Since Elvira Dyangani Ose became the new director of MACBA, it is difficult to leave the building disappointed or with the feeling of having been on an extraterrestrial planet whose language is not mastered. Perhaps, for the casual visitor, the container ---Richard Meier's beautiful building--- is more important than the content, but for those art lovers and, especially, contemporary art lovers, the exhibition coherence and the commitment to take some risks with new proposals, are proving to be a successful formula. Evident is the reordering or deconstruction she has made of the museum's collection, which became not only a declaration of intent, but a prelude to what her work proposal would be.
In this vein, marked by a prominent feminine gaze, she now offers us Corpus Infinitum, an exhibition that aims to rethink the world as a whole, where the human being ceases to be the center to be, simply, one more within a single, more complex organism, alongside the geological, bacterial, and meteorological spheres.
To this end, philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva together with filmmaker Arjuna Neuman, propose this planetary vision of the world as a plenum (corpus infinitum), structuring the exhibition based on the three films they have produced to date divided into three installations, along with extra audiovisual and documentary material, and a publication within the Quaderns Portàtils already edited by the museum itself, which includes the essays Ancestral Claims (2022), The Interior Glitter (2022) and An Earthquake is Coming (2023), translated for the first time into Spanish.
The exhibition aims to rethink the world as a whole, where the human being ceases to be the center to be, simply, one more within a single, more complex organismThe three films screened propose how we could imagine the world if we thought about it from the point of view of the elements. And it is these four basic elements for life ---water, earth, fire and air---, the axes from which the artists reflecton an interdependent existence, betting on a time and values that reimagine knowledge and life in another way, from a multispecies perspective.
Serpent Rain (2016), 4 Waters – Deep Implicancy (2019), and Soot Breath//Corpus Infinitum (2020) are composed of micro and macro landscape recordings, animation, and archival documentation, all with references ranging from quantum mechanics to the blues, passing through different philosophies, classical physics, colonial theory, or cartomancy. These are pieces that prioritize global issues, such as migration, displacement, the legacy of colonialism, and ecological devastation, and question power structures and the categorization of differences, to create fissures between humans, the more-than-humans, the earth, and the cosmos. Decolonization as the only relevant ethical principle of our time.
This exhibition is like a vortex in the midst of chaos, inviting us to look at who we are in the same way we observe nature, to rethink our own cosmology from the place of the elements, without moving away from that corpus infinitum.
Decolonization as the only relevant ethical principle of our timePhilosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva says that, although her audiovisual work, together with Arjuna Neuman, is conceived to lead the viewer to an intellectual reflection,this exhibition is a surprise in that they don't really know what the public's reaction will be, nor to what type of reflection or emotion it will lead them, and that this is, precisely, the most interesting part.
One must enter that space, get comfortable, and let oneself be carried away by the elements, each represented by a symbol floating in the middle of the screen. Time is not linear, but rather assembles an infinitely exploded space where every film, every image, every sound, exists through the others. A whole that can be seen with the eyes, with the heart, or with the gut.
Corpus Infinitum is also exquisite beauty, which one can sit and simply watch. And perhaps that is also its success, that, in the end, behind an apparently pretentious and complex intellectual discourse, there is a humble reading: what other systems of knowledge can we learn, apprehend, or relearn?
Be that as it may, that they place us back in our place, in that whole to which we belong, and that the elements once again guide our existence, is transcendent. And the shared conversations of the public upon leaving the installations reflect that the work of the new MACBA management, especially Elvira Dyangani Ose, is a true success.
The exhibition can be visited until September 25, and every Saturday from 4 p.m. onwards, tickets are free for all audiences.
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