Experimentos Tropicais: Recent Video From Brazil
Wednesday, February 24, 1999
Marcello Mercado: Argentinian Angst
"Marcello Mercado, an intense artist from Cordoba, Argentina, takes history very personally. Unwilling to let the unresolved terrors of Argentina's historical legacy go gently into the night, Mercado confronts them through his video art with fervor, commitment, and originality. The Torment Zone (La Region del Tormento) (1993, 8:40 mins, In Spanish with English subtitles) is an imaginary visit to a mental hospital where subjugation and enclosure echo other forms of tyranny. Mercado's twisted drawings act as tour guides to bedlam. In The Edge of Rain (El Borde de la Illuvia) (1995, 42 mins, In English) the Dirty War is addressed obliquely: tales of distress-of vanished people, of stressed fetuses, of butchered cattle-are juxtaposed with images that acknowledge both beauty and disgust. Mercado's newest work, The Warm Place (El Lugar Tibio) (1998, 36 mins, In English) turns the tyranny of history inward, describing the body's betrayal as a response to political fragmentation and despair. Constructed in a computer using layers of moving images and precise graphical compositions, Mercado's uncompromising work is driven by an urgency of vision that could only be called inspired. The imagistic allegory of a country's amnesia evokes a psychopolitical space where revulsion and compassion vie for dominance. First Place Winner at the 12th Videobrasil." Steve Seid
Curated by Steve Seid
(Total running time: 86 mins, Color, 3/4" video, From the artist)
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
2625 Durant Avenue #2250
Berkeley, CA 94720-2250
USA
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