Paulo Nazareth
Untitled, from white ethnography series, 2019Project: Images that Already Exist in the World, 2011

38 works on paper, mixed media
Dimensions variable
Installation site specific


Throughout Nazareth's work, simple but strong gestures are used to evoke historical memory as well as highlighting social and economic tensions and class struggle tensions, especially apparent to him in Brazil and, more widely, the South American continent. His subjects are often related to race, ideology and the unequal distribution of development; they are underpinned throughout by a categorical vision of ethical life itself. In a practice that is both interdisciplinary and participatory, Nazareth embodies the idea of the artist as a sort of connector, a performative decoder or a kind of philosopher.

Paulo Nazareth's artistic practice is founded on the act of walking, traveling over, around and through entire continents on foot. Although the artist often collects traces of his travels in photographs, videos and personal items from along the way, most of his work is ephemeral, as he focuses on transformation and existential questioning over the production of finished objects. In the words of the artist himself: "The possibility of life happening is wonderful. That interests me, the fragility of life, and the precariousness". For Nazareth, his journeys are representations of both physical and symbolic mobility, which produce new experiences, relationships and ideas.

Project: Images that Already Exist in the World is part artwork, part documentation of one such journey: "News from America / Noticias de America" (2011-2012) is a durational performance in which Nazareth walked in sandals from South America to the United States, ceremoniously washing his feet in New York's Hudson River after months of travel. The trip acted as a record of the different reactions the artist elicited, especially in regards to his racial identity, as he passed through the different countries.

In Project: Images that Already Exist in the World, Nazareth creates newspaper-like articles, using colored pencil on delicate, yellowed paper, which announce the recent events - both major and mundane - in and around his current location. For example, in August 2011, Nazareth announces the arrest of alleged genocide conspirator, ex-armed forces chief Hector Mario Lopez Fuentes, in Guatemala. Three days later, briefly recounts the image of a woman begging in the streets of Mexico City. Although the accompanying hand-written articles present a general air of unbiased reporting, Nazareth is sure to include his personal red stamp on each paper, claiming the drawings, writings and experiences as his own.


 

*1977 in Governador Valadares, Brazil | Living and working in Santa Luzia, Brazil