“The conference of silence”: the ecological discourse and the works of Nikolaus Nessler in the context of the Arte Amazonas exhibition (1992)

Abstract

This article approaches the relationship between art and ecological debate through the analysis of three works by the artist Nikolaus Nessler, presented in the Arte Amazonas exhibition, held in 1992, simultaneously with the II United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. (ECO-92). “The Conference of Silence” refers to Nessler's text, published in the exhibition catalogue. The artist, poetically and ironically, proposes that a Conference should be held with all the characteristics of ECO-92, but that nothing should be said at the moment of the speeches. The text serves as a key for reading the artworks and as a document of the creation process, in terms of Cecília Salles (2006: 5). As they are installations composed of rustic objects appropriated during the experience in the Amazon, we will use the concept of “gambiarra” in contemporary art, as in Bertolossi (2015: 214) and Moacir do Anjos (2010: 3), to understand this kind of artwork. Through the analysis of works and sources, we seek to locate the artist's role as a mediator of the sharing of the sensitive, as in Rancière (2009: 15) and the work of art as the imagination of possible worlds.