Marco Fagundes Vasconcelos likes to deconstruct codes of aesthetic beauty. Transforms the figure, transfigure it, but without tampering with its essence. Draw faces and bodies without filters as part of a hedonistic view, telling their stories through their facial expressions, their false posses. In this "steaks, drawings and Other Stories" the artist helped us rediscover Guida Scarllaty, making her flesh and at the same time immortal, as part of a museum to see in Fort St. James in Funchal.
In your work, you like to point out that you are always testing your limits. What are they?
Marco Vasconcelos Fagundes: Is far as I can explore through my own graphics. What is very difficult. We all have our limits and age, with the continuation of this work process, I think we'll always be asking myself: where are the limits? It is very strange to have goals and then there are limitations, of the media, time and space. Maybe I have no limits, obviously the result of an exhibition has its limitations, so there's an exhibition, although I do not cause any impact, because I think free the creative process. The limit is to tell myself when to stop. The limit is also knowing how to stop. Now I realize that I have to know when to stop, because the principal is to stop on time. There are drawing that if I continue to scratch, to paint, I end up not using, I do not tear it, because I never do, but I'm disappointed with myself because I create my own limits and then cannot answer that question to myself.
Another feature of your work is to be associated with the grotesque. It is a way to tell others that there are several types of beauty?
MFV: No. It's an aesthetic. There's nothing profound. I do not work as a therapy. For me art is an obsession, from creating new characters, giving to the ideas, other contexts, media and materials that I use. Exit the stereotype of the normal look that everyone is waiting to find. I like to massacre the faces and it has everything to do with aesthetics. These figures are much more genuine, has far more symbolism than a normal face in a magazine.
Speaking of exhibition, I realized that some figures are crossed out, blackened, they seem almost corpses.
VSM: It's a prototype. My works are all tests, records. Frame a piece of art is confusing for me. I think it's more commercial to be framed, have its own space and is a record of my work. Every artist wants to make his testimony, but that part of the dolls almost cadaverous figures, It is me creating a new Barbie, they are sexy, are disguised and who is more attentive realizes the body is almost of Guida Scarllaty. I removed the waist, hips and anatomically are very lush and are very present for it. I think it is funny that I used my DNA in the hair, I think is amusing. It is my identity card.
That is your hair?
MFV: Yes, it's mine. I cut it and keep it forever, to be used one day in my work. That's the idea. The dolls are slaughtered. Fossils almost, I could clothe them, but I wanted it to be the opposite of Barbie, removing the fabric, the brightness and so I used a pop element. I am interested in using the current materials of factories and shops. Many times we thought it only has one function, I like to apply them in other areas, and I start to recycle. The dolls are dressed, are covered, but there are parts of the body that are exposed and that interests me.
The black is also important in this process?
FV: No, black is the common thread of all works. I knew it was a museum, with multiple levels, multiple rooms and I need it to be consistent and that is the goal. My work has a lot of color, drawings, scribbling and therefore had to be black. It's almost as clothing for the end of the year.
The last step of the exhibition was the show of Guida Scarllaty, why it was essential for this exhibition?
VSM: It was the apotheosis, was me bringing a picture of mine to live, with flesh and bone. If we look at Guida Scarllaty she has nearly 70 years old, a more decadent face and there are many questions to ask to ourselves, the question about beauty is one of them. The invitation was made online. The texts of Andre Teodosio, the actor and director, was all thru facebook and it seems to me that she accepted, because she said a funny thing: I never imagined in my career, ending up in a museum and I replied: as a museum piece. I wanted to Guida Scarlatty to pose for me. Lushly, very dressed up. If I want I could brought a younger transvestite , on the other hand, I wanted to honor a national and international personality. And the very travesty is an art form into disuse and that maybe required the presence of a person with caliber. The young people who heard stories about her, do not know who she is. After that, they start to become interested in the figure, in the history.
The title "steak, drawings and Other Stories", why?
MFV: All this are short stories, because they are the illustration of the texts. The drawings is present, because it is a characteristic of mine and beef steaks is to give meat to the figures by bringing Guida Scarlatty and all this has a lot of physical presence and that interested me.
