In a recording of a performance from Clemente Padín’s archives described by Jill Kuhnheim, Padín reads a poem to a group of schoolchildren until he reaches the line “‘este verso debe repetirse’ [this line should be repeated].” Taking his own words as instruction, Padín closes the gap between the text of the poem and its performance, repeating the words again and again until one of the children exclaims “‘este verso debe culminar’ [this line should finish].” Rather than an interruption of a prescripted performance, the playful, improvisatory response of the child perfectly completes Padín’s poem.
Syntax, subordinating and coordinating conjunctions, syntagma, paramoiosis, redundancy, dictionaries, adjectivization; unifying strophes, determinate semantic groups, the subject, neologisms, verbs, reflexive anomalies, complementarity, versification; paradigms, pronouns, grammar: all in the trash! No more images induced with elements alien to their own nature; enough of metaphors, the indecisive second term of trivial identifications; enough of the elegiac excrement of a man with the face of a duck.
The work depends on the act of the creator-consumer. The work exists as long as it is created-consumed. Once created and consumed, it disappears. The work is the act.
Languages employ signs to substitute objects from the external world to express and communicate messages. One no longer shows a tree, one says “that tree.” The representation of the tree by means of a sign that acoustically sounds thus, and that by social convention designates an object with certain characteristics that differentiate it from other objects that in turn count on other signs being designated, was a factor of progress in favoring the relations of production.
Right: Joaquín Torres-García, Uruguayan artist whose work originated the term “America Invertida,” in 1903. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
It is common that, when speaking about Uruguay and its culture outside the country, the name of Joaquín Torres-García — Uruguay’s most notorious visual artist — pops up, and now, after MoMA’s 2015 retrospective consecration, perhaps even more so. Here, for instance, it is found in the title of the anthology.
What we experience—the information that impacts our consciousness—frames how and what we are able to think. How we frame and understand what we experience influences our approach to the world, opens (or closes) us to new experiences, new frames.
Affinities, affections and elections, part three
Curated specificities
Rodrigo Araujo, Saõ Paolo artist and member of the collective Grupo BijaRi
What we experience—the information that impacts our consciousness—frames how and what we are able to think. How we frame and understand what we experience influences our approach to the world, opens (or closes) us to new experiences, new frames.