Carmela Gross – Auroras

Flooding the space with a red light, the phrase Real People / Are Dangerous (2008-2018) made in neon and metallic structure is divided into two parts. In the first conception of this work, the São Paulo-based artist, Carmela Gross, had designed the phrase for the city with tubular lamps on two pedestrian walkways on different streets in New Zealand. The spatial discontinuity between these two walkways provided an amplitude in the general sense of the phrase. However, only half of the project was made. Its complete meaning was, on the occasion, rescued in a set of two posters.

For this new installation, the two sentences are transported into the private space; approximately at a short distance, but still separated into two contiguous and perpendicular walls. Unlike the public space, the sentence here seems to assume a subjective tone, illuminating an inner space. The more direct relationship between these two sentences ends up indicating an affirmative reading, reflecting the rhetoric of fear that dominates and controls many aspects of contemporary life.

Carmela Gross (São Paulo, 1946) is a teacher and a visual artist. She holds a degree in Plastic Arts from the Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado (1969), a master’s degree and a PhD from the University of São Paulo (1981, 1987). She held individual exhibitions at the most important institutions in Brazil, such as the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, Casa França-Brasil, in Rio de Janeiro, Pinacoteca Station, São Paulo, Centro Universitário Maria Antonia, Museu da Cidade, Tomie Ohtake Institute, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil of Rio de Janeiro, among others. She has participated in 8 editions of the São Paulo International Biennial since the 60’s, in addition to the II Biennial of Contemporary Art in Moscow in 2007 and, in the same year, the Encounter between the Seas: São Paulo-Valencia Biennial in Spain. She also participated in SCAPE 2008, Christchurch Biennial of Art in Public Space, New Zealand (2008) and the 5th Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre (2005). She has works in public and private collections, such as São Paulo Museum of Modern Art, USP Museum of Contemporary Art, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, MoMA – Museum of Modern Art (New York), Museum of Fine Arts (Houston) Instituto Inhotim and others. He made permanent works in the city of Laguna, in Porto Alegre and in Paris.