'TRISTES TROPIQUES' SOME WORKS

French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009) in Amazonia in Brazil c. 1936


Donald Urquhart, ‘Carmen Miranda’ poster, 2010 (courtesy Herald Street/Maureen Paley)

It was suggested to me that a picture of Carmen Miranda may be ideal for this tropically themed show. All I really know about Carmen Miranda (from Kenneth angers’ “Hollywood Babylon”) is that she hid cocaine in the heel of her platform shoe.
Luckily I happened to chance on a cute young gay Brazilian bartender in my travels around London looking for truth and beauty. I asked him if she was indeed Brazilian. He narrowed his eyes and hissed “No!”
- “Argentinian?”
- “No.”
- “Peruvian?”
- “She grew up in my country but she was not born there.”
- “Where was she born?”
- “Portugal. And the Portugese they used to hate her because she always said she was Brazilian. She grew up in Brazil but she was born in Portugal.”
‘Alas,’ I thought to myself, ‘but this is to be presented in Portugal.’
Perhaps this could be construed as a posthumous admission of true nationality.






Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, untitled (SET-janeiro 2010), 2010 printed photographs
photographs of vegetation at DGF's SET (Sitio Experimental Tropical)
a kind of reference to Terence's Malick biodiversity
Supersaudade



Elein Fleiss, ‘Jornal do Inverno’, 2010,
A4 publication in black&white, printed on recycled paper, edition of 200



Jean-Michel Wicker, ‘Pocket Posters’, 2010
studies for forthcoming fanzine on Lina Bo Bardi
Le Edizioni Della China, Berlin




Patrizio Di Massimo, ‘Ten Little Nigers’, 2009,
selection from a series of ink drawings, 29.7 x 21 cm
antropophagic drawings, a desire for the other...


Flavio de Carvalho,‘New Look’, 1956, drawing









Helio Oiticica,‘Boys & Men’, 1970s
script for an unrealized film to be filmed in Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro


Alexandre da Cunha,‘Nao seja marginal, nao seja heroi’ (after Helio Oiticica), 2009



Carla Zaccagnini, Duas Margens, (Atlantico), 2003
Video by Sofia Ponte recorded at Praia da Calada, Portugal, on December 5th, 2003, from 4:00 to 5:00 PM; video by Wagner Morales recorded at Praia do Iporanga, Brazil, on December 5th, 2003, from 2:00 to 3:00 PM.
Duas Margens (Brazil) will be shown at the Barber Shop, Lisbon while Duas Margens (Portugal) will be shown at the same time in Capacete, Rio de Janeiro.



Mauricio Lupini, ‘Read after Reading (BimBom, DibuDuDa, Bada Didi)’, 2006
music videos


Pablo Helguera, ‘He says he is curating a biennial and he wants to know if anyone here does video’, 2009, cartoon

The Barber Shop, Lisboa and Novo Museo Tropical present:

Tristes Tropiques
A proposal by Pablo Leon de la Barra
A gran saudade colletiva with works by Alexandre da Cunha, Patrizio Di Massimo, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pablo Helguera, Runo Lagomarsino, Mauricio Lupini, Donald Urquhart, Jean-Michel Wicker, Carla Zaccagnini, a journal by Elein Fleiss, poems by Walter Gam, soundtrack by Arto Lindsay, and documents from the Flavio de Carvalho and Helio Oiticica Archives.
With the support of Luiz Augusto Teixeira de Freitas
Special thanks to Dominique Gonzalez Foerster, Julieta Gonzalez and Adriano Pedrosa.
The Barber Shop, Rua Rosa Araújo 5, Lisboa
March 4, 2010, 10PM
http://thisisthebarbershop.blogspot.com/

In memory of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009)