BETH MOYSÉS: I didn’t come bearing peace but the sword

BETH MOYSÉS

I didn’t come bearing peace but the sword

The Fernando Pradilla gallery presents its sixth solo exhibition of the Brazilian artist Beth Moysés (São Paulo, 1960), whose versatile oeuvre encompasses photography, video, installation, sculpture, digital animation and performance. Under the title I didn’t come bearing peace but the sword, Moysés’s offerings in this exhibition are open to the most pressing issues of the present. In her more than two-decade-long career, Beth Moysés has ceaselessly explored in the subtle and human means of the impact of violence on women, vindicating a form of art in commitment with the defense of rights, dealing with the complexity of the relationships and feelings of women toward men, family and society. This project is perhaps Beth’s most personal project, as it starts with her own body, rehearsing a “exercise in reduction—in her own words—of the weight that we are bearing in these times of grief.”

The exhibition I didn’t come bearing peace but the sword by Beth Moysés has been curated by Francisco Carpio, who sings the praises of the artist in his text: “What truly enriches our vision—critically, solidariously and sympathetically—is what Beth brings to these issues which place woman within the field of conflicts with man, family and society: the transgressive, complex, individual and at the same time complex dimension, lyrical as it is epic, which she brings to these issues, and which derive not only from her personal and biographical experience but equally from multiple contributions from other collective experiences. She can be, in fact, considered a true pioneer with regards to this collaborative work which implicates the experience of many women within the public sphere. F.C

Once again, Beth Moysés resorts to her own memory, her unconscious and to introspections to treat these themes with the lightness that is most characteristic of her work—themes inherently related to the idea of origin, to the female body, to traumas, images and objects from a crib, tiny feet, a belly button, a family brooch, which become that body full of experiences and memories from a life filtered and parsed by a creative activity.

The selection of works jointly made by the curator and the artist has been structured like a life’s journey, and it starts with that family brooch shaped like a sword. “From this opening piece,” states Carpio, “Beth Moysés’s project goes on unfolding a whole series of objects which act like landmarks within a symbolic and a plastic journey. In this vein, the cloth flag (present in her performance Aurora) becomes a new chain-link that makes its way through the exhibiting space, connecting readings and suggestions with other objectual artworks, such as the case of the small metal crib (connected to the video 129 In Flames) which treasures some metal reels which are charged with a strong symbolism related to the pure beginnings of the feminist movement; and with other pieces such as a square block of plaster, which at once remember and reshape the essential maternal bond through the umbilical door of life. A life which, literally, takes its first steps in an allegorical and poetic manner through the medium of the mould of the artist’s own feet. This journey is moreover coupled with another series of works which formalise themselves in video format, documenting some performances such as Las malas muertes and the already mentioned Aurora, or constructing an excellent animated narrative from some seminal figures of feminist art (Sprout Sense), and also photography, where she offers some of her most attractive and eloquent pieces of the exhibition. I mean, specifically, Yo, el cielo: confinamiento, a group of 80 small photographs, which gather up Beth’s vision, like a kind of personal diary, bearing witness to her reality and world during the months of confinement. F.C

Beth Moysés graduated from the FAAP of São Paulo with a BA in Fine Arts and holds a PhD from the State University of Campinas. Many of her videos and performances have been presented in important cultural institutions such as the Reina Sofia in Madrid; the DA2 Museum in Salamanca; the Museo del Barrio in New York: the Pilar i Joan Miró Foundation in Palma de Mallorca; the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington; the IVAM in Valencia, among many others.

She has made multiple performances in public spaces across cities such as São Paulo, Brasilia, Sevilla, Zaragoza, Bogota, Dublin, Cáceres, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Montevideo, Shanghai, Salamanca, Oporto and João Pessoa. The work of Beth Moysés is part of the collection of the MNCARS; Madrid, of the Centro Cultural de España in Montevideo, of the Museum of Contemporary Art of São Paulo, of the Museum of Brazilian Art of the Cultural Center of the Banco de Brazil, among many others. On the 25th of November of 2019, on the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Beth presented her performance Aurora. Alongside other women, in silence, and within an almost ritual silence at dawn, the artist made her way through several landmarks of women’s history in the city of Madrid. The fountain of the goddess Cibeles, the number 44 of the Calle Barquillo—an important place for early feminist movements in Madrid—, the Calle Montera, one of the central spots for sex work in Madrid, and the Monasterio de Clausura de las Descalzas Reales, among many other places which were selected by the artist to carry out a protest and conscience raising call on the issue of violence against women. The current exhibition of Beth Moysés in the Fernando Pradilla Gallery will showcase the video and the photographs from that 2019 performance.

The exhibition I didn’t come bearing peace but the sword by Beth Moysés will be open to the public till the 11th of December 2021.