assume vivid astro focus is the name chosen by this New York based
Brazilian artist, in order to retain anonymity and it also acts as the
title to the artist’s wide-ranging aesthetic project. Past avaf projects
have been developed in many different media and forms, and have included
the production of t-shirts, stickers, tattoos, masks, installations,
wallpapers and video projections.
avaf made the work Make It With You: A
Slow Dance Club in 2004 for the
Frieze art fair, an environment especially created in which the viewer
could slow dance. avaf was recently commissioned by Tate Liverpool to
produce a project to coincide with the current exhibition there, Summer
of Love. The project is entitled Butch Queen Realness with a Twist
in Pastel Colours Video Show and is a continuous video programme,
curated by avaf, lasting over eight hours, featuring works by many artists
and also including other excerpts of dance and music footage from the last
thirty years. The programme develops the idea of the extension of climax,
through the mediums of dance, colour and music, and is also an exciting
look at the development of pop-culture and its influence on artists,
especially those working with the medium of video, over the last thirty
years. The project is shown in an intense wallpapered environment, which
on entry, immediately immerses you in its vibrancy, and heightens the
impact of the video programme.
avaf’s wallpapers use a multitude of imagery from different places and
times including pop-culture, ancient mythology and art, combining them to
create new meanings and stimulating visual experiences. avaf collaborated
with IDEALondon and developed the idea to wallpaper a toilet cubicle next
to the bar in the ICA. It was consciously decided that photocopied
wallpaper would be used, as an extension of the parasitical nature of the
project, so that it would look like a rip-off of the real thing. The
wallpapered cubicle was a completely new, sensory environment created at
the ICA, using a space that is normally ignored, yet one that is probably
visited by nearly everyone who goes there. Like the ongoing show at Tate
Liverpool and A Slow Dance Club at Frieze last year, it created a
unique, totally immersive, and sensory environment.
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/avaf/default.shtm
