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Dudude x Gabriela Alcofra = The Age of the Projects
by Gabriela Alcofra on A Projetista by Dudude
Dear artists, I would like to write a letter to ye because this thought is for us.
Is the project a draft or a wish?
Category: Artistic review in/on/about shows/interventions/dance courses.
Why have we suddenly become so semantic?
The dictionary doesn’t fit us anymore.
Title: The Age of the Projects
What’s the project of a person? Is it a wish or a need?
How do we build this projectual setting? Has the concept dominated the action? Has the institution dominated the artist? If the present projects, what will the future need be?
Objectives:
– to write a dance artistic review on the work A Projetista by Dudude
– to evoke a reflexive and artistic thought
– to reflect
– to organize
– to experience / exchange/ discuss
– to share / post
– to survive
I remember Mr. Wilde, whispering by the book, prefacing a work of art.
“We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.” [i]
(I need Wilde)
Justification:
I’m an artist. My need doesn’t count matter. I make a budget based on spreadsheets. My hunger is of another sort. It doesn’t fit into tables. I make them fit. What I do is priceless, but it has a cost. It costs the costume design, the ground, the paper, the setting, but also the idea, the investment, the wish, the time. Concepts that I can’t precise, even though I need to. I know it’s useless. I know that there are starving children, rapists out there, potential assassins, brilliant illiterate minds, cures to be discovered. The world needs things a lot more useful. I don’t care. The fridge is useful. The cooker is useful. The computer is useful. The car is useful. What’s easy isn’t vital. What’s practical isn’t enough. I seek the intangible, the inexplicable, the immaterial, the useless. Everything that fits into some usefulness escapes my goal. I don’t justify art. Art is only justifiable as a project.
“I wonder what were the objectives of Pina Bausch composing Café Müller, or de Villa Lobos’ composing Bachianas…and if these works would have existed”[ii]
(I need Bausch and Lobos)
Details of the actions planned:
1) The artist watches the work
2) The artist writes
3) The artist shows the text to the team, discussions and changes
4) The text is translated
5) The translator sends back the text
6) The text is posted on the internet
The world that plans doesn’t happen.
Draft.
Gabriela Alcofra is a creator in dance.
Translation Portuguese-English: writer and poet Chris Ritchie, M.A.