Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Lia Chaia (1978, São Paulo, Brazil) graduated in Plastic Arts at FAAP in 2001. She began to work as an artist in her college annual exhibitions, between 1999 and 2001. In 2000, she began to participate in collective exhibitions outside FAAP. The first was an exhibition at Paço das Artes, in São Paulo. In the following year, Lia Chaia participated in the exhibition Bienal Extra in São Paulo, and in the collective exhibition Políticas Pessoais (Personal Politics) at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Americana, also in São Paulo. In 2002, she participated in many collective exhibitions, including Marrom (Brown) at Galeria Vermelho, with the performance Na cama formigando com um tango (Tingling in Bed Listening to Tango) and the audio Gol (Goal). In the performance, Lia lies naked on a bed during three hours, her body covered with little stamps with drawings of ants while a tango song is being played. The tango song was edited in a way that some parts were repeated as if it was a scratched LP. The artist changed her position in bed every time there was a change in the song. Time, body and performance ruled by the rhythm of the repetition. These issues appear again in other performances by Lia, as Rede (Hammock), for instance, presented in 2003 in the Sábado de Performances (Saturday Performances) at Galeria Vermelho. In this one, Lia lies comfortably in a hammock in the open spac e of the gallery during three hours. Before the hammock, the book Confessions of St. Augustine lies open to the long reflection on time. St. Augustine questions: "Then, what is time? If nobody asks me, I know; however, if I try to explain it to somebody who is asking me, then I do not know”. Lia seems to question the same thing, but in the artistic context. How to experience present time? The audio Gol, in other hand, is an exhaustive series of goal screams made by enthusiastic football commentators, a constant ecstasy. This work is disturbing because of the intensity and constancy of what is usually experienced little by little. The constant screams that prolong the ephemeral joy of the moment of the goal also seem to claim new temporalities. Still in 2002, Lia presents the video Corpo-desenho (Body-Drowing) in the collective exhibition Com que corpo eu vou? (What body should I wear?) at UNICID, in São Paulo. In this 51 minute length video, she draws on her own body with a red pen until the ink finishes. It seems to go back to the beginning of video art and body art in the 70's, revealing a preoccupation of the artist with time and with the devices that draw this duration on the body. This same year Lia transforms the façade of the Galeria Vermelho into a Fachada brasileira (Brazilian Façade), a series of smiles cut from magazines connected by subtle yellow and green lines. Also in 2002, Lia Chaia produces Experiências com o corpo (Experiments with The Body), her first solo exhibition (curated by Agnaldo Farias) at the Instituto Cultural Tomie Ohtake. The artist displays the videos Desenho-corpo, Big-Bang, Um.bigo (Navel), Desorientação (Disorientation) and the series of 103 photographs Castelo de areia (Sandcastle). In 2003, she participates in the exhibition Young Brazilian Artists at the Galeria André Viana, in Porto (Portugal), her first international exhibition. This same year she presents the site specific installation Verdejar: verde no branco no verde (To Green: Green on White on Green) at the Galeria Vermelho, in the collective exhibition 1 lúcia 2 lúcias. Lia covers some parts of the gallery walls with white screens. After, she paints the walls and screens and then takes the painted screens off the walls and put them on blank walls, creating a relation between the empty spaces that were behind the screens, which are now on blank walls. Still in 2003, Lia participates in the collective exhibition Ordenação e vertigem (Ordinance and Ver tigo) at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, in São Paulo, an exhibition curated by Agnelo Farias, which presented the works of contemporary artists in relation to the works of Arthur Bispo do Rosário. Lia displays her video Corpo-desenho. In 2003, she won a scholarship from FAAP to a residency in Paris. Between 2003 and 2004, she lived and worked in Paris, where she produced the public intervention Um Mundo (A World). Little rubber balloons covered with stars were placed on some balustrades in the city. Still in 2003, she produces the solo exhibition A sala da Lia (Lia's Room) at the Ateliê Aberto, in Campinas. In this exhibition she displays the installation Verdejar: verde no branco no verde. In 2004, she shows the installation Vereda (Swampy Vegetation) in a solo exhibition at the Programa Sítio, promoted by Base 7, in São Paulo. This site specific installation shows drawings of leaves made through the concrete on a green wall. The artist draws while the concrete is still hardening, revealing the green wall behind it. The drawings on the wall form a background to a series of totems with photographs of plants cut in geometrical forms. Still in 2004, she participates in the collective exhibition O corpo entre o público e o privado (The Body between The Public and The Private) at the Paço das Artes, in São Paulo, an exhibition curated by Christine Mello and Arlindo Machado. In this exhibition, she presents the video Desenho- corpo. This exhibition also took place in Belém, at the Casa das Onze Janelas.