Monumetria project
Delenguaamano is a recently established three-person art group based in São Paulo, Brazil. It's collaborators, Néstor Gutiérrez, Gilberto Mariotti, and Santiago Reyes, initially came together at the University of São Paulo under el Departamento de Artes Plásticas while working on different degree objectives, all within the visual arts. It was primarily Gutiérrez's interest in studying an obtuse monument that currently stands in front of the USP, which brought this group together. The monument, originally built in front of the Liceu de Artes e Oficios, naturally seemed out of place to him, and thus his curiosity quickly turned into inquiry.
In an attempt to translate his ideas into action, Gutiérrez has set out to find ways of repositioning the monument within a contemporary art discourse and practice. By joining efforts with Mariotti and Reyes, this ongoing investigation has managed to capture the attention of many. Scheduled for later this year, the group has committed to show their work at the prestigious Pinacoteca do Estado, which is especially appropriate because the Pinacotecta Museum (restored by the Architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha) is the same building formally known as el Liceu, that is, the same building that the monument was placed in front of to commemorate.
The history is as follows: El Liceo de Artes e Oficios was designed by the architect Francisco de Paula Ramos de Azevedo. It was inaugurated in 1900 as a school that was emblematic of the values the architect held for progress through the division of labor. On the same note, the Italian artist Galileu Emendabili designed a monument depicting four allegories of apprenticeship and professional skill: architecture, painting, engineering and sculpture. It was inaugurated in 1934 but taken down only 33 years later when in 1967 the Tiradentes Avenue was built to run right through it. Without even the time to notice it, a thriving city went on while the monument lay in pieces pushed aside. Ironically it was the same force that the monument had been built to foster that which left it lying disavowed and dismembered amongst a rummaging landscape. After ten years it was proposed that something be done with the pile of ruins. One interesting suggestion was that the monument be installed in its different parts throughout the city, according to each allegory. But in the end it seemed more suiting to restore the piece as a whole, as the polytechnic monument it was meant to be, in order to then place in front of the USP -- probably the next best thing to el Liceu.
Whether this was done thoughtfully or not, Delenguaamano does not say. Their art practice is not about taking an immediate stance, they are rather much more careful. Their work is actually about the evolution of form through the past, through its dissection and reconfiguration. And for this reason, we will need to wait a while longer before witnessing how there project unfolds.
Alia Farid Abdal
