‘Inside Out’, Cadu speaks with Regine Basha

Tuesday June 24, 2014
6:30-8pm – Free and open to the public
Residency Unlimited
360 Court Street #4 (big green doors)
Brooklyn, NY 11231

Eduardo Costa, or ‘Cadu’ , a Brazilian artist now in residence at RU will have a conversation with independent curator Regine Basha regarding his work of the past ten years.

Though Cadu’s work has manifested in various forms and formats, including large-scale sculptural installation, endurance drawing, abstract painting, musical performance, sound, and site-related public interventions, the approach is mostly driven by an intense curiosity of the unknown and investigations into systems of control, chance and chaos. With a natural propensity for engineering and scientific inquiry, Cadu’s propositions are either crafted into an elaborate mechanical machines or presented as simply made objects or drawings – each provoking the parameters of sensorial experience which become at once humorous and ponderous. He has made drawing machines to track the trajectory of wind, a sensory-motor device to draw wall diagrams a-la-Sol Lewitt whenever a visitor enters the space, and diagrammatic drawings formed out of his electric bill illustrating variable usage over a month. A reoccurring motif lately has been the music box producing compositions from the random winning numbers of Brazilian lottery tickets.

Notions of conscious presence vs anonymity also continually alternate throughout Cadu’s practice.

Between 2012 and 2013 Cadu spent 12 months living in isolation in a cabin he built into the forest canopy outside of Rio de Janeiro. There he produced drawings, sculpture and a journal of writing which acted as a guiding principle for much of the works to follow. At the other end of this spectrum is a seven-year long collaborative noise band ‘Cavalo Project’ which Cadu had brought together with artists (—) as part of an open-ended, anti-individuation process that pushed the limits of collective practice.

Brazilian modernist traditions stemming from Lygia Clark or Helio Oiticica inhabit the work though Cadu also has affinities with artists such as Chris Burden, Fischil & Weiss or Roman Signer on various levels. With Regine Basha he will show work, discuss his time in isolation, share stories and facts about favorite early machines, and talk about his anticipated new exploration into the Atacama desert in Chile.