WATER ROUTES AND TRAILS

works by Luiza Gottschalk
proposal author Marcos Moraes

Water routes and trails;
or, from the crying mountain
to the mountain's cry

Prologue

It all starts—as though a seemingly coherent narrative were possible—with an invitation to visit the studio, an offer to get to know a space and a house whose conception, location and proposition carry a special meaning, both for those currently living there and for those who designed, built and implanted it in the midst of what we may call a “memory of nature.”

Apart from the prime location within this particular city, along with its layout, both important aspects discussed during this meeting, the conversation was also marked by Luiza Gottschalk's narratives about her work process, her life and her relationship with this space, Casa do Pôr do Sol (Sunset House). Nothing so defining or even too sharply outlined, but this has been, in a way, the starting point, the very beginning of this exchange. In fact, this was the beginning of a dialogue, which had been postponed for some time and which finally—right in the middle of this isolation in which we are currently immersed due to the pandemic—led to an opportunity, or even a need, to express or communicate the desire to carry out a project that, at this point, could no longer be completed.

The conversation was supposed to have taken place months ago—after several attempts—and it would have led to an invitation to work with the artist in the organization of a potential exhibition, which would be staged, somehow, at the Sunset House. Chance, or the imponderable, manifested itself, forcing “that which had been conceived to be the construction and housing project for life,” the House, to take other routes. Leaving the Sunset House in a few days would put an end to the possibility of devising and developing a project of this nature.

The House was unequivocally sown in that piece of land—and nature decisively urged to participate—in which walls, floors and systems rose and settled along with the banana tree and so many others, as well as bushes, plants, vegetation, everything that would no longer be available and, in a few weeks, would have to be vacated.

Many other fortuities—and desires—came together, forcing Luiza and her family to completely give up their living and working space, including the studio. Thus, what would have originally been a conversation leading to an invitation to work together was now presented as an impossibility, thereby becoming the tale of a potential project, a utopia that had been abandoned or that was simply no longer feasible, given the conditions. However, this was not a cause for frustration, for it was a case of new pathways and new life projects that were opening up as a horizon of possibilities.

Water routes and trails is a proposition that begins with the artist's firsthand experience in Mantiqueira—a word in Tupi-Guarani meaning “crying mountains”—and its waters, its pathways and life stories, its memories of living in and with nature, with its dimensions of balance and harmony. It is thus configured as a symbolic path through Luiza Gottschalk's processes of inquiry, work and life, which are embodied, in recent years, in this architecturally configured space that is the Sunset House.

From this point on, each scene—and the space in which it takes place—allows us to get closer to the idea of a journey. They resemble the stations of the medieval plays or the belvederes along forest tracks; therefore, they are an invitation to walk towards the “eagle's nest,” from where the world unfolds.

Act I – Proposition

Scene I – Garden

Amidst the challenges and limitations we face today, the chances of providing perspectives to affirm our beliefs appear slim, but, on the other hand, doing so is more than necessary, a sine qua non for surviving the lunacy that 2020 has mercilessly shoved in our faces!

Resuming the initial conversation, during this first encounter with the house/studio space, what was presented was, in fact, the impossibility imposed by real circumstances: there would be no time even to organize an exhibition. With Christmas coming up, right in the middle of December 2020, while having to hand over the house by mid-January, the space intended for this purpose would no longer be available, and the project, under these conditions, rendered unfeasible.

Yet, as in dreams, we must remember—and realize—that we lack total control and that we make choices. But who knows what these choices may have in store? They may propose unforeseen, unintended paths that turn out to be routes of escape from the “dark woods” in which we sometimes find ourselves.

By using an expanded reference of the concept of proposition—a term employed by Lygia Clark to describe her works from the early 1960s—with Water routes and trails we intend to distance ourselves from the conventional idea of an exhibition, proposing the inclusion and exploration of body-spatial relations which aim to transcend the mere contemplation of the “work,” striving to overcome these limitations and offer the visitor opportunities to perform individual actions of different temporalities across the spaces.

Thus, we came up with the idea of presenting a selection of the artist's recent work through the movement across the architectural spaces, the interaction with nature, the perception of the relationship between this fragment of the city and the urban landscape—a proposition that is both performative and improvisational, very much associated with and suited to the artist's work process. And, in an almost ritualistic manner, this would end the cycle of the womb-house during the first lunar cycle of 2021. The performer would be none other than the Sun, in its relationship with the space and the work by Luiza Gottschalk.

Starting from the action that draws a parallel with the artist's work process, we make a proposition to the visitors: to allow themselves to be guided by the signs/works in view while appropriating the spaces in the Sunset House, and to take the opportunity to expand their sensory field during this experience that will lead them, literally but also metaphorically, to the sunset.

In addition to this, the state and location of the works within the architectural space suggest paths that conduce the bodies in a performative manner, allowing them to explore sensory interactions through sounds, smells and images, which open up and invite us to this water route.

Act II – The trail and the process

Scene II – Studio

In this sense, the performative aspects of the artist's process were able to be transferred or, better, proposed for the experience of the visitor who explores this dense vegetation of senses: walking, listening, feeling, seeing, everything suggesting to expand or even to tear up limits in the paths and, since the water can take up many shapes, expand the outlines.

In the already “old” workspace, footprints and vestigial traces survive, as if bearing witness to the discoveries, the experienced processes, the chosen pathways, and even the revisiting of other tracks. Studies and experiments point to potential walks, but they may also be regarded as the maps and guides that indicate possibilities within the forest into which creative processes often plunge and which, here, in the artist's case, bring back the corporeal memory of experiences in the woods, land and waters of the Mantiqueira, her original habitat, her refuge and her lost paradise on earth, forever pursued like a promised land.

In order to draw us closer to her recent production, which materially incorporates the process of working with water, Gottschalk describes it through her choice of fabrics, such as linen. The material was chosen due to its open thread, which, by superimposing it to the previously prepared canvas, enables the watery paint to infiltrate the surface.

The trails followed by the “watery paint,” penetrating and pigmenting the primary layer, but also permeating it and depositing itself in the protuberances and indentations of the secondary one, are a combination of the artist's choices, the organic processes of water movement and the random nature of these trails which she incorporates, fixates and upon which she interferes.

In the work process, chance plays a key role, due to the autonomy and power of the “watery paint” that travels across unpredicted routes and infiltrates the fabrics until it reaches the surface of the wall. It brands the wall as a route for understanding the experiment that led to the technical procedure, which was later adopted for the painting. This element of randomness feeds the process that Luiza, thanks to her theater and dance background, transforms into raw material for improvisation. At the same time, this control—or lack thereof—promoted by the adopted process, introduces another aspect that interests her as much as the body, the movement, the dance, the theater and the performance.

Transparencies and overlays, records and memories merge, overlap and transpose the surfaces, become thicker in certain areas and unveil possibilities which, later on, the gestures try to capture on the hard surface of the canvas or the diaphanous layer of the fabric, all of them slipping away like sylphs or water deities nestling within the forests of our perception.

Act III - Performativity: the body along tracks and routes

Scenes I to V - Hall, Bedroom I, Bedroom II, Bedroom III and the Garden of Banana Trees

It is the artist who gives us the perspective of how her experience with the forest, the water and the tracks is still present, and how it transcends time and becomes materialized, through her own hands, in the pieces that can be viewed in the proposition here presented. “I wanted people to be able to see the magic that happens when a painting is born. It’s exciting, beautiful, vivid and magical. I am again reminded of that lineage of witches, you know? The game I most enjoyed creating when I was a child took place in the woods. I used to open tracks with my tiny hands in search of lichens in pink, orange, purple and yellowish-green tones. I would scrape the trees with an almost dull blade to extract only the patches of lichen that fascinated me. I collected everything and put it all together in my private gallery, which was located near the creek, inside a small cave dug into a rock.”

For Luiza, the body and the magical, fantastical atmosphere of the forest with its lights, transparencies, reflections, buzzing and smells, among the endless list of elements that make up the perception of this natural landscape, remain present and alive. They are signs, hints and indicators of this natural force. Amid these forces, water emerges. This life-generating element also metaphorically introduces itself as a piece of evidence for reclaiming and affirming this disobedient feminine nature, which seeks its own course, opening paths and overcoming the resistance of other matters, following its own mode of existence, but leaving deep and permanent marks on the ground through which it travels.

In the artist's paintings, where she claims that there is no such thing as a “previous plan to be executed,” it is water more than any other element that determines the flux—of consciousness, of production and of the potentiality of perception. It affirms the condition of dealing with the unpredictable and creating from this condition. An assertion of the condition of being able to deal with nature, which translates into a “feminine intelligence, an attribute of witches,” according to her.

Tracks may be interpreted as routes to be followed, explored and beyond, if we think of them as opportunities for making new discoveries that, with every step and every movement, bring us into contact with the potentiality of discovery. It will never be the same, even if we travel along it indefinitely.

In this sense, Luiza’s trail-paintings, after the initial layer of “flowers,” “mountains,” and “animals” has been crossed, introduce us to routes and landscapes that unveil themselves and invite us—sometimes threaten us—with their entangled forms, lines, colors and transparencies, in which bodies—hers and ours—seem to become entangled with the bodies of those beings that she seems to be insinuating and provoking us to see. An “invitation to a journey” in which we are able to perform, dance and move through the spaces, along with the images and the nature that is present, insinuated and provoked.

We cannot think of acting—despite all the references and vocabulary, beyond the evoked memory, coming from the world of theater. Rather, we can think of this proposition for our bodies to take action, perform and flow throughout this experience. “Don't hold back,” might well say the invitation to explore these small, watery moments experiencing the Sunset House, even in times of social distancing and restrictions on physical contact.

Act IV - The spaces and the landscape, the memory of time

Scenes I to IV - Balcony, Living Room I, Living Room II and Kitchen

“I think it was that bird. It was a bit different from the eagles that live there. It had bright pink feathers and it looked into my eyes and invited me to fly along. I said I didn't know how to fly, but I went running, trying to catch up. I even tried flapping my arms and climbing up the trees. Up there, the music played by the wind is different, stronger. I climbed up a silver pumpwood and saw some more colorful eagles. I thought about jumping from it, to go flying with them, but I got too scared.” And just like this, Luiza dreams!

By following the trails—of the artist's house and work—we reach this moment where it is possible to create, from the earlier works to the most recent ones, not a confrontation, but rather perspectives from which to understand the presence of figuration. On the one hand, this figuration insinuates itself as and from color patches, and on the other, also as shapes in which we seek and find support, just like rocks lying across a river we intend to cross or in which we seek alternate spots for diving in—rather than the conventional bank. Everyone can stand at the edge, but, in order to cross and penetrate the waters, one must have the desire to take the plunge.

From the view of the mountain, nests, eagles, to the unusual moonlight, a collection of works await us when we arrive at the end of this route. We stumble upon the bird's-eye view of the painting, the metaphorical flight of the eagle, our gaze over the landscape unveiling the city over the rooftops and presenting us the scenario for the performance that will conclude this journey, here, and suggest other destinations while opening up as a nocturnal landscape, sensually arousing curious eyes yearning for other revelations.

“No limits. I find it very difficult to tell where one thing ends and another begins. I end up overflowing, draining or soaking my surroundings. It must be because I lived inside a forest when I was a child. That forest still lives inside me. Quite wet!”

Epilogue

Balcony (returning)

Not by chance, the proposition for presenting a sample of the artist’s latest work falls on the first new moon of the year. This is a moment that, symbolically, with all its strength and power, leads to opportunities for new beginnings, for restarting, for embarking on a new life cycle and updating dreams and desires.

According to the artist, “when I lived in the forest, I was sure that I was a descendant of some not-so-distant lineage of witches. The kind who knows how to make chemical compositions, who speaks to animals and who creates fictions so compelling that the symbolism and the metaphors can seem like hard facts. After 25 years living in the big city, I still think this might be true.”

The Sunset House is being left behind, like a cocoon, like a womb that has made possible pregnancies of lives, desires, investigations, works and new routes for new flights. The eagle’s nest has fulfilled its role. Now, other horizons will be the limit for that lifelong pursuit typical of all human beings—but, especially, typical of the artist. The next step for Luiza Gottschalk is to build a new water trail; after all, the waters are, fundamentally, life.

Marcos Moraes
January 2021