assume vivid astro focus
Peres Projects, Berlin, Germany
‘Aqui volvemos adornos frivolos’ (Here we return to frivolous ornaments, 2008) is the new show by New York-based Brazilian artist Eli Sudbrack’s collective, assume vivid astro focus. The latest in a series of projects that involve the construction of three-dimensional spaces christened with performances, it opened in Berlin with a characteristic bang, and, as promised, much frivolous adornment. The buzz that surrounds avaf was more than palpable as you approached the isolated space of Peres Projects and glimpsed the metallic, geometric, mish-mashed and neon-splashed installation through the half-open windows. Once in the gallery, there is a black-plastic wallpapered room displaying electrically coloured framed collages of girls in erotic poses, some with texts twirling around their asses. You are invited to enter the world of avaf on hands and knees, by crawling through a DIY tunnel of MDF, a journey punctuated with occasional portholes, which – once you poke your head through – reveal the explosive deconstructed installation. At the end of the burrow you emerge into a disco anti-chamber with a huge rotating neon pyramid. DayGlo pointy masks and glasses donned, this already psychedelic space begins to glitter and shift.
Obvious precursors to avaf’s playful empowerment of the viewer are Hélio Oiticica’s ‘penetrávels’ and ‘parangolés’, the mobile sculptures and costumes the Brazilian artist created during the 1960s and ‘70s. And, not surprisingly, several critics have cited this colourful cannibalism of the earlier Tropicália movement as an obvious precedent. However, avaf assert that they often feel disconnected from the art press, which ‘is guilty of referencing them in comparison to a recent past, as if the past is always necessary to understand the present.’ Instead they propose a ‘test to challenge writers and critics to refrain from relating an artist to any past, and to talk about the work from a present point of view.’ Indeed, the frenzied celebration of the new becomes the central goal of avaf. Some clues as to the evolution of their neo avant-garde campaign is offered in the ‘to do list’ prepared for every avaf event, which brings together a motley crew of ideas and inspirations: Hiro Yamagata, alchemy, coloured plastics, Richard Bernstein, Frederick Kiesler, Captain Horlock, a recent Grace Jones concert, and illegal late-’80s raves.
avaf’s energetic and generous objectives remind me most of Ian Svenonius’s cultish band Weird War. However, unlike the alternative music scene, one might expect such a hedonistic spirit to be co-opted all too easily into the more uptight and self-conscious staging of excess that is the modus operandi of the mainstream art world. But critically engaging with the art institution is central to the radicality of avaf, and they reject its associated elitist pomp. Instead they proclaim, ‘We are not interested in the whole star fuckers scene. We want to live a simple life and hang out with simple people like us. We want to be contaminated by other people. We want to have friends. We believe in generosity and equality, in sharing and inclusiveness.’ In utilizing the party as a site for subversion, in restaging sexual politics in the present, and in engendering an aesthetic and ethic grounded in collective optimism, avaf are definitely well worth contaminating.
Sarah James
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