Annette Lemieux, No Words / Sin palabras

Annette Lemieux, No Words / Sin palabras

Between 2020 and 2023, an artistic project titled Without Stars took place in Caracas, Venezuela. It involved intervening the deteriorated basements of the Parque Central Residential Complex, also located in the same city. The participating artists were Annette Lemieux, Meyer Vaisman, Nikola Uzunovski, Régulo Pérez, Eduardo Azuaje, and Mario Pérez, who also curated the exhibition. Each artist created an ephemeral artwork to be installed in the proposed space. These installations were then adapted to be shown again at the Museum of Fine Arts of Caracas from July 2022 to April 2023.

During the development of the mentioned experience, a second edition was produced. This time, the participating artists were Gary Kuehn, Kishio Suga, Meyer Vaisman, Eduardo Azuaje, Mario Pérez, and Annette Lemieux. The event was to be held at the Museum of Fine Arts between October 2024 and February 2025.

Mario Pérez, the curator of the new project Without Stars 2, designed a setting illuminated solely by emergency lights. This was a direct reference to a global state of emergency. The lighting created an unusual atmosphere that transformed the visitors’ perception of the Experimental Exhibition Room, the lowest level of the Museum of Fine Arts. This room is part of a brutalist building that combines industrial materials with the natural environment of the Sculpture Garden.

Annette Lemieux has always questioned the communicative capacity of images, creating contradictory relationships between the elements in her work by using denial as an expressive tool. For the Without Stars 2 exhibition, the artist created a large-format, black-and-white photo with the paradoxical text No Words / Sin palabras written on it. The words are printed in the font ‘Silentina’, which is commonly used in silent films.

The photo depicts the artist covering her eyes with her hands, another act of denial. This gesture reinforces an idea from curator Germano Celant, who, in his essay Unexpressionism: Art Beyond the Contemporary, said of experiencing her work: “It is a place of phantoms and consumption, which pass Annette Lemieux through the screen and the monitor.” ¹

Lemieux’s work was installed on a gray concrete wall. The image of the artist, with her eyes covered by her hands, appeared blinded by the emergency lights. This created a powerful effect, as if the work itself sought to cancel human perception.

© Mario Pérez, 2024.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

¹ Essay included in Papadakis, Andreas, ed. New Art. London: Academy Editions, 1991.