Letícia Parente, Tarefa I , video, 1982
“Parente, dressed in white, mounts an ironing board, flattening herself against it. Another woman stands beside her, wielding an iron. The woman proceeds to run the iron across Parente, seeming to iron the artist’s blouse and pants while she wears them. While Marca Registrada is the more famous of Parente’s video artworks, Tarefa I is more sophisticated. The viewer can only guess whether or not the experience is painful: whether or not the iron is actually hot remains unknown. Also, the victim/perpetrator dichotomy becomes even more ambiguous despite the material split between the two. While the woman holding the iron is, upon observation, the perpetrator, the victim courts violence by willingly climbing onto the ironing board. Like an automaton, she submits to the iron’s threat. As it moves across her, she remains very still, balancing her body, keeping still so as to avoid being tortured by a burn. This dance between perpetrator and victim, which is at times a dance with oneself, is rendered through exquisite yet plain visual metaphors.”
—Myriam Gurber
Little Bristling Soul 