Associação Cultural Videobrasil

Luciano Mariussi entered the artistic career through the doorway of engraving, by holding a solo exhibition at the Solar do Barão, in Curitiba, in 1996, and participating in group exhibitions, such as Gravadores Contemporâneos do Paraná, at Paço Imperial, in Rio de Janeiro, 1997, and Mostra Rio Gravura, at Museu da República, in 1999. Nevertheless, the comfortable situation provided by the medium is soon put in check, as the artist defines himself through a research in art and technology. “In my work with engravings, I felt a lot of receptiveness from the public. But the answers I obtained were seldom profound, and visuality was always in the spotlight. It was after that visual ‘success’ and conceptual failure that I changed my entire line of research, in order to investigate that relation,” says the artist.

It is a paradox that Mariussi’s interest in the public’s estrangement, when faced with art and new technologies, derives precisely from the relation of love that that same audience establishes with his graphic work. But this is how it happened, and that relation, formerly based on the pleasure of visuality, is later converted into a sort of confrontation. “Estrangement” becomes the keyword that drives Mariussi’s research after the making of the video Não entendo, in 1999. In the video, the artist appropriates himself of the television news report mechanisms, subverting them as he approaches passersby on the streets, and asks them questions about art in foreign languages. In other words, any familiarity that interviewees might feel with regard to a hypothetical journalistic approach is instantly reverted into a reaction of estrangement.

What takes place here is a metalinguistic critique of the artistic and media discourses using visuality and narrativity, one that is conceptually rooted in the work of artists such as Gary Hill, Pierrick Sorin, Tadeu Jungle, Rafael França, Paulo Bruscky, and Bruce Nauman. Não entendo, according to Luciano Mariussi, features strategies similar to those in the video Heróis da decadên(s)ia (1987), by Tadeu Jungle and Walter Silveira, in which a supposed journalist starts interviews on the street, and surprises by asking nothing whatsoever.

The research that began in Não entendo is a critique of two forms of mediation: that which institutions promote between the artwork and the audience, and that which the means of communication promote between event and society. Initially using the video documentary format—Não entendo and Estética (2002)—, this critique later on takes the form of interventions, in the projects Vitrines, from 2002 to 2005, and Aluga-se, at Galeria Laura Marsiaj, in Rio de Janeiro, in 2006. In his documentary films, the artist lays bare both communication gaps between art and public, and gaps between the experience of reality and its representation. Whereas Não entendo discusses manipulation of reality, Estética approaches the discourse about art and the confrontation between viewer and artwork.

The reflexive character of these works gave birth to Mariussi’s master’s course conclusion research, which he finished in 2005 at the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo. Entitled Arte X Público: uma leitura poética mediada pela tecnologia [Art x public: a poetic reading mediated by technology], the paper reflects on how the artwork relates to the audience, thinking about the ways in which the format or medium that is used influences that mediation. In 2005, when he received an invitation to teach classes in cinema history and language at the graduate course in design of the SENAC University Center, Mariussi left Curitiba for São Paulo. Presently, he also teaches at the postgraduate course in film, video, and photography of Centro Universitário Belas Artes. 

At the course, Luciano Mariussi, the teacher, is able to reflect on and interact with one of the issues intrinsic to the work of Luciano Mariussi, the artist: the intersection between film and visual arts. “In the classes, I practice a mental exercise and a reflection about the procedures and strategies in contemporary art. By contemporary art I mean everything ranging from performance to digital cinema, and internet-based art,” he says.