Domenico Lancelotti
The more the years go by, the more an almost religious idea imposes itself on all the others.
The idea that we are everything that takes place on earth, and we are in the world to feel, this place here is a lab of senses, the whole time we are exposed to a sort of daily, instantaneous happenings, that constantly change our emotional level of thinking and acting.
The light that there is, the sun par excellence, and the whole repertoire of light variations, which are infinite, like natural filters, transparent water, trees, houses, glasses, oxygen, etc, etc… are intimately connected to our nervous system. It must be a higher level, perhaps already developed by future civilizations, a kind of glossary directly relating man’s inner world with the atmosphere.
When I was a child, I came to visit my godmother who lived in Copacabana. Something that happened in the entrance hall of the building bothered me a lot, causing an immediate sadness in me. At the time I related this sadness to the figure of my godmother, who reached the pinnacle of her sclerosis. Only later I understood that the cause of it was the light and its repercussion in the loud mirrors. I don’t need to mention that Lúcia’s work is the antithesis of this entrance hall. The most intriguing element in this work is the movement, contrary to painting or photography… And even those artists to whom light is the main element, and light effects, light quality, like Rembrant, Turner, Goya, they are capturing a specific, static and eternal moment.
Lúcia’s work is ephemeral, and in this point it is better related to cinema, music and, in another level, to architecture.
Something that moves in space and is in constant transformation, even if quite subtle, and is never repeated.
I guess that the documentation of this work by photographs is quite far from its real meaning. Unfortunately, so far I had few opportunities to experience her installations, we live in different cities, I saw some documentation that was done, among them a series of photos in a notebook that simulated an animation of the geometric and colorful projections that the light of the sun painted on the floor of a Porto Alegre yard room during an afternoon. This seemed to me a good solution. But even though it doesn’t cause the effect in the soul. Another aspect of Lúcia’s work which I like very much is the artist’s ability to improvise: to interfere in some already established architectural environment, done through “plugins”, which usually are quite simple resources: colored acrylic, plastic, glasses, completely changing the meaning of things. And we are the things. Lúcia Koch comes in direct line from the time-controlling gods, Hélio Oiticica, November 12th, Porto Alegre, Brasil
2009