BIOGRAPHY
Vasco Araújo was born in Lisbon, Portugal, 1975. Lives in Lisbon
2008 Eco, Jeu de Paume, Paris
2007 About Being Different, Baltic Center for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, England
2005 Dilemma, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst – SMAK, Gent, Belgium; 51. Biennale di Venezia; 1st Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art
2002 Biennale of Sydney
Selected Bibliography WELCHMAN, John,
Vasco Araújo: towards a sum of the arts, Portugal, Vasco Araújo/ ADIAC, Coda Seca, 2006; PÉREZ-ORAMAS, Luis, “Vasco Araújo y la metáfora del incesto” IN:
L’inceste (cat.), Lisbon, Museu do Azulejo, 2005; CARLOS, Isabel, "O Forro das Coisas" IN:
Prémio EDP, Novos Artistas, Lisbon, Fundação EDP, 2003.
INTERVIEW
Fernanda D’Agostino Dias: Dear Vasco, you began to exhibit your work in 1999; before that you devoted yourself to opera and your education as an artist, studying photography and sculpture. In spite of the different media you use, erudite culture is a guiding theme in your work. What about it attracts you so much?
Vasco Araújo: I think I’ve always been fascinated by classical culture, by what it presents us as memory of ourselves, as human beings. I think that it is in the analysis of the past that we can reflect on ourselves; the future is a projection, and the present, an enactment. There is no reality, but rather an enactment of what we believe to be reality, which is why we don’t judge it, or even understand it at times. Using erudite culture allows me to resituate concepts and ideas, shifting them from their normal state to another. Many of the things I work with are banal in the sense that the stories in operas are also banal, but the fact that we see them today makes us interpret them differently. On the other hand, they can never be denied or challenged, because they are classical, or ancient objects; they have an inherent universality. No one can point a finger and say: No, that’s not right or that isn’t… Erudite culture allows me to confront and react with the audience directly.
Fernanda D’Agostino Dias: Another theme is gender identity. It is interesting to see images of you dressed as a diva and putting on female voices. Taking the example of opera, in which crossdressing may be a custom rather than a taboo, I would like to know if by using it in your work you are seeking to treat the issue in the plastic arts with the same lightness.
Vasco Araújo: I’m not interested in gender. Identity is our base, the base of the human being, like the voice; it gives us our dimension, it is our identity. We can be many without changing our bodies, that is, like in opera, a character changes identity because they change clothes and / or characterization, they go from man to woman, from woman to man, from man to monster, but at the end of the day it is just one person. He or she just represents others, has others. That is precisely what I wanted to do in the plastic arts. Be many in just one. First I am a woman, then a man, old, monstrous, etc., without losing my center, my essence, my inner self, which in the end, perhaps, is never revealed and / or is revealed though the others. Why can’t we be many in order to talk about everything? On the other hand I think it is easier to reach others through fictitious characters. Because they speak of real things, things that hurt, but which we never have the courage to talk about or even listen to. In answer to your question, I think the lightness depends on the observer.
Fernanda D’Agostino Dias: Regarding the performance Some Enchanted Evening (2001), which you will be performing at the 28th Bienal de São Paulo, what was the context for which it was originally created? I’d also like to know why you chose the 1949 song of the same name.*
Vasco Araújo: The performance was created for the opening of the new Filomena Soares Gallery space [in Lisbon]. It will be performed at the Bienal just as it was originally. Six men in black underwear carry me – in an enormous dress – from the street into the Bienal pavilion. Inside the building I start to sing
Some Enchanted Evening while walking up the entire pavilion ramp, like we did in the gallery, where we walked in and used the whole space. I chose this song because it’s about an attempt to find love in an empty room, which for me is a call to search for self-love. Similar in form to a funeral procession, this performance is an attempt to find love at the last moment, which is reinforced by the music itself and the way I sing it, like a last breath.
* From the musical
South Pacific. Authors: Oscar Hammerstein II & Richard Rodgers.
Fernanda D’Agostino Dias lives in São Paulo. She acted as a curatorial assistant at the 28th Bienal de São Paulo.
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