Page 111 - ARTE!Brasileiros #43

the society around him and, also, with his reflections about labor during the slavery Superlatives, however, are common in the United Arab Emirates and the Louvre is
times and, now a days, servile. “The series is also born with my search for looking no exception. The project of the French architect Jean Nouvel for the museum has
at the hand as an artistic work. It’s been with this desperation of trying to be a dome of 180 meters in diameter - almost the length of two football fields, since
assimilated by society. In general, at college, I had a hard time finding my poetry, officially the field length is 105 meters. The dome is formed by 7,850 crisscrossing
‘cause everything was connected to an universe where I feel pain more than I feel stars and creates an environment protected with lights and shadows projected on 26
love. I spent four years studying and getting whitened”, he tells. To find himself, the independent buildings. The sensation, with this, is of being in a village in the desert
artist produced series of nude photos and parts of his body. However, it was walking protected by a great cloud. The total exhibition area reaches 8.6 thousand m2, of
around town that he found the tone. “I learn and apprehend in different ways, my which 6,4 thousand m2 are used for the permanent exhibition.
learning is very attached to dancing, to the food, to the time of things, to making For the construction of the museum on a landfill, 503 thousand cubic meters of
things together, watching something getting done. I was raised and educated this sand drained from the sea were used, covering an area that is about 10% of Aterro
way at the Candomblé yards. There you sing and dance to get access to knowledge”. do Flamengo, in Rio de Janeiro, with its 1.2 million m2.
Son of Exu in Candomblé, orixá connected to communication, movements of the The numbers are necessary to give a little of the rather extraordinary dimension
body, walking, facilitating the transit of bodies and ideas, Moises encountered the of this cultural oasis in the midst of the Arabian desert, but unlike some projects in
city and his own body as a work. He made one, two, three photos and then the series the region that shine a lot but eventually become mere pastiches of the decadent
Aceita? was born, which seeks among many things to discuss the discarding caused Western society, the Louvre Abu Dhabi has praiseworthy merits.
by consumption and appropriates this contempt as a metaphor for what he called
“discarding of the young black man in Brazil”. UNIVERSAL MUSEUM
The artist was born in São Paulo’s periphery. At the age of nine he had contact “The construction of the museum took place along with its museological conception,
with art for the first time when he entered the art and drawing classes promoted architects and curators have thought from the outset how to organize such an
by the Argentine artist Juan José Balzi, who died in 2018 at the age of 89. “He institution in the 21st century,” Souraya Noujaim, executive director of the Louvre
[Balzi] provided the materials, took paint, papers and newspapers for us. He had a Abu Dhabi, told a group of journalists, last March, which included ARTE!Brasileiros.
political focus and he used to take the weeks newspapers to share with us. He taught Chosen for the post last February, Noujaim had been working on the project for four
us drawing and painting techniques, and helped us develop critical reading. Balzi years on the French side in the binational agreement, being curator for Islamic art
blended the meetings in the neighborhood with trips to the museums of the city, in the French Museum Agency.
such as the Pinacoteca, for example”. Today, at age of 33, Moisés says he met the The route in the permanent show is chronological, with the exception of the first
art in its most liberating way, different from the cast formats he studied at ECA-USP, room, called the Great Courtyard, where works of different periods are grouped by
School of Communication and Arts, University of São Paulo. themes. Among the highlights are three pieces dealing with motherhood: an Egyptian
During the four years he studied at one of the country’s top universities, Moises sculpture of the goddess Iris with her son Horus (800-400 BC), an ivory image of
experienced his biggest crisis as an artist. Being a young black, from the periphery, the Virgin with Jesus (1320 - 1330) and a piece of wood from the Republic of Congo
European art, mostly white, did not provide recognition. “There is an arrogance, of Phemba (19th century), the figure of the motherhood of the Yombe people.
an arrogance of being a teacher from a public university teaching a black student.
They are faced with a deficiency, a fault, and then my greatest frustration was that EXHIBITION BUENOS AIRES | PAGES 78 TO 81
this insufficiency prevented me from working together with the teachers. I used to THE IMAGES OF THE
question them by saying, ‘Look, I do not have an affinity for German Expressionism.
Where are the other references? ‘. GUERRILLAS
The answer, according to Patrício, was that his way of seeing were conditioned.
“They used to say ‘come here, I’ll teach you’, I was trapped in that very small place, EXPOSITION IN BUENOS AIRES DISCUSSES THE RELEVANCE OF PHOTOGRAPHY
without growth,” he criticizes. FOR GUEVARA IN BOLIVIA, THE PICTURES PRODUCED AND WHAT THE BOLIVIAN
Despite this, the scenario changed, slightly, for the better. According to him, in the
last four years a group of black students and artists of the institution emerged and, GENERALS DID WITH THEM
together, created the collective Opa Negra, which promotes actions of empowerment BY HÉLIO CAMPOS MELLO
and appreciation of black knowledge. After finding himself, he returned to ECA as a PROA 21 IS A NEW SPACE dedicated to art in Buenos Aires. It’s in La Boca,
speaker and, in June 29, he will occupy in MASP a space that used to be less open
to non-white people. near Caminito and the Bombonera,at the banks of the Riachuelo and within walking
distance of the headquarters of the Fundación PROA.
Although it was conceived as a series of 200 photos, Aceita? evolved into something Built where once worked the studio of three painters and a sculptor Argentines,
more. Today, Moises plans to reach the thousand photos and continue counting after
that. He explains that the series keep bringing current and important reflections Benito Quintela Martín, Miguel Victorica, Fortunato Lacámera and Julio Vergottini,
PROA 21 was inaugurated on April with Proyecto para El dia que me quieras.
to his life, and that in addition, as a black man created in the periphery he wants to The work of the Argentine artist Leandro Katz, brings together for the first time the
see his hand grow old with every new photography.
cumulative installations made between 1993 and 2007, that discuss in depth, the
EXHIBITION ABU DHAB | PAGES 74 TO 77 defeat of Guevara in the late 60, in Bolivia. The nine installations, now accompanied
by two films, focuses on the importance of the images, the photographs, in the lives
A UNIVERSAL MUSEUM IN of the characters of the guerrillas. In your defeat and in their deaths
THE GLOBALIZATION ERA Today with 80 years, Leandro Katz began this work in 1987 when looking at the
famous picture of his compatriot Ernesto Guevara, dead and displayed to a handful
of journalists, in October 1967, in the laundry room of the hospital in the small town
LOUVRE ABU DHABI, INAUGURATED LAST NOVEMBER, BRINGS TOGETHER A of Vallegrande, where had been taked after been executed in La Higuera, the end
COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITY TO PRESENT DAY THAT COSTS ABOVE US$ 1 BILLION of his defeated Bolivian experience.
“There, on the floor, was something vulnerable, soft; I could see it through the
BY FABIO CYPRIANO IN ABU DHABI jacket of a photographer and a soldier’s boot on the floor: it was the bottom of an
THE MORE THAN 7,000 STARS that make up the Louvre Abu Dhabi dome arm? And whose arm? “, Leandro Katz refers to something away from the main
are a modest amount near the figures surrounding the recently opened museum in focus of the photo.
the United Arab Emirates: over us$ 1 billion was spent between construction (US$ For the curator Cuauhtémoc Medina, Katz is a producer of visual and written images
108 million), the a value paid to the French government for the use of the Louvre and his anxiety before the picture, took him to dive in an investigation that went far
brand for 30 years (US$ 525 million) and also the amount paid to France for the beyond the frame of that photo.
loan of 300 works (US$ 750 million). The early research took him to Freddy Alborta, the author of the picture, so far
However, if a total of US$ 1.3 billion looks high, it becomes modest close to the US$ attributed to the editor of UPI/Reuter delivered via radiofoto. The interview that
450 million paid for Salvator Mundi painting, attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci sold Leandro Katz did with Alborta is in El dia que me quieras (1997), one of the two films
at Christie’s auction in New York last November. The controversial work, since its that are part of the exhibition.
restoration turned it practically a new painting, was acquired by the department of In the film, Alborta describes the journey from La Paz to Vallegrande of about 22
culture and tourism of Abu Dhabi to the local Louvre. In summary: the astronomical journalists-two photographers among them-and the surprise he felt, both with the
billionaire sum for the construction of the museum of 97 thousand m2 is small when body of Guevara dead, with open eyes and half smile on his face, as the two bodies
compared to the value of only one work acquired for him. The original Louvre, in dumped on the floor , the guerrillas Willi and Chino. There, on the ground, was the

Paris, has a total area of 72,000 m2. arm that intrigued Leandro Katz.