Page 103 - ARTE!Brasileiros #43

Anna Bella Geiger: I draw with pencil since I’m two years old. Then I painted the walls worried about my role as an artist at a time like this.
of my room. I remember it very well and I kept thinking about how I could finish For me, this is never a critical discussion of the traditional environment against
the drawing. I think that when I made a gesture or a certain line, I had somehow transgression. Sometimes the political nature of my work is expressed through
already had a perception of the drawing and the thought. I did not know that yet, metaphors and other polysemic meanings. Here the Brazilian character is emphasized,
but I had already found my way. and, in turn, leads to an intense search for identity that is expressed in works such
… as Brazil native / Brazil alien, a photographic series with 18 postcards I did in 1976
In 1945, when I was studying at the French school, here in Rio de Janeiro - I was twelve and 1977, to send to my friends.
years old and World War II was not over yet - they placed an ad on the school’s panel: These images include my two daughters, daughters of indigenous Suiá from Upper
“students, sign up for the poster competition ‘How do you imagine the city of Paris Xingu, another indigenous woman who worked in my house, and the lady who washed
my clothes with her daughter. Then I made O pão nosso de cada dia.
liberated?’ This moved me a lot, because I already knew what was happening in the ...
war, what was happening to my family in Europe. I thought about what I was going
to draw with the three colors of the French flag. Based on a photograph I had seen, In the ‘70s, I went back to painting. I painted women. My women always represented
the so-called “formative races of Brazil,” one white, one black, one mulatto, and
I drew the floor and structure of the Eiffel Tower with black pencil and added two one indigenous. They seemed to be scared. Sometimes absent, with an ambiguous
young men holding hands, a woman and a man, dressed in dark blue uniforms with
blue bows and a red tie. And I wrote “LIBERTÉ”. look that set them apart.
…
A month later, my parents received a letter in the mail informing them that I had
won the prize; the ambassador of France gave it me. FAIRS ARTEBH | PAGES 26 AND 27
a refugee - in her small studio in Santa Tereza. Although I was very young, with MINEIRA, BUT NOT
In 1949, I began to study with Fayga Ostrower - a German artist with Polish origin,
her I learned how to understand art in its political and social sense. At first it was AT ALL QUIET
very difficult...
1ST ARTEBH MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR MAKES NOISE AND ALREADY
DW: With regard to visual resources, covering your work, your career has achieved
many different techniques: from drawing to painting through video, collage, etc. HAS THE NEXT EDITION CONFIRMED FOR 2019
What does each of these means mean to you? Could you identify the choice of BY JAMYLE RKAIN
collage or the video or any other technique, with the specific intention of each
particular work? AFTER ATTEMPTS, that didn’t work, to create an art fair in Belo Horizonte,
Parte Produções Culturais brought a recipe that pleased and gave satisfactory
ABG: Between 1949 and early 1953 – I was still in Fayga’s workshop, which during that results. First joining the galleries that make the Circuito 10 Contemporâneo,
period went to lyrical abstraction - I learned to develop the aesthetic sense of art already well established in the art scene in Minas Gerais, created ArteBH.
and to understand my own process and my commitment to the specific meaning of Between May 2 and 5 of this year, the fair brought together the main galleries
modernism. This is something I have experimented with in different styles, ranging of Minas Gerais and also sheltered galleries from other states. Well received
from German figurative expressionism to the Bauhaus school, but for me the most by the public, ArteBH happened in Minas Tênis Clube, a space that pleased the
important was the theoretical and practical study of the Cubism. All this in time and participating galleristas and should be kept in the second edition of the fair.
space allowed me to create a path of my own that would lead me to the abstraction, They were all 16 participating galleries, including Celma Albuquerque, AM Galeria,
current in which I worked for fifteen years. Cícero Mafra, Orlando Lemos, Beatriz Abi-Acl, Murilo Castro, Lemos de Sá, dotArt and
In 1953 I participated in the First Brazilian Abstract Exhibition of Petrópolis, a Manoel Macedo de Minas Gerais; Folio, Tato, Chroma, AR, Signed Paper and Hilda Araújo
historical show held at the Hotel Quitandinha. de São Paulo and TV Culture and Art of Salvador. Betting on the variety, both artists
During this period I participated in many other exhibitions and national and international and works values, the galleries had prices ranging from 350 reais to millionaire works.
biennials. In 1962 they gave me the International Print Prize of Havana, in the House According to Tamara Perlman, one of the producers of the part producer, the
of the Americas. I kept working strictly on the abstraction until 1966. performance of the fair was very positive for the organization. “We have received
I have always approached the use of materials in the same way, traditional or not: 4000 visitors. This number has been rated as good or great by all galleries, “he says.
as a means, not as ends in themselves. As the means that help us move ideas from According to the director, the sales varied a lot. For most galleries based in Minas Gerais,
one side to another. I do it experimentally, almost as if I did not know the techniques. the results were satisfactory. Meanwhile, the galleries of other states had difficulty
My goal is always to achieve the possibility of realizing the idea, whether through in selling, common effect in first editions of fairs outside the Rio-São Paulo axis.
drawing, painting, engraving, collage, encaustic, photography, three-dimensional For Murilo Castro, director of gallery namesake in Belo Horizonte, “the most important,
objects or video. even more than sales made, was to build relationships.” This factor is also pointed out
In 1969 I was able to shape the need for the use of moving images in my work in my by Tamara in her balance sheet on the event, the post-sale perspective was expressive.
first two Super-8 films. In 1972, I presented my Circumambulatio exhibition at MAM-RJ, The surprise was more because of the diversity of the visitors. “90% of the audience
going to the gallery here is an audience of architects who shop for their customers,
which included an audiovisual work (a combination of sound and slides) and a Super-8
movie that was shown at MAC-USP in 1973. At that time, the video did not seem to to add to the project. It’s not essentially a collector’s audience, “says gallery owner
me a good choice because it forced me to return to low-resolution black-and-white Orlando Lemos. However, the fair attracted visitors who had their interest valued by
images. Also, getting around was difficult; a Sony Camera Pack that weighed almost gallery owners by almost 89%. “We managed to achieve a very interesting balance
forty pounds. The only advantage was the direct recording of sound and image together between collectors, stakeholders, artists, academics and authorities,” says Tamara.
and in real time. Even if they were insufficient, these possibilities made me think of For the next edition, ArteBH should only change the month in which it will take place.
issues of a different conceptual nature. In addition, it had the looping - an endless According to Perlman, it should take place June 6-9, 2019, giving time for gallery
repetition that was still an unheard of feature. owners who also participate in sp-art to be better organized.
... FAIRS ARTBA | PAGES 28 TO 31

DW: To what extent does your work express your place in the world? Woman, ARTEBA, GUARANTEED
artist, mother, Jew, Brazilian, etc., identities that inhabit you?
ABG: Yes, all those identities inhabit me. Sometimes they take turns, but it’s never a MEETING FOR LOVERS OF
single identity. First, I would like to make one observation: to live under a dictatorship
for 21 years, the Brazilian artists were committed to manifesting themselves. That is LATIN AMERICAN MODERN
why we do not raise other flags, for example that of feminism. I think this space is not AND CONTEMPORARY ART
thinking, or to express an opinion on these points of view. From 1968, what prevailed
was the recovery of fundamental freedoms; the right to vote and the dignity of the
citizen; by boycotting the rules governing our actions in biennials, exhibitions and AT A TIME WHEN MANY INSTITUTIONS OF THE “NORTH” LOOK WITH RENEWED
competitions, where any political or pornographic work was prohibited; for the right ATTENTION TO AFRICAN AND LATIN AMERICAN ART, MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY,
to come and go, which was essential for the exchange of information between artists. THE TRADITIONAL ARTEBA REMAINS AN UNMISSABLE MEETING FOR GALLERIES,
I think my work in the late 1960s and 1970s brought together a number of questions, MUSEUMS AND CURATORS OF SPANISH LANGUAGE
such as the need for political action, which in my poetics was combined in a constant
questioning of the meaning, nature, and function of the object, art . Besides, I was BY THE EDITOR