THE GAZE AS A CONSTRUCTION
Agnaldo Farias
publicado na Revista Peixe Elétrico #9
To the west, the Hudson River—known to many, at least by name; to the east, the East River, a 26-kilometer-long strait that rises from the Long Island estuary, just above the metropolis. Both run down through the state of New York, tracing the elongated contour of Manhattan Island; they meet further south, where the island ends in a blunt tip, and flow together into the North Atlantic. The serrated skyline of Manhattan is so vast, its canyons so immense, that one wonders how the island's narrow strip of land can bear the weight of that mass of iron, concrete, and glass. Under the impact of this presence, the portions of the city that extend into the continent—particularly those along the banks of the two rivers—seem to peer at it, expectantly, aware that their future is largely defined by it, the beating heart of New York City.
These photographs by Tuca Vieira deal with that, though not only that. He obtained them through meticulous research, using a method that combines discovery and construction, chance and study, arriving at exceptional results—as seen later in his mapping project in São Paulo (Atlas fotográfico da cidade de São Paulo e arredores, 2016). But this one came first. It took place along the banks of the East River, a rigorous survey of the portion that separates Manhattan from the borough of Brooklyn, and a bit further down, where the East and Hudson merge into a single river.
Armed with a tripod and a large-format camera, Tuca selected corners and blocks by the river, selecting various existing buildings and, above all, choosing places and angles, lights, times of day—in short, everything necessary to capture relatively tall structures: residential and office buildings, parking garages, storage units, as well as sheds, warehouses, walls, fences, gates, and an entire cast of constructions characteristic of areas adjacent to ports—decaying, almost abandoned marginal zones, now tempting targets under the urban planning parameters developed over the last forty years, prey to the relentless and profitable processes of gentrification.
But the buildings—whether isolated or grouped—as well as the various constructions encountered, however unassuming they may appear, are the protagonists of this series. They are old residents of the area; some still show traces of former dignity, while others seem humiliated by the arrogant intrusion of new neighbors. There are also those that simply survive, though we cannot tell exactly how—like the inhabitants beneath overpasses and canopies in large cities, driven out as soon as morning comes. And there are the traces of those already gone, dismantled, perished, quickly forgotten: the voids behind the walls. Who knows what will arise where they once stood?
One of the implicit theses in Tuca Vieira's work—in his way of highlighting buildings as protagonists, making them shine on their own, without the presence of people who might divert our attention—is that the architecture of a city corresponds to the living bodies of its inhabitants, in a concrete, physical sense. Each building, like each of us, has its own physiognomic peculiarities, individual stature, care or negligence in attire; it exudes pride and self-esteem—or submission and inferiority. Following this path of animated houses, we arrive at House Taken Over by Julio Cortázar, Life: A User’s Manual by Georges Perec, and, before them, The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, who continued the tradition of haunted houses inaugurated by Horace Walpole in The Castle of Otranto in the 18th century. But let us set that prolific lineage aside and focus on the images produced by the artist.
There is the solid building clad in reddish-brown brick, photographed from a corner, diagonally across the intersection. The brick recalls American architecture up to the mid-20th century, a time of artisanal labor laying block upon block. The traces of work fade along the two façades, especially at street level, dirtied by casual graffiti, unambitious, the result of lazy vandalism that even defaces the mailbox—a chain of signs indicating neglect. The smaller façade, on the left of the photo, shows a traditional black fire escape; the right side bears a recently installed silver chimney, a thick tube, probably aluminum, that climbs vertically like a snake, making a quick twist to avoid the cornice before reaching the building’s top.
That’s what the artist, with his trained eye, found. Now comes what he built: known for the precision of his framing, Tuca emphasized the convex edge, placing it slightly off-center to the left of the image’s field, while balancing this asymmetry by isolating a wooden pole, prompting us to wonder where the center of this image marked by vertical lines really lies. Also note the shadow of wires cast by that same pole, falling just below the fire escape, forming a soft diagonal that runs opposite to it.
Can one separate what he found from what he constructed? I don’t think so, for the actions are interconnected and feed one another. Thus, one cannot leave this image without noting the relationship between the red at the top of a sign (a parking sign?) attached to a crooked post on the left of the photo—defiant in the face of the building’s vertical authority, a remnant of pride—and the red of a garbage cart. And what about the windows? The uniform white curtains sealing all the windows on the first floor contrast with the irregular, grayish-white rhythm of the windows below, leading up to those that reflect a mix of sky and interior darkness. A coincidence? Perhaps. But the choice of time—outside business hours, ensuring closed curtains and, above all, the absence of people, the pure silence that invades the scene—was certainly not accidental. This silence is atypical in a major city, suddenly rendered metaphysical, also thanks to the long shadows (end or start of the day?)—like the urban views of Giorgio de Chirico and, after him, the solitary houses of Edward Hopper.
The cast of protagonists and situations is striking: a squat, low-rise building with blind walls and an oversized green canopy added to its façade, a remnant of more recent occupation. The brick cladding is filthy; the white paint covering the lower half has worn off. On the side façade, two air-conditioning unit holes protrude. Entirely self-contained, inward-looking, the building contrasts with the adjoining structure: an open, airy frame that rises skyward, blocking the view.
A third photograph shows a green corrugated metal wall interrupted by an open gate, signaling the coming and going typical of a construction site. Widespread around the world, this fascinating civil engineering technique—cloaking a rising building in gauzy veils—serves both as a safety measure and a visual tease for passersby, announcing the future unveiling of the structure like the metamorphosis of a chrysalis. It is architecture/artwork—a notion that demands attention, as Cortázar taught in a story from Cronopios and Famas: “In reality, the miracle has just happened.” In that sense, note the image’s composition, the chromatic relationships the artist perceived—evidence that walking through the city offers encounters with stunning (albeit perhaps involuntary) visual solutions. This is a prime example: the light green horizontal plane converses with the dark green volume like a wall covered in moss. The reddish-brown brick behind, glimpsed through the mesh, complements the green, as do the thin vertical red lines running its length, organizing it. Note also the brick plane to the left of the photo, where the contrast between faded red and green reappears, and the vanishing point reinforced by a low building—a flat, trapezoidal façade to the right.
The frequent appearance of all sorts of walls is striking—from chain-link fences to ornate partitions—harbingers of future developments, probable incorporations, or simply the vulgar and obsessive urge to safeguard property, whatever it may be. It is surprising that some are so tall they block the view, as one infers from the blurred graffiti scrawled along their base—perhaps “baseboards” is a more accurate term—and topped with presumably electrified barbed wire.
I close this reflection with a final recommendation: resist reading these photographs solely through a documentary lens. Tuca Vieira’s work must not be reduced to that, lest the uniqueness of his gaze be eclipsed—his ability to perceive the energies at play in the city, like the competing vectors formed by a colorful wall and the metal bridge above it, suspended by cables falling in diagonals. Or the fence that blocks River Street (yes, that’s what the green sign says) from continuing toward the river—an artificial barrier whose fragility is softened by diamond-shaped signs in typical urban yellow, warning: the first, hanging to the left, that it is a Dead End; the second, more blunt, concise, and literal: The End. Beside that End, just behind it, in the distance, is the spectral image of the Empire State Building—or simply, the Empire.
(Agnaldo Farias is an art critic, curator, and professor at FAU-USP. He was the curator of the Brazilian Pavilion at the 25th São Paulo Biennial in 2002, chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro from 1998–2000, and associate curator of the 23rd São Paulo Biennial.)