becoming Research Lecture. SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL 2019 – HEREAFTER, 22 February – De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.[2] The Artist Contemporary Podcast – Luisa Me.