Verbo e O Peso do Verbo

by Isabella Rjeille, 2014

Trienal FRESTAS
SESC Sorocaba

Many are the names used to refer to the divine in Christianity, yet none of them is God’s proper name – of Latin origin, “Deus” means “divinity.” Designated by his attributes, “God” is also the Most High, the Truth, the Word, etc. By subtracting “Deus” [“God”] from “Verbo” [“Word”], Felippe Moraes takes on a Sisyphean task: to understand Him through what is translated from Him to men – his attributes, his names, creation itself. And yet, the weight of 5,101 “Gods” is only 15 g, an infinitesimal measure for grasping the infinite.

The transmutation of word into matter in “O Peso do Verbo” recalls an alchemist’s cabinet. The 72 glass jars, each holding 15 g of electricity-conducting materials, correspond to the 72 names of God according to Jewish mysticism. Capable of generating light and enabling movement, electricity is an invisible existence that lodges itself as a “soul” within the matter able to conduct it.

The salt upon the scale is a central element, both in alchemy and in religion: capable of binding body and soul in alchemy, the faithful are urged to be “the salt of the earth” in Christianity. Translated into predicate (creation), we then have God as subject. Yet a failure still announces itself: how can one understand what does not give itself to understanding, but to the act of faith? Even if subject and predicate become confused, the Word will still be.

Isabella Rjeille
2014

Originally published in the catalogue of the FRESTAS Triennial, 2014 – SESC Sorocaba.