Trojan Horse Behind Glass
Performance and Exhibition in two chapters at NICC, Brussels
Elen Braga and Lyz Parayzo
06 May | 26 Jun 2021
Trojan Horse Behind Glass is a program between brackets. Together with artists Elen Braga and Lyz Parayzo, curator Laila Melchior proposes a takeover of two months of the NICC vitrine in Brussels. The two chapters of the program propose a dialogue with the urban emplacement of the vitrine and its broader context discussing issues of transparency, visibility, diversity, neighborhood, and strategies for cohabiting.
Chapter I - Salt Statues, by Elen Braga
06/05/2021 - 25/05/2021
photo: silvia cappellari
A woman directs us an over-the-shoulders gaze. Next to her, anthropomorphic forms burn in a stony set. A bright scene discloses ahead, where three figures raise their arms in a gesture of adoration.
Specially made for the NICC vitrine in Brussels, the hand-tufted panel by Elen Braga reinterprets the biblical story of Lot fleeing Sodom from the perspective of “Lot’s wife”. The nameless woman, known to have been transformed into a pillar of salt for having looked back at the burning city, looks right at us through the glass of the vitrine at Rue Lambert Crickx 1.
By choosing a new angle for an old and over-represented scene, Braga lends her own face for the depiction of the infamous woman. The new take connects Lot’s wife’s look to that of Orpheus, the mythological poet and musician who visited the underworld to save his beloved, failing on the single condition of not looking back. The pose of the woman also recalls Walter Benjamin’s famous angel of history, who looked at the fallen while pulled away by the winds of progress. Who is doomed in this story?
Trojan Horse Behind Glass
Performance by
Elen Braga & Lyz Parayzo
27/05/2021A new performance by Elen Braga and Lyz Parayzo, presented at the transition from Chapter I to Chapter II. The artists presented an experiment mixing gospel music to a posthumous homage to Claudia Wonder, Brazilian writer, performer and militant for the LGBT rights.
Chapter II - Cuir Cuir, by Lyz Parayzo
27/05/2021- 24/06/2021
photo: silvia cappellari
In the occasion of her first exhibition in Belgium, artist Lyz Parayzo proposes new installations for a vitrine of shiny saw blades covered in smooth pink leather.
The coldness of the metal and softness of the leather blend into this new series of sculptures. Mixing desire and violence, attraction and repulsion, her works will be shown hanging from the ceiling, but will also be submitted to the audience for holding and handling in accordance to the propositions of Lygia Clark.
The forms derive from a previous work, Bixinhas, a series of sculptures whose title translates in Portuguese both as little critters and as the faggots. Referencing Clarks much-known Critters– milestones of the Brazilian Neoconcretism. Parayzo’s Bixinhas are structures similar to Clark’s Critters, only their circular shapes nestle saw blades.
For the presentation at the NICC vitrine in Brussels, the addition of leather in works that carry some of the forms referencing Clark’s sculptures point a subjacent step towards a pop aesthetics that also refers to the practice of Italo-Brazilian artist Waldemar Cordeiro.
The new series highlights a duplicity that is not binary as the materials alternate indefinitely, and the folds and interstices look like flesh. Parayzo’s prosthetics is set forth through her shields, gutty-like structures that are defensive and protective at once. Cuir Cuir deals with this non-binarism bringing together the Latin American version of the Queer Theory in its attempt to decolonize and phoneticize the term into Castellano and Portuguese notion of cuir. It also contemplates the material in the sculptures, the link to the dynamics of power, violence, and desire referencing to erotic fashion, such as BDSM, in which leather garments are present.
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Elen Braga (°1984 – Brazil)
Lives and works in Brussels. Elen Braga is a multimedia artist. Interested in issues related to the self, she researches themes such as strength, ambition and resilience. Her practice often involves self-imposed tasks, as well as intense labor-requiring endeavors. She delves into mythological narratives, revisiting them to examine the ways in which they survive in contemporary behavior and beliefs.
Lyz Parayzo (°1994 – Brazil)
Lives and works in Paris.
Many thanks to Philippe Van Damme
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