MATCHMAKER, 2008 – Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador de Bahia, Brazil & Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China

MATCHMAKER maps the public spaces around the world identifying their colors by their Pantone® codes, investigating how man-made systems are applied for classification and control.

The following is and excerpt of a text published as article in HTV news number 73 – Bread & Games- Report – MATCHMAKER p.20

“It is all about control” it reads in the Pantone® Color Identification leaflet that comes with my Color Guides. It is true, it is all about control. 

Man strives to be master over matter and therefore uses science, theory and language to qualify, quantify and classify the natural phenomena surrounding him. May it be the color of a sunset, the way a snow crystal is formed or the formula by which a wave curls, we have invented systems that describe, and therefore explain, these phenomena. 

All science is by its definition arbitrary to a certain point. All formulas, theories and models build upon the work of former generations of scientists. There is no such thing as absolute truth in science and how it describes nature. It is always an approximation of our understanding of the world we live in. 

Pantone® is a Color Matching System. It attempts to give a number, a code if you will, for all possible colors we see around us in daily life. From the shade of white of a lump of sugar in the late afternoon on the porch table next to the blue China teacup to the green of the bushes in the bright early light slightly up hill when going for morning coffee at the cafe at the end of the street. 

But what does it exactly mean to be able to control color. Is it that by naming a color we allow it to have an existence? Is it by giving a language to a visual phenomenon that we make it real, create it into existence? Is it that by saying; look that car is baby-blue or, the color of a Coca Cola can is PMS (Pantone® Matching System) 485, we make that color more true, more understandable, usable, alive?

Is it true for a thing to exist it has to have a name, symbol or code so we can use it to describe our experiences?And does this naming allow us to share this event? Does something get a soul by getting a linguistic label? Does it get born into existence this way? Does it thus get a life, or life?

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WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS BRAZIL

Alex Willian dos Santos Muniz, Alice Santos Marques, Débora dos Santos Aroxa, Diana dos Santos Aroxa, Eunice Dourado Ribeiro de Menezes, Isabela Caldas Araújo dos Santos, João Sebastião de Menezes Junior, Ludmila Souza de Jesus Santos, Maiana Ana Reis, Marcele Silva Santos, Marcos de Jesus Santos Neto, Rauan de Jesus Monteiro, Rebeca de Jesus Monteiro, Uelton Carlos do Amor divino, Valdiane Silva Santos, Vitória Muniz Valverde Gonçalves.