On December 10 at 7:00 pm, Galeria Nara Roesler will hold the launch of a book on the oeuvre of Laura Vinci, from the publishers Cosac Naify and Brazil’s APC — Contemporary Patronage Association, with support from the Ministry of Culture and sponsorship from law firm Souza Cescon Barrieu & Flesh Advogados. The event will feature two recent installations at different spaces within the gallery, plus photo and video records, and stagings of an excerpt from O duelo — a theater play stage designed and art directed by the artist. The stagings will take place at 8:00 and 10:00 pm. The show will continue until December 20th and marks the closing of the play’s season in São Paulo, where it will feature up until December 15 at Centro Cultural São Paulo.
The book casts a retrospective eye on the works of Laura Vinci, with an emphasis on installations created over the past fifteen years. Vinci chose to underscore the transitory character of her works by adding subtitles to the photographs: “most [of my work] contains movement, like falling sand or evaporating water. The subtitle is meant to explain these events, seeing as the photograph is unable to do so.”
The book’s final chapter focuses on Vinci’s stage design work, which she began in 1998 with Cacilda!, by Zé Celso Martinez, in his Teatro Oficina. According to the artist, she was intensely involved with O Duelo throughout the year of 2013. The research work leading to the play’s development mobilized the team full-time during four months of travelling across the state of Ceará, seeking out solutions for the stage design, the script, the lighting, the costume etc. “We did it all together: the acting, the stage design, the music, the costumes, in a collective process whereby actors, musicians, lighting techs, the costume people all contributed their own specificities,” she told magazine Brasileiros.
The work routine included daily rehearsals lasting up to nine hours, as well as weekly meetings between different sections of the team that enabled the spectacle to be constructed scene-by-scene. During the trip, they also engaged in intense interaction with the local population via workshops administered in the cities the group travelled to. The play’s national debut took place on August 2 in Fortaleza.
Films by Fredy Allan, Camila Marquez and Simone Elias portray the creation and the setting up of the play at Galeria Nara Roesler’s video room. At another exhibition venue, approximately fifteen photographs by Renato Mangolin depict the play being staged at Piauí state’s Serra da Capivara National Park and at the José de Alencar Theater in Fortaleza, Ceará.
“Since I am straddling these two worlds, the idea is to combine them together,” says Laura Vinci. The installation Papéis avulsos and the excerpt from the play to be staged at Galeria Nara Roesler are evidently connected: Papéis avulsos is composed of several sheets of paper hanging from the ceiling by thin steel cables. The lighting and the folds in the white sheets create a light-shadow contrast. The perception of motion is further emphasized by the corporal recognition visitors are invited to undertake, in order to view the installation from multiple angles. Seemingly chaotic, the piece is reminiscent of the idea of a flow of air, as if a windstorm were hurling the paper sheets in the air. Set up at Galeria Nara Roesler’s library, Papéis avulsos opposes order and the notions of archive and documentation. The scene selected to be staged at the gallery takes place during a storm. One of the play’s most striking passages, it is punctuated by a moment of silent reflection from Laiévski, the character played by Aury Porto. The play’s economic stage design, lighting, and script emphasize the visual and dramatic impact of the act which precedes the duel. The version for Galeria Nara Roesler features the team, actors and equipment from the production at Centro Cultural São Paulo.
Visitors will become acquainted with Laura Vinci’s work even before they enter the gallery. In the hallway that leads into Galeria Nara Roesler, the piece Não há lugar para o tempo is an invitation to reflection about time and the viewer’s relationship with it through the artwork. A development of the installation shown at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, in São Paulo (2002), the piece features its title reproduced on metal sheets irrigated by cold water through copper piping. The text is continuously frozen and defrosted.

Press release courtesy Galeria Nara Roesler.