PIRANHA OX - BRAZILIAN ZODIAC
Recent projects by Minas Gerais artist Froiid deal with dimensions of the idea of playfulness in addition to having games and other possibilities for playing in the field of art, which is always assumed to be a platform for collective experimentation in which playful experiences can provide creative rearrangements of dualities such as social and individual, rules and freedom, perception and representation, life and form.
In “Map 3 – World Cup” (2014), Froiid designs and creates a football game inspired by situationist Asger Jorn; "Petelecos" (2014) are objects that redefine the spaces and shapes of the football field on a scale of the human hand, establishing infinite and purposeless games beyond the exercise of “playing”, relating, expressing oneself (there is a notable political potential); and "Where the owl sleeps" (2019) and "It's time for the jaguar to drink water" (2020-21) are installations that rearticulate the dynamics of games (football and snooker) in favor of the constitution of forms and conditions in which the participation of spectator is integrated in an unforeseen and original way. For the artist, “the practice of the game is seen as a metaphor and a moment of suspension of reality, which understands and encompasses the cultural process, through the creation of rules and the search for objectives. We use the game as a living material in the construction of our actions, where play is a way to enhance new possibilities of thinking about the city and life in the city.”
In this exhibition, held at Rodrigo Ratton Galeria, Froiid brings an artistic approach to Jogo do Bicho, this genuinely Brazilian institution. The installation consists of a series of 25 paintings dedicated to animals: ostrich, eagle, donkey, butterfly, dog, goat, ram, camel, snake, rabbit, horse, elephant, rooster, cat, alligator, lion, monkey, pig, peacock, turkey, bull, tiger, bear, deer and cow. The artist formally dealt with the modernist geometric vocabulary, adhering to it the popular taste of vibrant secondary colors and the vernacular typography of truck bodies, in addition, of course, to the stylization of animal icons, which moves the images to a status borderline and oscillating between abstraction and figuration, with the name of each animal written on the wood as a descriptive caption for what is seen. In this synthesis operated from such disparate elements – the elitist purism of modernism and the profane taste for the popular and urban – the artist wishes to construct a visuality that appropriates and problematizes formal and cultural elements. Froiid's statement is radical: the Brazilian zodiac is the animal game.
Julio Martins