Performance Series: Ana Mazzei and Regina Parra, Ophelia

Ana Mazzei and Regina Parra’s Ophelia is based on the homonym character of Shakespeare’s Hamlet who is supposed to be mad and drowns in a river. During a reading of the play, Parra isolated Ophelia’s lines and identified a constantly submissive posture, of someone who waits to receive commands from others—always a male—and that is perhaps why she goes mad or is perceived as crazy.

In part, Ophelia’s attitude and destiny are transposed and questioned in the performance. Some of the character’s lines were written on posters painted by Parra and carried by nine women. These are ambiguous lines of resistance, protest, alienation, and submission. The gesture of carrying a sign or a flag evokes the context of a demonstration, and the design of their support by Mazzei reinforces this posture of women’s struggles and resistance.

In collaboration with Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chauteaubriand.

About the artists

Regina Parra (born in São Paulo, Brazil, 1984,) lives and works between São Paulo and New York. Parra has a MFA in Art History from Faculdade Santa Marcelina and a BFA in Fine Arts from FAAP. She also studied theater and worked in the field with Antunes Filho (1929-2019) for many years. The connection between the performing arts—especially Greek tragedy—is present in her production as a visual artist. Her experience in directing actors and creating sets for the theater becomes evident in her videos, compositions, and performances.

Painting, video and performance are the main poetic instruments Regina Parra uses to address issues like resistance and subversion. Her works have been shown at institutions such as the Jewish Museum (NY), Pablo Atchugarry Art Center (Miami), Mana Contemporary (Chicago), Shiva Gallery (NY), PAC_Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea (Milan), Museu Nacional (Lisbon), On Curating Project Space (Zurich), MASP, Pinacoteca de São Paulo, MAM, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Pivô, CCSP, Parque Lage, Paço das Artes, Fundação Marcos Amaro, Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz (all in Brazil).

She was selected for the Water Mill Center 2020 Residency Program. And was awarded the SP_Art Fair Prize, the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation's Video Award and the Videobrasil Award. And was nominated for the Emerging Artists Award, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami.

Ana Mazzei (born in 1980) lives and works in São Paulo. She completed a BFA in Visual Arts at the Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP) in 2006 and a MA in Visual Poetics at UNICAMP in 2010. Her artworks are like pieces and fragments of myths, lives and fictions that are represented in drawings, videos, sculptures and installations. At other times, her works function as observation devices framing this vast repertoire from a specific point of view. Focusing on a widely experimental practice, the artist appropriates different sensorial materials, such as felt and concrete, connecting to the environments in which she works.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Drama O’Rama, Sesc Pompeia, BR (2019); Is-Montage!, Carlos/Ishikawa, London, UK (2019); Antechamber, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2018); DRAMAFOBIA, Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo, Brazil (2017); Ghost Studies, Almine Rech Gallery, New York, USA (2017); Move in straight lines, Fundacion Saludarte, Miami, USA (2016); Demasque et nu, Galerie Emmanuel Herve, Paris, France (2016); Speech about the sun, Galeria Davide Gallo, Milan, Italy (2015); O monólito e a Sentinela, Pivô, São Paulo, Brazil (2015); Avistador de Pássaros, Centro Cultural São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (2015). Selected group shows include: Living Structures. Art as a plural experience, curated by Jesús Fuenmayor, la Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador (2018); Brazil. Knife in the flesh, a joint performance with Regina Parra, Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy (2018); Hands, Spells and Papers, La Galerie Centre d'Art Contemporain, Noisy-le-sec, France (2018); I AM HE AS YOU ARE SHE AS YOU ARE ME, House of Egron, Berlin, Germany (2018); Now it is light, Galeria Municipal da Boavista, Lisbon, Portugal (2018).

Image caption: Ana Mazzei and Regina Parra, Ophelia, 2018. Performance, oil on plywood, wood and steel, 160 x 450 x 200 cm. Exhibition copy. Collection Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand. Gift of the artists in the context of the exhibition Feminist Histories, 2019.