'Balé Literal' cradles the MACBA
For the first time, a museum houses this composition by Laura Lima, made up of hanging artefacts that move around the space and turn the rooms into a walkable choreographic device.
Brazilian artist Laura Lima (Minas Gerais, 1971) lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, where she founded the gallery A Gentil Carioca. Her creative action is characterised by proposing new interpretations of accepted definitions and concepts in order to destabilise and subvert what is taken for granted.
With a widely recognised international career, Laura Lima is famous for her "images": proposals that shun easy classification, as they are neither "performance, nor installation, nor cinema", but rather visually articulate a personal glossary of concepts that the artist has constantly worked on and reworked over a career spanning more than 20 years.
Interested in social relations and the way in which human behaviour alters the perception of the everyday, her works often incorporate living beings, both animal and human, and actions that are activated over long periods of time. This is the case of Balé Literal. In 2019, the author presented her original version -for the first and only time- at the crossroads where her gallery is located. It was a large installation made of objects, machinery, paintings and artefacts that moved in a peripatetic choreographic movement through a rudimentary mechanism and the energy of several people. With extreme simplicity, the artist achieved an installation of great effect, with people moving without pause. The whole thing was an accurate "image" of our wandering time.
Four years later, Balé Literal moves inside the MACBA halls to become "a large walkable device" that will be activated at certain times: Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays at 12 and 6 pm; Wednesdays at 3.30 and 6 p.m.; Saturdays at 12 and 7 pm; and Sundays at 11.30 am and 2.30 pm.
The objects and paintings that will hang from the threads of the installation will be created especially for the occasion. This bestiary of objects of all kinds will be the core of the publication that will accompany the exhibition, which will include essays by philosophers, writers and other artists. The book will be published once the exhibition has opened, incorporating an extensive photographic report of the work in the MACBA galleries.
The ticket to visit and walk through Balé Literal costs 10.8 euros and can be purchased in advance by clicking here.