What is a passage? One can initially think of the effect of “passing”, that is, of going from one place to another. This is one of the possibilities for reading the exhibition “Passage”, by Ilka Lemos, at RUA13, in São Paulo, SP. The following is at stake: who passes, how this change of scenery is made, and what are the starting and finishing points?
Paintings, sculptures and objects walk in the same direction: that of connecting two universes. The crossing point occurs right where there are connections. This is one of the magic of art and of the exhibition, as the symbolic stairs of the canvases connect different spatial points the visual creator invents journeys through the space of the works and the gallery.
In 2007, Ilka Lemos used the same name, "Passages", for a set of nine 2.8 m x 2.15 m panels installed at the Alto do Ipiranga Station of São Paulo’s subway. At that time, the mobility of people was in focus. Now, the transformation gains prominence, because "passing" is "changing", creating new links from the old ones.
It is the passage that allows us to discover the new, be it of the universe, of a society or of an individual. Just as stars die, countries are transformed and people are recycled, the works of Ilka Lemos use matter to provoke questions about what from the past remains in the present to build the future, a timeless subject to question and challenge.
