Maybe everything in the universe is perishable. Maybe the universe is perishable. Maybe everything is durations. And God, just the longest of them. I don't know.
What I do know is that the perishable differs greatly from the disposable. The perishable is a metaphysical condition surmountable by the acceptance of the hypothesis that the universe is finite. Disposability, on the other hand, is an economic-consumerist practice based on the illusion of infinitude.
I think that this is indeed a question that deserves reflection by every artist, because it affects the nature, the spirit and the appearance of his product.
Perishability is knowing that we are going to die. Discardability is committing suicide because of it.
Not to be or not to be, that is the question.

Cildo Meireles, about the work Obscura Luz

Obscura Luz (1982) consists of a white box mounted on the wall, with a side flap onto which the shadow of a lamp is projected. In this singular work, Cildo Meireles creates a paradoxical situation, inverting the logic of perception by presenting a source of light that is also shadow. The exhibition of the same name that will be shown at Galeria Luisa Strina beginning July 15 takes this work by Cildo Meireles as a starting point for bringing together a group of works by artists of different generations, represented by the gallery or invited guests, who deal with physical or symbolic aspects of light and shadow.

Essential phenomena of perception and human experience, light and shadow also traverse art in its various manifestations over the centuries. In the Western imagination, light is traditionally associated with reason - since the myth of Prometheus, who delivered fire to humanity against the will of the gods, or the Enlightenment (Age of Reason) -, and, at the same time, with the divine - particularly in pictorial symbolism in which divine entities are invariably represented as beings that emanate light. Shadow, on the other hand, would represent, according to that same imaginary, the negative of light: the unknown, the irrational and, ultimately, death.

Although the dichotomous aspect of the symbolism of light and shadow is strongly rooted in Western imagery, the work Obscure Light is understood in this exhibition as an opening to new possibilities and interpretations of these phenomena. The exhibition starts from a present in which the belief in Western reason and in the idea of progress has led to the recent emergence of extreme right-wing ideologies in various parts of the world, to an environmental crisis on the verge of becoming irreversible, and to an awareness of the limitations of what would be the definition of the "universal subject" with access to rights guaranteed by law.

The exhibition Obscura Luz is based, therefore, on the idea of "perishability" presented by Cildo Meireles to bring together a body of work that does not submit itself to an univocal thematic cut. On the contrary, each of the works in the exhibition is part of an individual artistic universe, resulting from extremely different practices that converge here as possible answers to the question: To be or not to be?

Participating artists include: Alexandre da Cunha, Anna Maria Maiolino, Bruno Baptistelli, Carole Gibbons, Camila Sposati, Carolina, Cordeiro, Cildo Meireles, Cinthia Marcelle and Thiago Mata Machado, Clarissa Tossin, enorê, Fernanda Gomes, Flávia Vieira, Janina McQuoid, Jarbas Lopes, Ingeborg de Beausacq, Laura Lima, Leonilson, Leonor Antunes, Luisa Lambri, Magdalena Jitrik, Marcius Galan, Marepe, Pablo Accinelli, Pedro Reyes, Sarah Lucas, Tonico Lemos Auad, Tunga, Vera Chaves Barcellos, among others.