Caveat Reading Room #6, Translating Creleisure

Collective reading and translation of original texts by Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica in relation to stock images portraying a new model of worker, one who is both on vacation and at work. The texts and images were selected by Sofia Caesar, one of the artists at the core of Caveat’s collective research.

Collective reading and translation of original texts by Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica genealogy in relation to stock images portraying a new model of worker, one who is both on vacation and at work. The texts and images were selected by Sofia Caesar, one of the artists at the core of Caveat’s collective research. The texts are: Serie Dilmen Mariani 2, The Senses Pointing Towards a New Transformation, APOCALIPOPOTESIS, and As Possibilidades do Crelazer (Les Possibilités du Creloisir). These are available at Programa Helio Oiticica, an online archive by Itaú Cultural and Programa HO, or through the bibliography link below. The images come from different sources, resulting from a search for the term workation (work+vacation) in google images.

Notes from the Reading Room

Sofia: the images we printed for you are important for my work and I’ve been bringing them to Caveat events. They’re about Workation, - work and vacation – important notions in the work of Hélio Oiticica, as well as ‘crelazer’, creleisure. I use them also for the preparation of a show I have in Rio later this year. We will read the texts by ourselves, and when there are moments that make you stop, please mark it. I’d like to come back to them later, especially those that relate to the images.

Individual Reading

Sofia selects a paragraph from APOCALIPOPOTESIS.

Difference between creleisure and leisure (diversion from work, makes you more productive when returning to work, oppressing activity). Ronny chooses the same fragment, because it defines creleisure, but would continue with another fragment from the same text.

Image in bed with laptops, coffee and plants: relate it to creleisure? Sofia: no I think not, I think this image appropriates elements of creleisure, while actually opposing it.

Pauline: I have a question about the etymology of ‘leisure’ and ‘pleasure’: they are similar in all languages, is there a common root? Florence: maybe he plays with them like Derrida, suggesting a deeper relationship.

Ideology of pleasure-work

Greg Nijs: Hélio Oiticica is operating on the epistemological level: from the object as material thing, movement away from vision (performative vs representational), experience vs cognition, open field of signification. Object as event. From the metaphysical extent to their political potential. Vision is connotated with control (the regime since the renaissance), while touch seems related to change.

Julie: did he always show his work in exhibitions? Katleen: outside art spaces: architectural interventions, experiences, behaviour.

Julie reads this fragment from ‘Dilmen Mariani Series 2’. It’s interesting because it explains what he does believe in: in nothing but life.

Katleen: what images would he choose? Because I think the text and these images don’t correlate. Sofia: Indeed, they don’t. I use them as a counterpoint, an anchor to today. I googled ‘workation’. Katleen: google ‘workaholiday’.

Vijai Patchineelam: I relate this to the work of Mladen Stilinovic, but his thinking is more precise. Also more clear, politically. Discussion about Tropicalia, Caetano Veloso, contemporary Brazilian intellectual/art scene. There are also wealthy artists living in favelas...

Sofia explains the mechanisms of her exhibition About museum vs experience

Greg about Merleau-Ponty

'Workation' images used during the reading