Legacy

2017

17 R$1.00 coins commemorating the 2016 Olympic Games, crushed by the cars of the VLT Carioca 

3 x 3 cm (each)

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When displayed, the surfaces of the coins reveal that they have been flattened, crushed. A work in the field of sculpture, "Legado" consists of a collection of 17 coins commemorating the 2016 Olympic Games, with deformations suffered when positioned on the tracks of the VLT Carioca (Light Rail Vehicle) and run over by the wagons.

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The images recorded in each of them take on a new shape and texture, as well as areas of erasure. The VLT is part of Porto Maravilha, an urban operation that aims to requalify the Port Zone, in the center of Rio de Janeiro. A hub for investment and reinterpretation of history – from the perspective of the State, which has always dominated it – or neoliberal actions that lead to the replacement of income profiles in an area largely inhabited by poor people and whose ancestry is closely connected to the port area and its effective role in the cultural life of the black population of Rio de Janeiro.

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In the engraving procedure, the image is created by gaps: the relationship between what is engraved and what is not engraved, which opposes cuts and non-cuts, the empty and the full. Printing is invariably connected to the idea of image reproduction, of duplication. Such operations call to art that which has no control, which can be provoked through methods, but whose result we cannot guarantee – because the unexpected and a large dose of chance act in a merciless way. João Paulo Racy gives a different role to Veículo Leve Sobre Trilhos, a concomitant instrument of social advancement, progress, urban mobility, sectarianism or gentrification.

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Text by Ulisses Carrilho (Curator | Parque Lage School of Visual Arts)

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