Dias & Riedweg: Periferia de tus ojos

Periferia de tus ojos. Dias & Riedweg (The surroundings of your eyes) is the first monographic exhibition in Mexico, of the duo of artists Mauricio Dias (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1964) and Walter Riedweg (Lucerne, Switzerland, 1955). They present a set of five selected works –video installations and photography- that invite the beholder to critical reflection about the permanence of certain colonial structures throughout the present, based on the cultural consumption of the “other”. In 2006, Dias & Riedweg submerged themselves in the cultural world of Funk1. A music genre adopted in Rio de Janeiro as one of the most constant and representative expressions of the disagreement between “official history” and “local realities”. Many of the lyrics proposed by the funk movement followers have been forbidden within the Brazilian mass communication media. Nevertheless, the popularity of this musical genre in the local communities of marginal groups remains undeniable. “The other” and the culture of the “other” are recognized through the mere perception of the person, or the device, that legitimates them and turns them into a simple statistical data. When the groups are isolated to form ghettos, this “other” along with its culture becomes incomprehensible or deliberately reduced to the term “exotic”2, where exotism is the result of a manipulated or an incomplete otherness. For four of the works they present (Funk Staden, Do Universo do baile, Xilogravuras and Livro). Dias & Riedweg use as a source, images and concepts expressed by Hans Staden3 in the book called “True history and description of a country of nude savages, fearsome and cannibals located in the New World America”4, with the purpose of confronting them with the Funk cultural expressions in the so-called favelas5. Meanwhile, in a previous work called Meu Nome na tua boca , the artists expose another manifestation of the otherness that shows how the memory plays a major and decisive role in the emotional conditions of a human being, when a couple is broken, the “other” becomes present by its invocation.

As indicated by its name, the Periferia de tus ojos (Surroundings of your eyes) offers the vision of how the individual is conformed and relates to the social, historic, political and subjective issues, which make him accept the urban space that cannot avoid marginalization. Mauricio Dias and Walter Riedweg work together since 1993, participating in some of the most important International exhibition of contemporary art, such as the 12th Documenta in Kassel in 2007, and biennials like the one held at Venice (1999), Havana (2003), Mercosul (2003), Liverpool (2004), Xangai (2004), Gwanju (2006) and Tenerife (2009). At the same time, they have had individual exhibits as in the Cultural Centre of the Bank of Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), The Contemporary Art Museum in Barcelona Spain, in Kiasma, Helsinki, and Le Plateau at Paris as well as in the America’s Society of New York. Both have now become prominent figures in the Contemporary Art’s scenario as pioneers in the public art and video. 1 Funk is a musical genre that became very popular in the 70’s. It first appeared in the night life of Latin and Afro-american communities in the United States of America. Born as an evolution of some elements from soul music, and Jazz, with an influence of Latin rhythms, Funk acquired a proper style that from that moment on led the road of dancing music. In Brazil, funk started in the middle 80’s as a parody of the American Funk. The lyrics where translated as sexual and subversive onomatopoeias according to the favela’s context. These anonymous versions appear like a counter-culture and form the basement for the Rio de Janeiro funk music, which has its own poetry and rhythms and constitutes the widest contemporary counter-culture in Brazil.

2 The term exotic, is used by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to name the species, sub species or even lower taxonomy of the flora or fauna, found outside its natural area (passed or present) that requires direct introduction or human care in order to survive in an area different from its own potentially natural area. That is, gametes or any part of such a species that can survive and breed in this different environment. The term is used in the same sense when it comes to human culture, when we talk about exotic music, exotic culture, exotic clothing, meaning that it comes from an unknown and strange place.

3 Hans Staden (1525-1579) was a soldier and a German sailor man that in his famous autobiography tells the penuries he endured while kidnapped by a cannibal tribe of the New World.

4 Hans Staden. “Warhaftige Historia und beschreibung eyner landtschafft der Wilnen Nacketen Grimmigen Menschfresser Leuthen in der Newenwelt America”, edited in 1557 in Marburg was translated to Castilian as “True story and description of a nude savage country of fearsome cannibals, located in the New World America”. The book is divided in two parts: the first one describes the experience endured by the author when captive by the tupinambáes tribe in Brazil at the time, a Portuguese Colony.

5 A favela is an irregular and informal settlement. A place where a person or a community establishes outside the margins or rules of the authorities who establish the urban order.

Dias & Riedweg
Periferia de tus ojos (The surroundings of your eyes)