As part of the one day exhibition The Artist is an Explorer, curated by Marina Abramovic at Fondation Beyeler the New York-based Brazilian artist Paula Gracia performed her piece #8 in the Noise Body Series. After the artist’s body is covered with iron scraps and very strong magnets, other performers throw nails at her that stick to this iron armor, until she can’t stand the weight of the material any more. The Noise Body Series is an art procedure that Paula Garcia developed from 2005 to 2014. In this video, Paula Garcia provides us with an introduction to the piece and her work in general.
Paula Garcia: # 8 in the Noise Body Series. The Artist is an Explorer, curated by Marina Abramovic, at Fondation Beyeler, Riehen (Basel, Switzerland). Interview with Paula Garcia, September 19/20, 2014.
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Exhibition text:
“Hence, the post-industrial model of time has the following dynamic: wherever I am, there, the present is. I am a vortex that sucks in the future in order to present it and transform it into the past. I am the abyss into which time precipitates itself. I am the vacuity. And I experience such vacuity that I am when nothingness presents itself during the intervals in my functionality.”
Vilém Flusser
“Noise Body is an art procedure that I developed from 2005 to 2014. This practice operates with the capacity of those devices of the senses that can generate a destabilization of the idea of a body that experiences. I chose to operate on the aforementioned devices, because the latter are capable of producing distortions that can affect the usual understanding of an experience, by bringing about an alternative perceptive experience of an environment.” “In my practice I have created a series of performances in which I cover all my body with very strong magnets, while I have other performers cover these magnets with industrial iron scraps all the way until my body disappears under this trash. The concept of Noise Body represents a body that is defined by a sum of three factors: precariousness, uncertainty and risk.”
“The magnets are elements of my work that serve to discuss the concept of forces. Not only of the invisible subjective kind, but also of the more evident, social type of forces that work to consolidate a system of power that ends up shaping things like bodies, feelings, subjectivities and truths. In these performances I try to showcase bodies in disassembly, crumbling. Ultimately, what I propose in my actions is a performative use of my body as ‘material support in which the forms of conflict are inscribed.’”
Paula Garcia (1975, São Paulo) lives and works in New York. She is a visual artist holding a BA (FAAP, Brazil) and MA in Visual Arts (FASM, Brazil). She has been collaborating with Marina Abramović since 2011. In 2012 she researched and produced a trip with Marina to Brazil. She is also an associate producer of the film “The Current: Marina Abramovic and Brazil,” (release date: 2015). Major exhibitions: 7th El Museo del Barrio Biennial, El Barrio Museum, New York (2013/14); The Big Bang: 19th Annual Watermill Center Summer Benefit, Water Mill, New York (2012); 17th International Festival of Contemporary Art Videobrasil_SESC, SESC Belenzinho, São Paulo; Performa Paço at Paço das Artes, São Paulo (2011); 6th edition of the annual performance show at Vermelho Gallery, São Paulo (2010); “Expanded Gallery” at Luciana Brito Gallery, São Paulo (2010).
