In Conversation with Jaime Lauriano

History and violence

In his work, artist Jaime Lauriano tackles both the military dictatorship, which ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, as well as subjects such as land disputes and abuse of power. His work results from in-depth research at libraries and public archives. “The essence of my work is to investigate the issue of violence in Brazil. I look to the past for answers to what happens in the present,” he says.

The work “trabalho” (2017) exposes objects that portray the naturalization of slavery in Brazil, such as t-shirts and calendars.

In combate #1 (2017) Lauriano uses farming implements and tools to illustrate the outline of the Brazilian coastline and divisions of the country's colonial era hereditary captaincies.

nessa terra, em se plantando, tudo dá, work from 2015. According to the artist, the Brazilwood sapling will grow inside the hothouse until its roots and branches destroy the wood and glass structure.

o brasil, video from 2014: materials from newspapers and propaganda from the federal government recall the trauma of the military dictatorship that was in power in Brazil for over two decades, from 1964 to 1985.

In the video morte súbita (2014), people cover their faces with jerseys from the Brazilian national soccer team, the 1970 World Cup Champion, while a narrator reads the list of those killed or disappeared that year.

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by Ana Paula Orlandi

Fri 9 Mar, 2018

C& América Latina: When you returned to the art scene in 2013 after a hiatus [to work on political campaigns], why did you decide to talk about the military regime and the 1970 World Cup in your solo show “Impedimento” (2014)?

Jaime Lauriano: I went back to working with art to try to understand the issue of violence in Brazil and how it is present in the construction of our country, our identity. In 2013, I participated in the Movimento Passe Livre (Free Fare Movement) demonstrations, which were brutally suppressed by the Military Police, and this led me to think about how traces of dictatorship are still present in our society today, mainly in the retaliation against social movements. Also, Brazil was set to host the World Cup in 2014, a controversial moment when a portion of the Brazilian population questioned spending on the event, and we heard the jingoist ditty: “I am Brazilian, and proud of it, with all my heart…” All this ended up inspiring two videos in an attempt to find answers in the past for what is happening today.

C&AL: What are these videos?

JL: One of them is Morte Súbita, in which a group of people cover their faces with the 1970 Brazilian team jersey while, in the background, a narrator reads a list of names of 22 people who died or were disappeared that year. 1970, when we won the World Cup in Mexico, was also the year more people died under the dictatorship. And Brasil is a collage of newspaper articles published between 1964 and 1968, as well as official propaganda of the federal government during the “regime of exception”. One of the things I show is how the press was a major player in favor of the 1964 military coup. To make this piece, I watched more than 700 films at the National Archives in Rio de Janeiro over a one-year period.

o brasil, video (2014), materials from newspapers and propaganda from the federal government recall the trauma of the military dictatorship that was in power in Brazil for over two decades, from 1964-85.

C&AL: Does the issue of blackness come out most strongly in the work in your solo show “Autorretrato em Branco sobre Preto” in 2015?

JL: The issue of blackness has always been present in my work, but in 2014 it emerged more firmly and since then I have been trying to understand what it means to be black in Brazil. In that exhibition I speak about the Lei Áurea [‘Golden Law’ that abolished slavery in Brazil] as a mechanism of the oppressor to mask the trauma of slavery, which has not been discussed in Brazil, nor have reparations been made. What results is that this reality of oppression and inequality in the black population remains the same. Brazil leads the world ranking in homicides; more people are killed here per year than in the wars of Syria and of Iraq combined. And out of every 100 people murdered, 71 are black. Violence and racism have been internalized in this country and we’ve got to touch on this wound if we want to build a more just society.

C&AL: What was it like being part of the Bamako Biennial in Mali in 2015?

JL: It was a really powerful experience, where I opened my mind to a new way of thinking about Africa. After visiting Mali and Morocco, I realized that here [in Brazil] we have a processed Africa, because Africans needed to reinvent themselves and create another possibility for their existence when they came to Brazil to work as slaves. I want to go back and stay longer, travel to other countries and investigate the similarities and differences between that continent and ours.

“nessa terra, em se plantando, tudo dá”, work from 2015. According to the artist, the Brazilwood sapling will grow inside the hothouse until its roots and branches destroy the wood and glass structure.

The issue of blackness has always been present in my work, but in 2014 it emerged more firmly and since then I have been trying to understand what it means to be black in Brazil.

C&AL: Throughout history, prizes such as Marcantonio Villaça, which you recently received, have largely been awarded to white artists. The same goes for the selection process for major exhibitions in this country. Is this likely to change?

JL: I usually say that I didn’t win this award on my own: it’s the result of a three generation-long struggle of contemporary black artists, punctuated by names like Emanoel Araújo, Rubem Valentim, Eustáquio Neves, Rosana Paulino, Sônia Gomes, Paulo Nazareth, Ana Lira, Michelle Mattiuzzi, Moisés Patrício… This struggle has made progress in recent years, we’ve been gaining a voice at events like the Venice Biennale and I think it will be hard to silence it now. But we can’t ignore that, like the Brazilian Congress, we still have an art circuit that is mostly white, male and does not represent Brazilian society as a whole.

C&AL: Is it possible to create work with social and political content while being part of a cog in the culture industry, in this case an art gallery? How do you deal with this contradiction?

JL: Yes, from the moment you understand that an artist’s work does not just happen through a subject-matter. I see the work as an intermediary so that I can access other places, such as major media outlets, and thus get my message across. Not to mention that I also display my work in more accessible spaces, like on my website and on social media. So, the gallery is one instance and not “the” instance.

Ana Paula Orlandi is a journalist and has written about culture and behavior for over two decades. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo.

Translated from Portuguese by Zoë Perry.