Subverting the system

Subverting the system

The transgressive artwork of Miguel Januario comes to Thailand

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Subverting the system
Graffiti artist Headache Stencil, left, with Miguel Januario in front of their collaboration piece. Photo courtesy of WTF Café & Gallery

If Miguel Januario had been born in Thailand, he probably would have been arrested or sent to a "re-education camp" by now. Through his 14-year ongoing artistic project "±MaisMenos±" (More-Less), the Portuguese artist creates scathing political and social criticisms through illegal public art interventions, sculptural installations, paintings and performances branded with his minimal logo of a plus and minus sign.

A symbol illustrating society's inequalities and dualities, Januario through ±MaisMenos± has defaced his country's flag, created a mock funeral for Portugal (more on that later) and graffitied short but catchy condemnations towards his and other governments in order to provoke perspectives about the freedom of media, nationalism, the over-exercise of authority, the fragility of democracy and much more.

Creating interventions in his home country as well as travelling around world from Norway to Mexico to subvert and comment on local political and social issues, Bangkok has been the site of his next course of action. From today until Feb 10, ±MaisMenos± will be in Bangkok at WTF Café & Gallery.

Inside the two-storey gallery are photo archives and videos of his subversive installations, graffiti and performances, as well as new artworks that relate directly to the state of Thai politics today. Placed on a table on the second floor is a lone green ballot box on a table with a stack of voting ballots. Voters choose from political parties of Red, Yellow, Elvis, ±, Uncle G.I Joe, Rainbow and Democracy. On the wall behind the ballot box is a painting of a Thai flag, superimposed by military camouflage. It's a risky installation, but has actually been toned down according to the artist.

"It's been fun to rethink and rethink and test the boundaries," said Januario. "We had to change a few things, because we know there are very sensitive people out there. We have to be careful about what we do, which is kind of awkward."

Known for pushing the limits against any form of authority, Januario started ±MaisMenos± in 2005 in academic research in order to look at society with a critical view. Graffitiing the ambivalent logo throughout urban spaces in his town of Porto, the logo quickly went viral -- resonating with the general public and catching the attention of media outlets.

"In 2005, ±MaisMenos± was working as a Rorschach test where people could project their feelings, their emotions, their anxieties, their fears," the artist explained. "It was a brand that sold itself. And then I decided after this academic context to bring it further and continue this work."

After creating more interventions for a few years, the artist's popularity skyrocketed and he was later invited by government and authorities to create artworks. One of them was in Guimarães -- a Unesco site and the supposed birthplace of Portugal. From doing illegal activities, the general population and government seemed to have now accepted him. He was now part of the system.

"When the work starts to grow, you get a different kind of dialogue with the system, with authorities, with institutions," he said. "At some point I understood that I could play with the system. I could create these dialogues because the work was growing. It was becoming more known and instrumentalised by the institutions. It was now cool to protest. In a way, I tried to find what paths I could do. My protest work is not so protest anymore. It's [now] part of the system that it proposed itself to criticise in the beginning. So, let's try to make these dialogues that we can with the system, and let's try to provoke them even further."

Archives of ±MaisMenos± interventions around the world.

Accepting the invitation, Januario was now working to take down the system from the inside. Going to Guimarães, he created a series of interventions regarding the country's political and financial crisis, with his finale piece named Death.

"Portugal was going through this crisis [with the International Monetary Fund]," explained the artist. "We created a coffin in the shape of Portugal, and we did it in the city where supposedly Portugal was born. We invited National Guards to be the head of the funeral, which they accepted. But they didn't know that the coffin had the shape of the territory. This led to some consequences."

One of the guards was dismissed from his position, authorities and media went berserk, and ±MaisMenos± continued to grow organically, leading to even bigger interventions.

"As the work was growing and as street art has become a thing, and protests have become a thing, it gave me the opportunity to travel. I took the project to other countries of the world. It's very interesting to have an ethnographic perspective about politics, economics and social situations around countries ... to intervene and make some statements around local problems that those countries are facing."

Pushing his project even further, ±MaisMenos±, the political party, was established.

"For me, [±MaisMenos±] started as this minimalistic thing where I could put everything I felt into one small symbol and it was this," he said as he gestures to his logo. "I didn't expect it to reach so far because it was kind of a school work but then I just kept doing it. It kept evolving. I wanted in a way to express what I felt about the world.

"I think that's the cool part of it, which is where is the limit? Where is the frontier?"


±MaisMenos± by Miguel Januario
Runs until Feb 10, 2019 at WTF Café & Gallery
7 Sukhumvit 51
Open Tue-Sun, 4-10pm

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