Los trabajos o el juego de la vida

(…)

we take a walk through the fields,

where we find a meatless femur inside a red boot

close the windows,

watch movies now

suck their not so big toes

boiled stones

so many

things around there, gums stuck

we have to paint with the remains of a brick

the briefcase does not seem to open

while playing they confuse a dry poo with a piece of plaster

laughing out loud: hahaha

: Instructions :

There is no concordance. We stammer and learn a crashing language. We perceive the greatness of the divided verb and we make sand flans with the shovel.

We will embrace our ghosts, looking for holes to slip through, missing food without the shock of the reasonable mind. Explanations are demands now, but we know: we must be born without results. Clinging to the abyss, overcoming the formula like a kamikaze drop. Risking time, circumventing the constancy of data, having a disposition for other enchantments.

: Board :

And everything fits. There is no need to exclude the generated garbage. It is a vital matter to make them ours. Mine and yours: resistant generators. The metamorphosis will be endorsed by the tension between what lives and dies, all included, also what suffers and causes suffering.

The invented, the secret mythologies of the worlds to be opened will be in a circle each time a beginning. So; there is no conclusion. There are fake rocks, slippers, dried poos, curtains on the windows, a glove, candy wrapper, cardboard. It doesn’t matter, everything is material and alive.

: Rules of the game : 

We are here, a gallery, a museum, a fair…! Venues where art supposedly occurs. We don’t do somersaults triumphantly, that, at least. There is love in the implicit failure… the thing is more complex. The content of each piece is transmuted in its relationship with the others. There is no previous rehearsal, the pulsing improvisation tells us: the attempt is already life. The game begins and may not end, or fit. We will be old infants. We will remember that science is also a metaphysical delusion and we will not let ourselves be trapped by its definitions. We will be vampires, that is to say: bodies of the badass laughter, generators of doubts in the coherence learnt. We will be mixed in the given scene, between tragic pain and comedy, because like life itself, only the theater.

: Squares on the back of the paper :

There is a proposal, floating numbers, meaning, not necessarily in that order and not exactly everything.

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Clouds and storms
            2. Making friends
            3. Some violence
            4. Managing numbers
            5. Deep depression
            6. A matter of class
            7. World vision
            8. Important demands
            9. Happy days
            10. Cannon fodder
            11. The forgiveness of the goddesses
            12. There is no body
            13. Felonies
            14. More of the same
            15. Tropical elite
            16. Sudden disorder
            17. Sharing space
            18. Nonetheless
            19. Hit-and-run
            20. Fantastic universe
            21. Filth
            22. Some drugs
            23. Sloth of existing
            24. Future forecast
            25. Making no sense
            26. Anxiety and excesses
            27. Negotiating abuses
            28. Seven errors
            29. Community theater
            30. Opening breaches
            31. Insolent hand
            32. Social norms
            33. Extreme exhaustion
            34. Part of
            35. Creative force
            36. Foreign skin
            37. Scientific method
            38. Street monster
            39. Good manners
            40. Mastery of language
            41. Necessity
            42. Cocktail food
            43. Short-circuit
            44. The world is ugly
            45. Throwing stones
            46. Unruly remains 
            47. More drugs 
            48. Found papers 
            49. Talking with strangers 
            50. Esthetic dispute 
            51. Calendar 
            52. Love to everything 
            53. Idealistic dream
            54. Feel like crying 
            55. State crime
            56. Black holes 
            57. Cruel ties 
            58. More lies 
            59. Horizon of events
            60. Mine and yours 
            61. Entangle 
            62. Constant rebellion 
            63. Principle of difference 
            64. At the gates 
            65. Caution and chaos 
            66. Incontrolable enthusiasm 
            67. Invasions and deserts 
            68. Righteous wound 
            69. Flight
            70. Irreverent cavity
            71. Everything is spiral
            72. Art inhabits

In Labour or The Game of Life, Sara Ramo (Madrid, 1975) invites us to be active spectators and to make our own connections, joining dots and clues that we encounter walking through the gallery spaces. From a list of 72 questions, in this scenario or game board the artist regroups previous works, new works, works to be done, gestures and stumbles. There are concerns and occupations that are part of any artist’s life. In this case, Sara questions the economy and the production of works, as well as the ways to generate meaning in an increasingly complex context.

Ramo works directly with the elements that define immediate daily life in order to reconfigure them into strange and foreign presences. The alteration of the natural order of things is not a simple formal exercise, for the artist this represents the possibility to create new structures of sensitivity. Ramo participates in a vast heritage from a cultural tradition that has confronted the utilitarian and scientific perspective of the modern world; incorporating notions from mysticism, mythology and magic, the artist questions the relationship between human beings and objects that are only determined by utility. Fracturing this paradigm, new narrative possibilities emerge, involving spatial and temporal consequences.

Her recent exhibitions have taken place in institutions such as Museo de Arte de Zapopan in Jalisco, Mexico, 2020; Reina Sofía Museum, 2019; Alcalá 31, Madrid, 2019; Capela do Morumbi, São Paulo, 2017; Punto Ciego, EAC – Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo, Montevideo, 2014; Matadero, Madrid; Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, 2013; CA2M (Centro Dos de Mayo, Madrid), among others. The artist’s work has been shown in international exhibitions such as the XIII Bienal de La Habana; 33rd Biennial of São Paulo, 2018; the Panorama da Arte Brasileira at MAM-São Paulo (2011), Sharjah Biennial 11 and at 2010 São Paulo Biennial; 9th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre in 2013 and 2007; the Venice Biennale in 2009 and the 10th Anniversary of Inhotim, Belo Horizonte.

Her work is part of international collections including: Reina Sofía Museum, Fundación Botín; Banco de España; Pérez Art Museum of Miami; Casa di Risparmio di Modena; Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, Miami; Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand – MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro; Coleção Itaú Cultural; FRAC; Inhotim, Brumadinho; Margulies Collection.

Sara Ramo lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.