What is art for? Perhaps it’s one of the few things left that allows us to declare that we don’t fit the given standards.
What images keep you company in the space where you work?
I don’t usually surround myself with many visual elements; I like my living and working space to be uncluttered. But I must be close to a window, no matter where I’m working.
What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you?
Numerous works of art have been important in my life, but there is one moment from many years ago that really stands out: seeing Joseph Beuys’s work in the flesh for the first time at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. I was very young and it was a huge revelation to me because, in that precise moment, I understood that art should be an actual presence in the world, not just a representation of it. Me and Beuys’s work were equally and actively present: we were part of the same courtship ritual, the same dance, intervening and being intervened upon by one another.
If you could live with only one piece of art what would it be?
I have to confess that I’m not the collecting type. All the experiences I’ve had with art works are stored deep in my mind – they form such a strong, unforgettable presence. I like to go to exhibitions, but I don’t feel the need to bring the art home with me in order to continue that experience.
What is your favourite title of an art work?
I prefer titles that play with language to create parallel narratives or tangential meanings. Barravento (The Turning Wind) – a 1962 film by Glauber Rocha – is a good example. The Portuguese word barravento is a nautical term meaning ‘leewards’, but it is also a drum rhythym used in Afro-Brazilian Candomblé rituals to induce a state of trance, or ‘possession’. In fact, I liked barravento’s multiplicity of meanings so much that, in 2001, I borrowed it as the title for an art work of my own.
What do you wish you knew?
I wish I could live many lives in order to know more; I don’t feel I have enough time. I’m curious to learn how other people act and what they think. My art is a way of entering into other people’s lives, of understanding how it all works, of asking some questions and watching the responses. What I really want is to understand people, to get inside the fabric of their worlds.
What should change?
The perception of things.
What should stay the same?
Love.
What could you imagine doing if you didn’t do what you do?
There are so many other interests I’d like to explore. I’m very keen on dance, though I’m not a dancer, and I’d like to write too. I’m also interested in cures – in psychotherapy and medicine – so perhaps I could be a psychoanalyst or a pharmacist. It would be fascinating to collate different modes of perception: revealing, healing and transforming. I’m not really that bothered whether I’m considered to be an artist or not.
What music are you listening to?
At the moment, I can’t get Chico Buarque’s ‘Caçada’ (1972) out of my mind. Perhaps it’s because I’m heading back home after a long trip away for work and the wide, wild spirit of that song enthralls me.
What are you reading?
I’m reading a book of poetry that a friend dropped into my luggage before I left; it’s by the Polish Nobel laureate Wisława Szymborska, who died earlier this year. Prior to that, I was reading about the Italian-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi, as I will be having an exhibition at her Glass House (1951) in São Paulo early next year. I’m also interested in the writings of the Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck.
What do you like the look of?
I like the view from my window in Rio. The landscape is different on each side, and sometimes it might even be cloudy out of one window and sunny out of the other: the result of tropical weather in a hilly environment. It is as though my windows are disjointed in time and space.
