“Argon Corporation”
Alexandra do Carmo (born in Portugal now living in
NY)
video and 60 meter drawing
Alexandra do Carmo’s practice is focused on the studio as a
conceptual field of study. The use of drawing is frequent in her work,
though she also employs installation, video, photography and performance
in an investigation of the dynamics of authorship.
Alexandra do Carmo's installation for "Space, Place & Interface",
includes video, stills and a 20 ft. long drawing. For this piece,
the artist co-existed with construction workers for 15 days while
the space was under construction. A video documents the building process
and the artists’s interactions with the workers. The drawing,
composed of delicate pencil marks, re-enacts the interactions between
artist and worker. In her drawings
do Carmo uses animals as metaphors for people, in this case rhinoceroses.
The image above derives from a short period in the video where there’s
a specific relationship between the artists and one of the workers
building the studio walls—the construction of the space serves
as metaphor for the constituency of the subject as produced through
the look of others. The confrontation that emerges during the process
of construction serves the authors action. The studio was build in
15 days as well the video-- both were displayed for a day and destroyed
afterwards.
