How to re-display an installation?

The preservation of installations has always been a topic that haunts contemporary art. After all, years after a project's first presentation, how can one re-display a large installation without diminishing its original impact and context? One thing is certain: while large installations centered around sculptural works, objects, and paintings tend to preserve their initial design—leading curators and producers to conduct endless research for materials that can "reproduce the original"—artists closer to video seem to actually embrace the possibility of new configurations as something beneficial to the work. By speaking with artists featured in recently organized exhibitions in São Paulo—Anna Bella Geiger, the duo Jonas Van & Juno B, and Mayana Redin—we speculated on some reasons why this happens.

On display until next July at the Museum of Contemporary Art of USP with the installation Circumambulatio (1972) and until last February at Mendes Wood DM gallery with Mesa, friso e vídeo macios (1981), Anna Bella Geiger began her work around metal engraving and gouache drawings. However, from the 1970s onward, her production took on an experimental character that brought her closer to video art. When asked whether these new installations succeed in keeping the work's power alive, Geiger first discusses Circumambulatio: "In the first installation at MAM Rio de Janeiro in 1972, the panels were not curved... but I arranged them in a spiral shape, according to the ideas proposed by the work. Now, at MAC USP, the assembly is straighter, in corridors... they came to do it this way, I believe because they are 'researchers,' a perspective that comes from the technical reserve... perhaps they see the installation as evidence of my work brought into the present", she explains.

The work in question, a large installation that combines video, texts, and images on the human tendency to organize (both socially and psychically) around a reference point identified as the center, was acquired in 1972 by Walter Zanini—who was the director of MAC USP at the time—exhibited only once in the museum in 1973, and only now presented to the public again. Even though she is open to adaptations and new contexts, Anna Bella Geiger's comments shed light on how the presentation of historical works can often seem confined to an “archival arrangement”, where the audience appears to be exposed to evidence of a past work, rather than a piece whose voice and content remain active today.

Mesa, friso e vídeo macios (1981), on the other hand, remains more faithful to the installation originally presented at the XVI São Paulo Biennial. In a dark room, a large table and two wall friezes—all covered in upholstery patterned with greenish stains and camouflage—are complemented by two modern tube TVs displaying images of the very patterns found in the room. Seen on the screen and accompanied by sounds reminiscent of bombings, the patterns blur into undefined territories, tropical jungles at war, and even abstractions of a deconstructed national map. When asked whether it would make sense to replace the tube monitors with flat screens, she replied: "Displaying on flat screens would be very strange... in the installation 'Mesa, friso e vídeo macios,' I attribute the idea of softness, which also related to the rounded screens, these soft surfaces."

Even knowing that seeing a tube television on display today does not evoke the same impressions in visitors as it did in 1981—when these devices were part of everyday domestic life, something familiar, rather than a museum artifact—the artist embraces the use of "new old TVs" (the black cubes that have become standard in exhibitions worldwide) in favor of the formal relationship with the other items that make up the work.

While the first generation of Brazilian artists experimenting with video—including Anna Bella Geiger, Sônia Andrade, Carmela Gross, Antonio Dias, among others—is viewed by critics and curators not exactly as videomakers par excellence, but as artists at that time flirting with a new medium that could help them break away from established practices, five decades later it is fascinating to look at the Brazilian video art scene and notice an inverse trend: artists born in the screen era today start from video to expand their possibilities towards space, other formats, and languages.

Through films, objects, and immersive installations, Jonas Van and Juno B. are artists who explore linguistic, spiritual, and historical issues, as well as the transmutation between bodies, a phenomenon evident even in the variety of media used in their joint works. Visage (2024) is a multimedia installation composed of video, sculptures, and custom furniture created for the 38th Panorama of Brazilian Art at MAM São Paulo. According to Juno, it all begins with video as a language that supports different concerns. “Poetry, image, and sound, all brought together by video: I think that's the original power of the works", states Juno B.

Jonas continues: “Visage, as Juno mentioned, emerges from video, and we expand this research into space, as a response to the available architecture... and it's very interesting to consider from there the sensory question that we try to bring to the audience in the installation as a whole. Since we are aiming to elicit a response from the audience, we need much more than just images.”

If the video present in the installation—a complex fantasy that explores the possibility of time travel through the body itself—expands into space, making the visitor feel as if they are inside the cabin of a time machine, could it be exhibited without the other objects that make up the installation?

For Jonas Van, “the installation was commissioned for the Panorama, but the video could function on its own depending on the invitation to another space.” “In the case of Visage, it would be a sort of puzzle; we have many elements there, but we conducted studies before arriving at that place, so there are indeed other possibilities for the work… there is always a new possibility, depending on the space and the proposal” , says Juno B.

The duo's comments make it clear that there is no definitive form for this work, but rather different manifestations. Its dimension, along with the quantity of sculptural elements that complement the video, varies with the space and the possibilities for dialogue with the curatorship.

Artist Mayana Redin shares a similar view regarding her work. Astronauta e Cosmonauta (2016-2023) was first exhibited as a video installation in 2023 at the 22nd SESC Videobrasil Biennial. At that time, the videos that gave rise to the work—a montage of images that connects the American Christa McAuliffe and the Russian Valentina Tereshkova, as well as the context of the space race in which both were involved—were accompanied by four additional sculptures by the artist. Although these pieces were produced specifically for the occasion and were related to the narrative of the videos, Mayana viewed them as works with their own lives that could be exhibited independently.

It was this autonomy among the elements of the installation that led Mayana, in dialogue with the curators, to propose a new arrangement for Pina Contemporânea, where the video installation would be more integrated. On display until April 27 2025, the group exhibition Era uma vez: visões do céu e da terra now presents Astronauta e Cosmonauta with a new sculptural volume that hovers above the two video monitors. “At Pina Contemporânea, the curators suggested that I integrate the sculpture more into the work. I then started to think about how that transformation would occur, moving from a previous arrangement where the parts were easily identifiable to now incorporating something that would ensure greater unity for the work as a whole. What I did was conceptualize a dialogue with the base where the monitors are, creating a mirrored reflection. This new dynamic led me to consider the idea of verticality for this new arrangement,” says Mayana Redin.

The location selected for the installation at Pina Contemporânea, a tall and narrow niche, contrasts sharply with the horizontality of the main hall at SESC 24 de Maio, where the Videobrasil Biennial was presented. According to the artist, the result was a greater sensory interaction between visitors and the work. The new volume, resembling a hatch or a window into a starry sky, now conceptually integrates with the narrative and historical context of the video. Visitors no longer look at the objects around the video as different elements to assimilate, but rather as a complementary escape, a device that expands the physical experience of being present alongside the video. The fact that the work will now be incorporated into the collection of the Pinacoteca initiates a new process: the artist and the institution will need to meet and jointly define assembly protocols that can address the recording of essential elements while also allowing space for the installation to adapt to new spaces and contexts.

Reflecting on the works and exhibition contexts presented here, can we assert that it is precisely the formal freedom that video enjoys today that allows artists not to restrict their installations to a fixed and immutable arrangement? Single-channel, multi-screen, projections, streaming, games, GPS, smartphones, LED panels, etc.—even if not all these devices are utilized, it is evident from the testimonies recorded here that video-related artists are more concerned with the experience prompted by the encounter of images with space than with the rigidity of supposed "original assemblies." Moreover, it is important to recognize how invitations to institutional exhibitions—generally involving more funding, time, and space—still serve as genuine gateways for artistic experimentation, regardless of the artist's age or generation.

Acknowledgments: Anna Bella Geiger, Jonas Van & Juno B, Mayana Redin, Laura Jabur (Mendes Wood DM), and Santarosa Barreto.

Caio Meirelles Aguiar is an architect, postgraduate in criticism/curatorship, and holds a master's degree in museology. In addition to developing projects related to the management and exhibition of artistic and documentary collections, he organizes courses, writes about contemporary art, and is a weekend musician and photographer.