Exhibition "Trail", by Iran from Espírito Santo

Em Trail, the new exhibition of Iran do Espírito Santo na Forts D'Aloia & Gabriel In São Paulo, the artist presents an unprecedented series in which he represents vinyl records in watercolor. Each work was designed by the artist according to specific songs and albums, which gave rise to a kind of autobiographical soundtrack, featuring compositions from the Brazilian repertoire, from MPB to classical music and rock.

No two records have the same “fingerprint,” each with its own specific configuration of grooves and track widths. Like the experience of listening to a record, Iran’s watercolors, although executed with surgical precision on a full scale, still contain clicks, hisses, and some ambient noise, as the manual nature of the work inevitably leads to the appearance of small accidents on the surface. This is a loss of image resolution that accentuates the physical process behind the composition. The main structure of meaning in these 12 watercolors, as in all of Iran’s work, lies beyond the immediately visible and is rooted in the intellectual process articulated by him as an artist and by us as viewers.

In the field of biographical significance of this new body of work, the traces that music leaves in memory find a figurative translation in the reflective glow on the representations of records, which the artist constructs by allowing the white of the paper to appear behind thinner layers of paint. These shining paths establish a circuit of rotation, sectioning the circular records like the hands of a clock. 12 paintings of 12 records and 12 tracks on each, like 12 hours of the day or the 12 months of the year. These watercolors, like an ear that is always attentive, superimpose the singularity of perception on the plurality of experience.

Since the 1980s, Espírito Santo has been concerned with technical reproducibility and its visual syntax. In the past, he has resorted to the representation of other mass-produced objects – such as hinges, nuts, bolts, light bulbs – to underline diagrammatic and industrial dimensions. With this series of soundtracks, Iran now adds autobiographical overtones to his ongoing investigation of form.

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Exhibition | Trail
From September 14th to October 12th
Tuesday to Friday 10am to 19pm, Saturday 10am to 18pm