Dis-Ease: An Installation by Paulo Buennos

Through sensory and allegorical means, Paulo Buennos' site-specific installation, Dis-Ease, addressed “the paradox of love and loss that the AIDS crisis has brought to bear on us all." For Dis-Ease, two rooms were built within two galleries, their walls covered in red pigment and red velvet, their floors covered in gravel. An antiseptic scent filled the first room, where visitors were invited to wash their hands in a basin placed on a spare table. The romantic scent of roses emanated from pillows clustered on the floor in the second room. The contrasts between the two evoked mixed emotions about risk and desire.

Buennos, who has a master of fine arts degree from the University at Buffalo (UB), is also a pianist who holds a bachelor of music degree from the State University of São Paulo, Brazil. From 1987 through 1993 he performed in concerts, taught both art and music, and created five minimalist, site-specific installations in Brazil. Branco ou O Visível e o Invisível (White or the Visible and the Invisible was composed of fabric, quicklime, essence of lily, wood, and plastic cups. In 1994 he created three installations at UB, including 1 + 1 = 3, The Artist and His Studio, and Blank, or Buildings Cannot Produce Art, and his drawings were shown in a solo exhibition, The Same and The Other, in the university’s Art Department Gallery. In March 1996, Dis-Placement – his installation at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center – included white chalk drawing on the walls and floor of an imaginary map of his experience, suggesting links in space and time transformed by memory.