Paula Nishijima
Biography
Júlia Frate Bolliger
Harum Marcio
Felicitas Rohden
Vinicius Spricigo
Beto Shwafaty
Stefanie Hessler
Marcelo has been given his own separate exhibition space, which he occupies with different pieces that create their own atmosphere, cut off from the rest of the building. Here, he creates stories around the subject of water. All the pieces in the show deal with notions of water, research about shipwrecks, expeditions, and desire in this context.
The circular installation “Círculo Polar Ártico” (Arctic Polar Circle - 2007) consists of small aluminium devices into which photos of Arctic perpetual ice have been introduced. Or so it seems, because at closer sight, the photos were clearly not taken in the Arctic but rather in a constructed situation: the natural ice we imagine to see on the pictures really are differently shaped ice cubes, taken from someone‘s freezer. And so Marcelo tells me that this is also the reason why he uses these plain and simple light boxes, whose cables are not hidden away but covering the floor below the installation. He does not aim at hiding any of the backdrop or props of his works, and thereby takes away our doubts of whether what we see really is a constructed situation, but rather makes it appear more authentic.
This work stands in direct relation with “Ilha Elephant, 24 de Abril de 1916” (Elephant Island, 24th April 1916 - 2010), reconstructing a scene from the expedition of Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) to the Antarctic, during which the island served as shelter for the shipwrecked explorers. Here too, Marcelo Moscheta plays with the relationship between fake and real, and creates configurations that urge us to decide whether we want to believe in what we think our eyes perceive or question what could be behind it. 
Marcelo uses very simple materials to create poetic pieces. The series “Le nouveau paysage du parallèle 48” (The new landscape of parallel 48 - 2008), which he developed during a residency in Rennes, France, consists of postcards of different coastal lines and rock formations near the water. The postcards are presented in pairs in a manner suggesting that the landscapes we see really exist as they are shown. At closer sight, I discover that the pairs of postcards have been glued together following aesthetic and conceptual judgements to construct new sceneries. The water has been painted blue in an almost romanticising manner, distracting the viewer from the fact that these landscapes are (only) imaginary, possible places.
Marcelo and I decide to go to a nearby coffee place to talk a bit more about his exhibition projects and way of working. He has shown in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Goiânia, Belo Horizonte, and everywhere else in Brazil you‘d be wanting to show as an artist, as well as in Frankfurt, Quito, Madrid, Paris,... What I think makes Marcelo‘s work successful, is the variety of aesthetic strategies he applies, and the rounded off, thoughtful and stringent proposals he makes, which nevertheless leave enough room for fantasy, coincidence, and individual associations. So you can decide whether you want to believe the facts or be taken on a journey of discovery, reflection, and imagination.
