Campina Grande, Brazil, 1968.
Lives and works in Recife, Brazil.
Working with multiple languages, from performances to installations and landscape interventions in the past 20 years has dedicated himself exclusively to video, cinema and digital literature. Author of ‘Antão, O Insone’ (Ed. Zouk, 2008) and ‘Isso’, (Ed. Confraria do Vento, 2016). For 20 years has been building a dictionary which names sensations experienced by him which do not have a representation in the fabric of language. In his video and digital cinema work, has been dedicating to slow constructions of a particular poetic path where he breaks the boundaries between cinematographic language and the visual arts.
Marcelo Coutinho was born in the city of Campina Grande, Paraiba and has lived in Recife, Brazil, since 1986. He is a visual artist and writer, professor at the Department of Art Theory and Artistic Expression at the Federal University of Pernambuco and Post Graduatate teacher in Visual Arts- UFPE. He earned his Master’s degree in Communication at the same University and his Doctorate degree at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.
He is the author of the romance ‘Antão, O Insone’, published in 2008 by Documento Areal of Porto Alegre, publisher Zouk, and ‘Isso’, which will be published in 2016 by Documento Areal and publisher Confraria do Vento, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
For the past 20 years, Marcelo Coutinho, began the construction of a dictionary. This dictionary is built upon a paradox: the artist nominated sensations experienced by him which are not represented in the fabric of language. Such words, created by the author, nominate that whose nature escapes representations. These neologisms seek to define happenings, perceptive slips, spatial ruptures, corporal lapses, temporal absences and sudden invasions of other logics. Each word created for this dictionary re-enacts, similar to a precarious stage, this useless movement of contention, this weak will of human dominance on that which escapes him. There is no point in detaining those whose nature is to escape. And re-enacting the act of nominating that which escapes, is for Marcelo Coutinho to accuse, and to show the failure of this idea of “representation’’.This dictionary, born to accuse the fracture, created to speak about the hardness of speech, structured to be a the deposit of leftovers of the airs of an old style of art called ‘grotesque’.
Working with various languages, from performances to installations and landscape interventions, Marcelo Coutinho has dedicated his work exclusively to video, digital cinema and literature for the past 20 years. His video and digital cinema work, breaks the limits of cinematographic language and visual arts. Be it through the heritage of the performance applied on the bodies of his actors or through the use of multiple projections in a form of magnifying the edition, Marcelo Coutinho has been dedicating to the slow construction of a particular poetic path.
The artist participated in important contemporary art exhibitions, most noted the 30th Biennial of São Paulo: ‘Iminência das Poéticas’, in 2012. He was present at the 2014 national group exhibition ‘Grande Área Funarte’; participated in several editions of the Panorama of Brazilian Art, produced by the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, and was invited for the exhibition ‘Caminhos do Contemporâneo: Arte Brasileira de 1952-2002’, a retrospective of the last 50 years of Brazilian art, produced by Paço Imperial do Rio de Janeiro; in 1998 participated in the project ‘Novos Rumos Visuais’, produced by Instituto Cultural Itaú, São Paulo; in addition to several editions of the Salon Pernambucano of Art. Represented Brazil in the exhibition ‘Mistura + Confronto’, in Porto, Portugal and in the exhibition ‘Ampazonas’, organised by the Ministy of Culture of Bavaria, Germany.
In 2011, won the award Prêmio Fundaj Videoarte-2011 for the film ‘Soarsso’. In 2007 was awarded in the notice Arte e Patrimônio Petrobras / Minc /Paço Imperial with ‘Projeto Dois Vazios’, created in partnership with André Severo. In 2005 won the award Bolsa de Pesquisa em Artes, at the Salon of Fine Arts of Pernambuco and Fundarpe. In 2004, was contemplated with the award Bolsa Vitae Artes Visuais, from the Foundation Vitae, São Paulo, Brazil, with which he filmed ‘Arra-Alexandria’. In 2001 received an honourable mention at the exhibition ‘O Artista Pesquisador’, promoted by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 1998, was awarded at the XVI National Salon of Visual Arts, promoted by the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro and FUNARTE.
In 2010, his film ‘Ô’ was nominated as the best short-film fiction at the Grand Award of Brazilian Cinema 2010 by the Brazilian Film Academy, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ‘Ô ‘was also awarded in 2010 at the XIX Video Festival of Recife, and was nominated for the Award Caríssima Liberdade na Mostra do Filme Livre, Rio de Janeiro, and participated in several national cinema festivals.
His works can be found in the Brazilian permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, Museum of Modern Art of Bahia, Museum of Modern Art Aluísio Magalhães, Recife, Foundation Fundação São Paulo Biennial,São Paulo, Foundation Joaquim Nabuco, Recife, and Foundation Cultural SpaceJosé Lins do Rego, João Pessoa.
