Renata Lucas’s farsa (2019) comprises a large hanging curtain, within which two curtains of decreasing size are embedded. The three curtains can appear as a single united surface or, if activated by the viewer moving against them, can rotate and open up passageways between them. The work farsa (in English, farce) was imagined by the artist while watching a magician’s show. The interplay of planes created by theater curtains enables limbs to appear as disembodied, floating elements. For the artist, the illusion of disintegrated bodies alludes to the current political backdrop in Brazil, in which powerful undercurrents are reshaping values and rights, while remaining elusive. Through farsa the artist undertakes to implode this stratified background, so that a farcical reality becomes apparent as the viewer moves through the work. For Lucas, the architecture and passages of urban, institutional, and personal space are a provisional fabric of social histories that she works to uncover. In transforming structural frameworks, she exposes and reshapes the parameters of ownership and social interaction in a manner that is both playful and radical.
