A while ago I approached the artist Jonathas de Andrade to ask him to collaborate in a piece for La Furia Umana. He suggested that I chose some frames from his 2016 installation called O Caseiro (The Housekeeper). It was a pleasure to watch it again and confirm that not only Jonathas retains the fine irony of the original film by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade (although they have the same surname, they are not related), but he adds a decolonial urgency and antiracist patina to the proposed reenactments.
As we are not yet able to host videos on the La Furia Umana‘s platform, we invite our readers to watch O caseiro on Vimeo. We also recommend visiting Jonathas de Andrade’s website to better explore a work marked by reflection on race, body, and territorialities.
O Caseiro (The Housekeeper), 2016
Jonathas de Andrade
8′, HD video, loop
Video piece that dialogues with the 1959 film “O Mestre de Apipucos”, by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, kindly ceded by Filmes do Serro.
A dialogue between two eras in the same house in Recife, northeast Brasil. In 1959, the daily life of the sociologist and writer Gilberto Freyre, famous for his seminal work “The Masters and the Slaves” and in the present days, a housekeeper, who goes about his daily chores, handling objects and occupying spaces that echo relationships founded on race and class.
Jonathas de Andrade and Ângela Prysthon