Azul Esmeralda
1997Based on Wassily Kandinsky’s definition of the colours blue (azul)—a movement “of retreat from the spectator” and at the same time “of turning in upon its own centre”—and emerald (esmeralda)—“ambivalent, whose qualities might suggest occult and damned sciences, but also clairvoyance, fertility and immortality”—, and on the contradiction between colour and meaning, Paulo Ribeiro creates a performance about the dynamics of violence, banality and futility, starting with the example of the beastly human being, laid bare for his inability to manage contradictions.
Azul Esmeralda is an excessive work that turns into an unbridled celebration of stupidity, violence without a set purpose and the insatiable futility of joy.