Complementary technical description
Presentation text 2005
Urgência Social - Marco Paulo Rolla
In the performances by visual artist Marco Paulo Rolla (São Domingos do Prata, MG, 1967), programmed chance emerges to shatter the pomp and comfort of daily routine. Such is the case in “Banquete” (2003), when a seemingly Victorian reception becomes an orgy of naked bodies and chickens. Or in “Café da Manhã”(2001), a performance about the irruption of turbulence in the life of a man as he quietly and orderly enjoys his breakfast. Once again,with “Urgência Social”, he greets visitors with the possibility of the unexpected, of a rupture of expectations, of the unusual found within routine – not an idealised routine, but a somewhat absurd pictorial version of the quirks and apparatuses of our days.
The artist’s questions on human desire are projected onto daily life, specially those “geared by society towards the construction of a safe routine”. The emergence of the unusual is opposed to the concept of safety, which makes evident the omnipresence of uncertainty, of which no one is free. “I try to understand the design that man makes of the world, the aberrations as well as the beauties of our existence. I like to work in the inbetween, in the fissure, where there is doubt. For me, the human being is driven by this angst because of death.” The apparent control of reality, the reinvention of the world by means of technology, media hypnosis, the greed to have, the power of the image in the dissemination of goods are other aspects of existence that alarm the artist. His performances try to “restore reality through accident”.
In his 20-year career,Marco Paulo has worked with painting, drawing, video, ceramics, digital records, installation and music. Performance is the synthesis that redeems even his incursions into music. Part of his recent experience is recorded in the “Manifestação Internacional de Performance”, which he is publishing with Marcos Hill and the Fine Arts School of Minas Gerais Federal University, and launching at the Festival. The book records the work carried out by the duo at the Centro de Experimentação e Informação de Arte (Ceia), in Belo Horizonte in 2003.
ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL VIDEOBRASIL. "15th Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival - 'Performance.'": 6th to 25th September 2005, pp. 146 and 147, São Paulo, Brazil, 2005.