Videobrasil Collection in Context #1 on #IbraazChannel
Up until October 31, Ibraaz, an online platform for discussions about visual culture in the Middle East and North Africa, is showing the videos Proposal for a porn company, by Mahmoud Khaled, and Estudo para duelo [Study for duel], by Cláudio Bueno. The artists created the pieces while in residency at London’s Delfina Fondation and São Paulo’s Casa Tomada, as part of the first edition of the Videobrasil in Context project, under commissioning from Associação Cultural Videobrasil.
Cláudio Bueno’s Estudo para duelo [Study for duel] portrays the interaction between people as they walk along a corridor within a metal structure, from opposite ends, while wearing magnetized vests. According to the artist, the video hints at analogies with the fields of power that exist in day-to-day relationships, be they interpersonal, with space, or with institutions.
Mahmoud Khaled’s Proposal for a porn company combines footage taken by the artist throughout the city with corporate scenes culled from pornographic movies. The piece elicits reflection on life and scale in big metropolises through the perspective of a businessman, emphasizing issues relating to masculinity and sexuality in settings that revolve around money, such as banks and multinational corporations.
The videos now showing on the Ibraaz platform were featured in Videobrasil Collection in Context #1, which ran from February 20 to March 19 at Galpão VB. The exhibit also comprised artworks that were objects of research or conceptual references for the artists’ projects, such as videos by Akram Zaatari (Lebanon), Coco Fusco (USA), Lucas Bambozzi (Brazil), and Wagner Morales (Brazil), among other authors.