MASTER'S SHOES
DIE MOGLICHKEIT EINER INSEL (BERLIN)
09.2022
DIE MOGLICHKEIT EINER INSEL (BERLIN)
09.2022
By addressing historic events through a process of alternative remembrance, Lucas Odahara (1989, São Paulo, Brazil) engages themes of personal and historical memory, gender, and contemporary colonial relations. In the exhibition, titled The Master’s Shoes, the artist demonstrates distinct readings of established Western histories from a grounded contemporary perspective with a selection of recent works.
The exhibition’s central video O Sapato do Mestre, Masthaharage sapattu (The Master’s Shoes), 2021, which gives the exhibition its title, departs from a poem Odahara composed together with writer Indrakanthi Perera, using only Sinhala words of Portuguese origin, the language the artist grew up speaking in Brazil. The work exposes words such as diamond, compass, painting, heaven, pistol, shoes, and master, depicting a shared colonial scene between Brazil and Sri Lanka. In the video, these words are placed in between a moving horizon line filled with water: an unifying and transitional element that connects the forceful effects of history, which can also be seen in other works in the exhibition.
In A Desatadora (The Untier), 2020, Odahara turns to art history to search for paintings in European museum collections which depict examples of knots. These images have been sewn together by the artist to form a continuously intertwined body. The harsh and unexpected use of Western iconography is justified by the artist when recalling the South American Catholic devotion to “Mary, Untier of Knots,” which presents the Virgin Mary as the solver of small problems. The metaphorical image of solving a problem and the divine feminine gesture exposes the artist's wish to puzzle out historic moments. In doing so, he questions the accuracy of these moments and suggests their undoing by coexisting with violent pasts. The works in this exhibition pull together various historic references and understand that dominance and authority, or the “master’s shoes” are something one wears which have been passed along in the history of power. In Odahara’s words: “The master’s shoes never remain empty.” This exhibition pursues an idea of the present that welcomes multiple narratives, including ways of reimagining them.
Lucas Odahara’s solo exhibition
Winner of the Berlin Art Prize 2022
more information
The exhibition’s central video O Sapato do Mestre, Masthaharage sapattu (The Master’s Shoes), 2021, which gives the exhibition its title, departs from a poem Odahara composed together with writer Indrakanthi Perera, using only Sinhala words of Portuguese origin, the language the artist grew up speaking in Brazil. The work exposes words such as diamond, compass, painting, heaven, pistol, shoes, and master, depicting a shared colonial scene between Brazil and Sri Lanka. In the video, these words are placed in between a moving horizon line filled with water: an unifying and transitional element that connects the forceful effects of history, which can also be seen in other works in the exhibition.
In A Desatadora (The Untier), 2020, Odahara turns to art history to search for paintings in European museum collections which depict examples of knots. These images have been sewn together by the artist to form a continuously intertwined body. The harsh and unexpected use of Western iconography is justified by the artist when recalling the South American Catholic devotion to “Mary, Untier of Knots,” which presents the Virgin Mary as the solver of small problems. The metaphorical image of solving a problem and the divine feminine gesture exposes the artist's wish to puzzle out historic moments. In doing so, he questions the accuracy of these moments and suggests their undoing by coexisting with violent pasts. The works in this exhibition pull together various historic references and understand that dominance and authority, or the “master’s shoes” are something one wears which have been passed along in the history of power. In Odahara’s words: “The master’s shoes never remain empty.” This exhibition pursues an idea of the present that welcomes multiple narratives, including ways of reimagining them.
Lucas Odahara’s solo exhibition
Winner of the Berlin Art Prize 2022
more information
