Carolina Bonfim (São Paulo, Brazil, 1982) explains herself with clarity. Subtle and direct, she rummages through what happens around her, what she can observe at close quarters, that which affects her. She questions the “normality of everyday activities” from variables which touch on the relationship of the gaze on a body which is not one's own, from the quantity of closed possibilities in this binomial: absence and presence, gestures, interpersonal relations, communication with audiences or voyeurism, among others. When she settled in Spain six years ago, her performative practice gradually veered towards a position with regard to the other, revolving around concepts such as otherness and appropriationism, with works that adhered to an active observation of the the study of gestures, movements, affection and rhythms contextualised in physical actions, inconsequential owing to their obvious, mechanical assimilation: in the action Here, Please (2012) she faithfully reproduced the movements of certain choreographs related with pop culture; in Remake of Movements in Night Clubs (2012) she would observe dance moves in Moog, a club in Barcelona, then reproduce them mimetically as a dialogue with other individuals; Corazón 190 (2013) was conceived so that a sole spectator-participant could receive instructions from the artist, which whom communication was remote, via a mobile phone; en Balmes 88 (2014) she implemented a performance in what had at one time been an after-hours club and which had been transformed into the Cyan art gallery.

In the specific work for the Annex space, titled 90 movements on a TECHNOGYM G6508D, the artist once again places herself in another's skin to explore what is unique and special in each body, moving within the margins of the biological and the cultural, having assumed the heterogeneity of physicality in a time of miscegenation and diversity. For this study, the artist selects the gym as a privileged setting for addressing the corporeal; set in an imaginary of needs and desires, of anticipation and sacrifices for the attainment of certain aesthetic goals. A sort of showcase, or shop window, where the physical is exhibited by blending sanctity and fetishism. Over a period of 90 days, while running on a TECHNOGYM G6508D treadmill, Carolina Bonfim observed the way in which other bodies were running before her eyes, thus, embarking on learning process based on the imitation of those movements, which were subsequently incorporated and interpreted by her own body. Specific physical forms which she reworks and records on different media. In the exhibition space, a video shows the artist reproducing the 90 dynamics performed by those bodies under study. Through this performative action, Bonfim's complexion is temporarily transformed, linked to the gesture she acts or performs a role, many roles, attempting to distinguish what is unique and singular in these gestures. She disguises herself as if she were a participant in some sort of game, or even parody, to exorcise that which intimidates and violates her, such a political, affected, impressionable and changeable corporeality.

In the images we find emotions: humour and unease, discipline and randomness. There is also shadow of a certain dystopian notion hangs over the representation of the artist as an anti-heroine, alienated from the ideal model, the theatrical effect of which traces an imperfect, even absurd, image through the systematic repetition of exercise, running always in the same place, with no room for progress, locked in the paradox that the act of performing projects a body that performs on a daily basis. Thus, the corporeal space is broken down into detailed drawings of each one of the exercises performed in order to form collages, which she presents in five groups of photographs dealing with each part of the anatomy. Finally, the she provides spectators with a compendium of sheets with information on the peculiarity of each body observed and on each routine, with a description of the execution of the movement similar to that given by the standardised instructions for “ideal” movements. The common thread of these works is that of showing corporeality as a diversiform file, transforming the artist into a sort of mapping of experiences, contaminated by anonymous, foreign bodies.

The body, its centrality in the contemporary social life and intellectual setting, remains under scrutiny in this work by Carolina Bonfim, offering new materials with which to continue researching into how corporeality and subjectivity can be devised, manipulated, transmitted and experienced, in this system of problematic creations and relationships.

Chus Martínez Domínguez