Adversity notwithstanding
To remain standing even when unsteadily supported; to be light without denying the intrinsic density of bodies; to insist on the verticality of weight even under the constant threat of gravity; to be aggressive without ceasing to seduce. These are but a few of the borderline situations brought up by Thiago Honório’s new spatial insertion. Keeping its balance on the razor’s edge, Health Plan [4X4] – Coachman’s Seat throws the state of the physical, psychological and social precariousness of the body’s compulsory being-in-the-world in our faces without, however, avoiding the challenge of steering clear of a stalemate. On the contrary, its poetic force comes precisely from the simultaneous movement of permanently instigating this embarrassing condition and its movable solution.
Starting with the small hall’s spatially problematic dimensions (4,30 X 3,78m), the intervention destabilizes the space’s apparently safe, welcoming nature by transforming what appeared to be intimate and familiar into a threatening, uncomfortable place. Through the simple positioning a steel plate proportionate to the size of the room (3,50 X 3,60 m), supported by a rod of the same material in an inclined vertical position, the artist makes it possible for the displacement to be variously perceived as: the heavy “sculpture’s” disproportionate existence as a “work of art” in this small exhibition space; our body’s permanent personal struggle with gravity; the room’s displaced reality insofar as Ceuma’s other exhibition rooms is concerned; and – why not say so? – the latent violence to which we are exposed as agent subjects within a collective space.
But occupying a space in terms of its physical and structural limits – for it is worth remembering that, in order to support nearly a ton it was necessary to use the only existing beam in the room – is never a one-way street: if, on one hand, the apparently unstable balance of such a heavy mass becomes threatening; the plate’s verticality, on the other hand, signals the amplitude of this reduced space.
Finding a middle ground upon which the body can maintain its autonomy without forsaking the space that welcomes it, the exact point of coexistence between freedom and restraint, would appear to have been an issue since the first series of drawings presented in 2001 at the Centro Cultural São Paulo space. In Getting out (a March/April, 2003 intervention at Galeria 10,20 X 3,60), for the first time, this dubious relationship seems to have expanded to a physical space. As yet another exercise in coherence and creativity, Thiago Honório scrutinizes these borderlines by accepting the occupation of a less-than-ideal space as a challenge. In this sense, Coachman’s seat once more signals the adventure that is our state in the world.
— Taisa Palhares
Text from the Centro Universitário Maria Antonia catalogue. São Paulo: Centro Universitário Maria Antonia, August 2003.
Translated by Stephen Berg