American Sky is a video performance in which Mano Penalva filmed himself on the edge of Biscayne Bay and Morningside Park in Miami, Florida. In the piece, the artist holds a flag that he has sewn from sections of the flag of the United States of America. Penalva’s flag, however, is constructed from only the US flag’s navy blue rectangle of stars—a complete night sky for all nations. The artist, struggling to stand erect against the winds and the water’s tides, simultaneously evokes a feeling of being grounded and having lost one’s footing. Penalva’s flag is that of a more inclusive America—one that includes all of the Americas and its many kind of Americans—not just a single nation. American Sky is an urgent invitation to understand America in its entirety.

Project developed during residency at Fountainhead Residency, Miami (2020) in partnership with The55project Foundation which aims to increase the visibility of Brazilian artists outside the national boundaries through constant dialogue and exchange with international organizations.

American Sky

During a recent residency at Fountainhead in Miami, Florida, Mano Penalva completed a new work titled American Sky. The artist was visiting from Brazil, where he is from, and where he has spent a good amount of time creating work both in and out of. Over the past few years, he has participated in residencies in New York, Mexico City, Brussels, and now Miami. In these travels there exists a common thread through his work, a meticulous study of material––its urban construct, use, and consequence––and continuous search for its reflection in each culture he encounters. However, in his more recent work, there seems to be a shift in focus from material to performance.

This is the case with American Sky, a 5-minute long video-performance filmed in Biscayne Bay at Morningside Park nearby where Fountainhead is located. In the video, the artist is seen standing tall in the water as he holds steadfast onto a pole that flies a flag he has sewn himself. Composed of the stars and navy-blue color found in the United States flag, his flag borrows the serene corner section of the “American” flag, a section we tend to look at differently than that of the stark red and white stripes where a sharp contrast exists. This contrast is highlighted in a previous series of work titled Desvio (Shift), 2018, in which Penalva folded the United States flag in varying vertical positions and hung these different folded versions on the wall––each version partially hiding the stars and dark sky he now turns to in this performance.

Looking at the landscape, Penalva’s height means the flag waves high above the water, an imagined flag suggesting an inclusive America, all nations under the same sky. The nine starred sections sewn together signal to endless stars that shine bright through dark times on all, and not just one single nation. In this act, we are reminded of the many kinds of Americans that exist both above and below the Equator, the work serving as an invitation to better understand a complex America in its entirety.

As the artist fiercely holds onto the pole, struggling to stand erect against the wind, the human effort in this strenuous exercise emphasizes the physicality of the work. Penalva is still throughout the performance––what moves are the wind and the water as the tide noticeably rises. Although he remains in the same place during the whole performance, the context of that place shifts as the tides do. It’s hard not to question where he would end up should the performance continue. Will he be on dry land once the tide goes down? Or will the rising waters never stop, eventually displacing him into the ocean?

Penalva’s use of symbolic form allows for different interpretations of his imaginary flag, but the use of his body in the performative act is what hints at the existence of life and nature in everything that we are, and not merely ideas and objects that surround us. The questions that are born from the uncertainty of rising waters in the video-performance gesture to this same line of thinking; in which case the development in Penalva’s trajectory into performative work as reaction is timely, and a call for an American Sky is fitting.

Ana Clara Silva