Ânima, 2011-2013
In Ânima, a full-length zebra skin with snout, ears and tail is attached to a transparent cube with casters – the lumbar region placed on top, the head and sides of the skin hanging over the side faces of the structure. This one piece skin, almost without cuts, with the protruding parts of the animal's body preserved, was found in stores specializing in stuffed animals, taxidermy, and scientific materials*.
To carry out the work, a detailed study of the procedures adopted to press the skin without damaging its volumes was necessary; about the appropriate thickness of the acrylic to be used; about the types of screws to be used when joining acrylic sheets. Initially, the use of almost transparent screws was considered, as well as a transparent caster. It is important to ensure lightness, the impression of levitation of a structurally heavy object. The lumbar part of the animal is not pressed or covered with acrylic, evoking through its texture a desire for touch, while the irregular edges of the solid skin falling down the sides suggest torpor and inertia.
The idea is that the viewer can visualize, from a certain point of view, the abstract design of a surface with stripes, and then confront the organic dimension of that surface, with the figure of the “pressed” animal.With four wheels and no predetermined direction, it is possible for the cube to move – something that can simultaneously signal and deny the “functional” character of the object, lending it a sense of ridicule. It's as if that zebra skin prostrate on the acrylic cube with wheels mocks its own insufficiency and reminds us, like the figure of the clown, of our own insufficiency.
The mood evoked by the work evokes a kind of self-mockery, something pathetic. Despite the reduction of the animal to the new acrylic body, I believe that there is in this work, in Bataillian terms, more humanity than animality. As mentioned, there is the possibility of Ânima moving. If nothing touches it, however, it will not move, and will end up having a kind of immobile mobility, since each of its four casters, equipped with autonomy of movement, can potentially move the work in its own direction. Perhaps the work suggests something of a “stuck animal” that resists leaving its place because of its condition.
The arrangement also resembles the diagram of a bizarre still life, which accentuates, through the kineticism suggested by its stripes, the idea of a place that is not fixed. It is possible that issues related to drawing can be recognized in Ânima, mainly the drastic simplification of the cartoon, due to the unusual association of the animal with an object that enacts a functionality. Here we could remember, as in the Tom and Jerry cartoons, the characters compressed by some device similar to a compressor, so that they naturally exchange their volumetric form for a flat form.
Thiago Honório, novembro de 2011.
* The leather used to carry out this work was legally imported from South Africa, Cape Town, by Global Leathers, NY, with origin.
Work Details
Ânima, 2011-2013
Acrylic cube, whole zebra skin and
furniture caster
1,0 x 1,0 m
3,2 x 3,2 ft
photo: Edouard Fraipont
Exhibitions
Estranhamente Familiar, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, SP, 2013