Laura Lima

Homem=carne/Mulher=carne—Puxador Paisagem (Man=Flesh/ Woman=Flesh—Landscape Puller), 1999/2013, an installation/performance by Brazilian artist Laura Lima, was recently shown at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporâneo. It incorporated a motif that the artist has been working with for many years, most recently at the Biennale de Lyon in 2011. There, in Homem=carne/Mulher=carne— Puxador (Pilares) (Man=Flesh/Woman=Flesh—Puller [Pillars]), 1998/2011, a naked man with two straps on his shoulders pulled against a complicated network of long black belts wrapped around the gallery’s columns. Hurling his body forward in a classic sculptural stance, each puller “posed” for two hours straight before being replaced by another, evidence of the enormous effort involved in this pointless yet somehow strangely hopeful action. Lima exposed the carnality of the struggling

— Marcela Quiroz