MARCELO CIDADE🪡
@cidade
The solemn geographies of human limits ...
—Paul Eluard, “Les Yeux Fertiles”
In his new body of work “a repressão da representação [the repression of representation],” #MarceloCidade weaves elegant, symmetrical arabesque compositions drawing from Islamic, Adinkra, Baroque and Rococo art history—universal transferences of nature into abstraction.
In “a repressão da representação 2,” the artist creates black loops with plastic zip-ties, fixed with wisps of thread against a white grid of coarse raw cotton burlap. There is violence here—the suggestion of bondage, a cartography of containment and displacement. We’ve seen plastic zip-ties used as restraints by law enforcement and !CE, especially under circumstances of mass arrest.
As he has done for over two decades, Cidade reveals the politics of space and contradictions in capitalist world order. He proposes open-ended questions that begin to unravel certainties in the structures that shape and govern our lives. What journeys and geographies do we choose to erase, and which ones do we intentionally fictionalize?
⛓️💥 Cidade’s solo show “O Cordial, o Simpático e o Vândolo,” now on view at
@galeriavermelho through 18 April, presents trenchant bodies of work (including “A repressão da representação”) developed by the artist over the past two years, examining how “architecture, objects, and urban devices not only organize space, but also structure social relations, define hierarchies, and regulate behavior.”
@ginevra.bria
🔗Exhibition PDF from my show “To See the Earth at the End of the World” at
@projetofidalga with full text via the link in my bio 📖
Marcelo Cidade
“a repressão da representação 2” 2025
Plastic zip-ties, sewing thread, coarse raw cotton burlap, and wooden structure
130 x 125 x 4 cm
Courtesy the artist