earth, wood, acrylic, Duratrans printing, fluorescent lamp
earth - extension: 2200 cm / height: 190 cm;
photos - each: 60 x 96 cm / set: 60 x 460 cm


Located on the top floor of the MAC Niterói (Museum of Contemporary Art of Niterói), Invention of Landscape is placed in a space diametrically opposed to the access to this floor. Without windows and in a circular way, the walk through this space somehow disorients the viewer position in relation to architecture, and therefore in relation to outer space. In either direction, the viewer must walk halfway around the museum corridor to the place of the work installation (as shown in the drawing). From the interior of the earth mass, four light boxes present photographs that show the exact view that one would have through the museum wall.



“Invention of Landscape contains a procedure which resembles Magritte’s use of the ambiguity between an image of reality (the picture) and an image of the image of reality (the picture in the picture).” (Glória Ferreira)

“Invention of Landscape in particular restates the problem of the landscape by overlaying nature and culture and, by representing the landscape in situ, it signals that, in the end, a landscape is only that which is seen, and from a certain perspective… the backlit images emphasize this perceptual faming by imitating the frame imposed by the architecture of the museum which makes the landscape an aesthetic object. The soil surrounding it, however, creates another framing of perception: a ‘natural’ landscape inside the museum. By joining different temporalities, the earth evokes the fact that the landscape is not just a pure object before which the subject can locate itself in a relationship of exteriority.” (G. F.)

“Invention of Landscape questions the nature of our relationship to the world and the codes we use to capture the world as representation. By presenting the ambivalence between reality and the appearance of reality, the work dialogues with the intrinsic ambiguity of the word ‘landscape’ which simultaneously designates the things of then environment and their representation.” (G. F.)