Marcelo Cipis «OMO SAPIENS, MI OJO»

The artistic practice of Marcelo Cipis (*1959, Sao Paulo) has long sought to reflect the possibilities of existence of the artist and the art object in a world where everything is becoming merchandise. There is in his work an industrial fiction that projects into his ideal a corporate and media personality, Silvio Santos with Casas Bahia.

The ideas that compositions such as «OMO SAPIENS – MI OJO» present again are well known as they circulate on most relevant artistic production since the second half of the twentieth century, and remain open in the world today, potentiated by the confluence of the images-things in the virtual world.

As suggested by the Cipis’ oppositional series, that either celebrate the universal exchange of values, or present shares of the artist’s body served to an educated public, this coexistence is agonizing and passionate. Consumption as polissemic action and sacrifice as meaningless rite congregate.

The space of the Vitrine, in the case of this work, already suggests a formal transfer from halls dedicated to the detained appreciation of fine arts and the hallways made for hasty collecting of groceries at the supermarket. In the protected space of KUNSTHALLE São Paulo, the artist establishes his arena and provokes the products to remain attractive in the “wrong” space. At the same time, on a more “academically” critical record, he shows the appropriation by industrial products of perception values belonging to art, such as the instant noodles pack’s curves, or the colors and joy explosion of  washing powder.

Marcelo Cipis proposes the clash. David and Goliath, but without God. And he knows that this can only end in tomato paste.