Marepe’s art works can be described as triggers, as amplifiers, as things with a potential use – things that often communicate a demand for action. Considering the global dimension of the continuously accelerating art world, Marepe insistently demands that art should not happen outside the boundaries of human potential or beyond the natural needs of body and soul. Neither should it be separated from feelings.

Representation is not what is at stake in his work; it gives more than a hint of the anthropological. It demonstrates various characteristics of spatial objects in front of our eyes, how they are able to breathe life into things and situations – which can be seen clearly in the series of Christmas-tree-decoration sculptures – as well as the cultural effect of their form and design, but also what effects drawings can elicit.

The order of the six photographs in Doce Céu de Santo Antonio arouses associations with the emerging 17^th century laterna magica. The drum-like apparatus rotates little glass pictures mechanically and thus produces the first cinematographic effects. The exact moment at which static images become a film-like sequence also becomes clear from the work of the young Brazilian. The pose creates a link between cosmos and earth; between idea and reality. The title of the work also contains a “sweet” point: it turns out that the cloud is a piece of candy floss.

Heike Maier, Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2005 (translation: Tim Sharp)