As natural beings that we are, our current capabilities are the result of a complex evolutionary dynamic inherent to the vital phenomenon. The emergence of life on our planet, as stated by biologist Lynn Margulis, completely modified the Earth’s atmospheric conditions, which enabled the development of an evolutionary history that, until now, has as its main characteristic the diversity of forms of living beings. Among the diverse expressions of life, we humans have acquired, through modern technology, a great power to modify terrestrial conditions.
Currently, this diversity of ways of life is threatened by ourselves, for reasons we know. Destructive pressures on the biosphere have set in motion the sixth mass extinction of species[1]. Such is our situation, to the point that most climate scientists, as well as some contemporary thinkers, are in agreement with the thesis that postulates that humanity has become a geological agency due to the scope of our actions, the so-called Anthropocene Era.
This contemporary scenario of increasing modifications in the Western human way of existing (which becomes increasingly global), reinforces the thesis of a large part of the Western tradition of thought, from ancient Greeks to contemporaries, which attributes the mark of our species to rationality . However, this almost “axiom” of Western civilization, which postulates our main difference in relation to other living beings, was contested by the German philosopher Hans Jonas. Endowed with a keen sensitivity to the world, something that provided him with a non-anthropocentric vision of the phenomenon of life, Jonas finds the anthropological difference in the human capacity for image. The ability to reproduce or create an image inaugurates, according to the philosopher, the conceptual dimension of understanding reality, given that pictorial representation demonstrates a non-practical relationship with objects, and that it manifests interest in the image itself, regardless of its utility.
It is interesting to note that this non-practical relationship with the world may have emerged around 45 thousand years ago[2], that is, it is not an evolutionary privilege of homo sapiens but something that was already present in homo pictor, our ancestor who painted caves.
If the records of cave paintings demonstrate the dawn of the conceptual dimension of our ancestors through the communication of everyday elements, such as animals and other humans, contemporary art communicates to us about the bubbles of particular multiverses that express the experiences and relationships of the now. The image, whether from a painting, photograph, video, sculpture or even a performance, reveals a powerful series of interpretations.
Thinking from this perspective, the art collection can be, among other possibilities, a kind of narrative of the narratives of our time. In this sense, the Calmon-Stock collection is a collection of concept images that form a plural discourse that records the diversity expressed by Brazilian contemporary art.
Among the more than 300 works in the collection, the plant in a sapucaia coconut can take us back to a part of Brazilian ancestry that has fought and resisted for its own existence for 521 years. The metal coin with two lurid figures from our history, on one side a dictator from the past, on the other a genocidal present, reinforces attention to the fragility of our democracy, at the same time reminding us that it is necessary to resist, something that The people of the sapucaia coconut plant artist know this very well. The digital collage by Moara Brasil Tupinambá brings together elements that illustrate very well the complexity of being alive in this “time of catastrophes”, to paraphrase Isabelle Stengers. The video Comfort, by Marcus Paulista, connects to the works mentioned in an almost unusual way (I believe that nothing is completely unusual in this collection) by bringing to the visual field an almost molecular movement, which reminds us of DNA, the source of all any form of life.
Such is the potential of the images in the Calmon-Stock Collection, that the very idea of an art collection overflows to other places, also occupying the space of poetic experimentation committed not only to the aesthetic record, but also to the political record of our turbulent time. , thus appearing as resistance of art itself in a country overwhelmed by the deadly administration of an ignoble being. Resistance that is expressed in the plural landscape composed by the collection by bringing together works that express the diversity of existences in contemporary Brazil amid political chaos and climate threat. This reinforces the idea that art can be a device for questioning the status quo towards a non-fascist existence.
