Page 112 - ARTE!Brasileiros #40

EXCLUSION, ART AND THE PLACE OF SPEECH ENGLISH VERSION

for analog photography, the high-sensibility black and white film 2 | 1) MAURO RESTIFFE, ÁLBUM (CASA BRANCA # 1, 2001), PHOTOGRAPH IN SILVER
and the visible grain. But, at first, what appears to surprise the GELATIN, 35 X 52,5 CM; 2) DARIO VILLARES BARBOSA, PAISAGEM SANTOS, DECADE
visitors the most is how the relationship between the photographic OF 1940, OIL ON CANVAS, 27 X 35 CM; 3) MAURO RESTIFFE, ÁLBUM (CASA BRANCA #
images and a selection of 25 Brazilian paintings, from a period 2, 2001), PHOTOGRAPH IN SILVER GELATIN, 40 X 60 CM; 4) MAURO RESTIFFE, ÁLBUM
equivalent to a century (from the mid-19th through the mid-20th (LIANNA FOTOGRAFANDO, 2001), PHOTOGRAPH IN SILVER GELATIN, 50 X 75 CM; 5)
centuries), hand-picked from the collections of Pinacoteca and MAURO RESTIFFE, AUTO-RETRATO COM RITA NO ESPELHO, 1996, PHOTOGRAPH IN SILVER
Masp, is explored. In all, the show gathers 143 works by Restiffe, GELATIN, 50 X 50 CM; 6) JOSÉ FERRAZ DE ALMEIDA JÚNIOR, O IMPORTUNO, 1898, OIL
nearly all never shown before, selected from a deep dive in his ON CANVAS, 145 X 97 CM; 7) MAURO RESTIFFE, STUDIO VISIT, 2004, PHOTOGRAPH IN
archives, from over 30,000 images. SILVER GELATIN, 40 X 60 CM
The boldness of connecting Restiffe’s photographs to works
by artists such as Benedito Calixto, Pancetti and Castagneto— Album
revealing parallels and contrasts—eventually exposes how certain Through Nov 6
compositional structures endure time. Simultaneously, the dialog Estação Pinacoteca
between the works allows for a provocative shortening of distances, Largo General Osório, 66
provocatively connecting different historical and aesthetic periods. pinacoteca.org.br
This strategy is more intense in the first room, where we can find,
for instance, the meeting a commemorative painting by Calixto EXHIBITION SÃO PAULO | PAGES 58 TO 62
representing the proclamation of the Republic and a (never exhibited)
Lula’s inauguration. The grandiose of the landscape, the vanishing POWER TO BLACK ART
image from the anthological series by Restiffe on the occasion of
point crossing the images transversally, the miniaturization of the
human figures surrounded by a lush landscape (whether the falling ON VIEW AT GALPÃO VB, IN SÃO PAULO, THE SHOW AGORA SOMOS
buildings of the imperial administration or the buildings at Esplanada TODXS NEGRXS? SHOWCASES WORKS BY FIFTEEN ARTISTS.
dos Ministérios in Brasília) stand out, amplifying the possibilities
of image interpretation. PREDOMINANTLY POPULATED BY VIDEOS AND VIDEO PERFORMANCES,
At a recent meeting for the series Debates in Contemporary Art, THE COLLECTIVE SHOW EXPOSES AND CONFRONTS THE LOW
at USP, the photographer explained the strategy he adopted: “The VISIBILITY OF BLACK ARTISTS
artists always appropriated photography as a means of bringing
new appropriations to art. We went the other way; we appropriated BY MARCELO PINHEIRO
painting to establish certain connections, ruptures, transitions with
photography.” This provocation is more intense in the exhibition’s first IN A TIME IN WHICH we witness the resurgence of ethnic, religious
room. Even if the connection between photo and painting is maintained and racial hatred, confronting the mechanisms that keep the
in the other two cores, the tonic in the next rooms diminishes. In the different forms of prejudice in the sphere of a supposed normativity
central space, Restiffe and the curator Rodrigo Moura placed two is the mission not only of activists and militants, but also of creators
sets of works that comprise the main novelty in the show: a careful of different artistic languages.
restoration made in the artist’s archive, which reveals moments of After all, we are unquestionably going through a moment of the
intimacy, domestic scenes, family records, friends and trips, exercises rise of intolerance, whether in the Brazil of Michel Temer (where,
in a kind of personal portrait he had not yet shown. despite of a supposed racial democracy, over 70 young black
Entitled Album (name of the exhibition as a whole), the first set is an people aged 15–29 are murdered daily) or in the United States of
affective time line, with personal images (parents, siblings, children, Donald Trump (where extreme right-wing fascism, attenuated with
wife...) in different moments of everyday life, put side by side along the euphemistical concept of “white supremacy,” was uncovered
20 meters. As a cinematic cut-out, a physical representation of with the attack in Charlottesville, in Virginia).
the passage of time is created. These are delicate snapshots of Historically, in the cultural scene, claims and reflections on the
intimacy, creating a tender atmosphere. The work was donated reality of negritude were chiefly expressed through music. Suffice
by the photographer to Pinacoteca. it to remember that, in the 1960s, during the struggle of American
The last room, entitled Enquadramentos e construções [Framings blacks for civil rights equality, jazz was the most important
and constructions] resembles what Moura called an “impulse which promoter of the anti-segregational ideas of such artists as the
tends to abstraction” and shows intriguing exercises of regarding, saxophonist John Coltrane, the singer and pianist Nina Simone, the
pictures of pictures, unusual cut-outs of the built landscape which bass player Charles Mingus and the drummer Max Roach, author
distinguished the photographer throughout his career. One of these of the classic album-manifesto We Insist! – Freedom Now Suite.
images, welcoming visitors, is curiously a photograph of Estação Similar phenomenon of collective activism in the visual arts’
Pinacoteca itself while being renovated. Thus, photo and space share scene are, even today, rare. This reverberates in the provocation
the same game of duplicity we find in several works, and a challenge to of the artist Daniel Lima, curator of Agora Somxs Todos Negrxs?,
perception in which the real and the representation are mixed together. introducing the collective show that showcases works from fifteen
The art scene is strongly present in the exhibition, not only through black artists, on view through December 16 at Galpão VB, from
the paintings. Restiffe photographs the art space, the work of other Associação Cultural Videobrasil. “In my story, in that of many
artists, re-centers, in how own way, important works by Vermeer artists, and even of those who are close to the institutions of
or Rembrandt, such as a scene from The Night Watch. Images contemporary art, that nearly all exhibitions could carry the
of museum visitors are common, but the way how he captured subtitle ‘We have always been white,’ claims Lima.
the reactions of the public facing the works—aided by unifying Predominantly populated by videos and video performances, the
character of black and white—has created a curious fusion, a show presents works by artists of different ages and coming from
temporal friction between 17th century painting and its viewers. different states in the country, including: Ana Lira, Ayrson Heráclito,
Dalton Paula, Daniel Lima, Eustáquio Neves, the collective Frente 3
1 | OPPOSITO, ÁLBUM (TEMPESTADE, 2003) (1996–2017); ACIMA, MIRANTE #6 (2014); de Fevereiro, Jaime Lauriano, Jota Mombaça, Luiz de Abreu, Moisés
DOWN, DINNER PARTY (2003) Patrício, Musa Michelle Mattiuzzi, Paulo Nazareth, Rosana Paulino,

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