HERBERT DE PAZ
Gallery / Portfolio / Press and Publications / About / CV
168 x 65 cm. collage on aluminium. 2021.
170 x 60 cm, collage on aluminium, 2022.
168 x 65 cm, collage on aluminium, 2022.
The series is the result of research that began with ephemeral collage works applied directly to walls: “The Angel of History” (2017), presented at the Hélio Oiticica Municipal Arts Center (CMAHO), which later evolved into the works “Archeology of Violence” (2018), presented at the now-defunct independent space Caixa Preta, and Everything That Is White and Good (2019), also presented at CMAHO, ultimately resulting in the piece Posthumous Memories (2020), which launched the series of aluminum collages at the Carpintaria gallery (Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel). The series proposes a deep dive into the image archive of the history of the colonization of Brazil and the Americas, images that were published in the National Library’s History Journal (published between 2005 and 2017), and seeks to discuss them from a perspective that questions their relationship and origin.
Starting from the assumption that these images, at first glance, would be records of daily life as seen and idealized by Europeans as portraits of colonial society. Here I seek to reconstruct the collective memory marked by erasures and the violence that people considered racialized have suffered and continue to suffer since the founding of this nation-building project following the arrival of Europeans in the territory they called “America”, resulting in the annihilation of the peoples who had already lived here for thousands of years and the enslavement of millions of Africans who were brought to these lands to serve the economy of the local elites. This compilation of images aims to connect with the memory of those from whom everything was taken away and who, even so, fought until the end of their lives so that their descendants might remember them and draw strength to combat the ghosts of oppression that haunt our daily lives today.
Most of the bodies depicted in these images have passed into history without even having their original names recorded, yet their images were used for “scientific” purposes driven by racism, modernity, and criminal anthropology—forces that seek to maintain a structure we see crumbling with each passing day as our bodies collide head-on with “official history.” The idea is to consider the history of African peoples alongside that of Indigenous peoples: the Tupis, Bororós, Benguelas, Guaranis, Congos, Krenaks, Mozambiques, and Malês, among other ethnic groups, who throughout the territory joined forces to fight for the freedom and dignity that had been taken from them for the sake of enriching the European continent. Joining these bodies depicted without proper names in the composition are the names of the abolitionists Luiz Gama, André Rebouças, José do Patrocínio, and Francisco José do Nascimento (Dragão do Mar), as well as the portraits of Basílio Pires de Sá, Dona Isabel Jacintha, Juca Rosa, and Benedito Crioulo, whose portraits once comprised the Gallery of the Condemned; perhaps they were the political prisoners of that era; we also see portraits of Lima Barreto and Machado de Assis (from whom the first collage, Memórias Póstumas, work borrows its title).
In the collage compositions, we see a painting depicting Queen Nzinga of Angola, who confronted Portuguese traders in 1621, accompanied by her entourage and musicians; another image worth highlighting is a photograph of the Cucumbis Carnavalescos, revelers socially recognized as Black people who took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro in the 19th century with their artistic expressions, also represented at the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, patron saint of Black Brazilians. There are images of the Haitian Revolution, an event that sowed fear among plantation owners across the continent. I seek to recover these narratives from “unofficial history,” offering these images so that the viewer can reflect on them through the lens of their own place in contemporary society. The approach is simple: a silhouette within the composition is selected and enlarged to be filled in; thus, the one presenting the narrative to us is a witness to the past who reminds us that none of these images is a self-representation.
Starting from the assumption that these images, at first glance, would be records of daily life as seen and idealized by Europeans as portraits of colonial society. Here I seek to reconstruct the collective memory marked by erasures and the violence that people considered racialized have suffered and continue to suffer since the founding of this nation-building project following the arrival of Europeans in the territory they called “America”, resulting in the annihilation of the peoples who had already lived here for thousands of years and the enslavement of millions of Africans who were brought to these lands to serve the economy of the local elites. This compilation of images aims to connect with the memory of those from whom everything was taken away and who, even so, fought until the end of their lives so that their descendants might remember them and draw strength to combat the ghosts of oppression that haunt our daily lives today.
Most of the bodies depicted in these images have passed into history without even having their original names recorded, yet their images were used for “scientific” purposes driven by racism, modernity, and criminal anthropology—forces that seek to maintain a structure we see crumbling with each passing day as our bodies collide head-on with “official history.” The idea is to consider the history of African peoples alongside that of Indigenous peoples: the Tupis, Bororós, Benguelas, Guaranis, Congos, Krenaks, Mozambiques, and Malês, among other ethnic groups, who throughout the territory joined forces to fight for the freedom and dignity that had been taken from them for the sake of enriching the European continent. Joining these bodies depicted without proper names in the composition are the names of the abolitionists Luiz Gama, André Rebouças, José do Patrocínio, and Francisco José do Nascimento (Dragão do Mar), as well as the portraits of Basílio Pires de Sá, Dona Isabel Jacintha, Juca Rosa, and Benedito Crioulo, whose portraits once comprised the Gallery of the Condemned; perhaps they were the political prisoners of that era; we also see portraits of Lima Barreto and Machado de Assis (from whom the first collage, Memórias Póstumas, work borrows its title).
In the collage compositions, we see a painting depicting Queen Nzinga of Angola, who confronted Portuguese traders in 1621, accompanied by her entourage and musicians; another image worth highlighting is a photograph of the Cucumbis Carnavalescos, revelers socially recognized as Black people who took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro in the 19th century with their artistic expressions, also represented at the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, patron saint of Black Brazilians. There are images of the Haitian Revolution, an event that sowed fear among plantation owners across the continent. I seek to recover these narratives from “unofficial history,” offering these images so that the viewer can reflect on them through the lens of their own place in contemporary society. The approach is simple: a silhouette within the composition is selected and enlarged to be filled in; thus, the one presenting the narrative to us is a witness to the past who reminds us that none of these images is a self-representation.