Page 111 - ARTE!Brasileiros #45

EXHIBITION SÃO PAULO | PAGES 74 AND 75 Perhaps this willingness to move was what made Milton one of the greatest Brazilian
DIVING IN THE CONCEPTUAL painters of the twentieth century. For Paulo Pasta, an artist very appreciative of
the work of Dacosta, this has a name: “There is no precipitation in his painting,
he has displacement. I think that better than abstraction would be to call what he
RE-READING OF FORMAL WORKS IN DIALOGUE WITH WORKS FROM THE PERIOD does of synthesis “. Paul did not get to know Milton, but he had a lot of contact
OF THE DICTATORSHIP OF 1970/1980 with his work and with friends of the painter from Rio de Janeiro: “I think this
path he makes for abstraction he goes through step by step. You perceive this
BY MARIA HIRSZMAN path of it. And how he cleanses the figures. I think that’s very nice and Milton’s
ethical response,”, he says.
“CONCEPTUAL STRATEGIES”, performing at Galeria Bergamin & Gomide, The exhibition in Almeida and Dale follows a chronological order, beginning with
deals with the solid partnership that was established between political art and the paintings of the 30s, including Autorretrato, from 1938. It is in the 1940s that
conceptualism in Latin America. This syncrony between an art that breaks with one notices the influence of Italian metaphysics in Milton.
the formal models and a more combative speech, connected with the events For Pasta, who also carries a metaphysical gene in his painting, it is a phase in
associated with the political repression experienced during the decades of 1970 which Dacosta “begins the avoidance of the figurative to the abstraction”. But
and 1980, is evident in the approximately 80 works selected for the shows by instead of De Chirico - as many point out -, Paul perceives an influence mainly of
Ricardo Sardenberg. The curator intention is not to make a historical review, Carlo Carrá and complete: “I think that his choice for a metaphysical influence
neither schematize this large production in thematic, formal or geographic cores. would also respond to his somewhat intimate and measured vocation. I think it is
On the contrary, it is by the diversity and the density that Sardenberg approaches everyone’s agreement that he makes a constructivism sensitive, very Brazilian in
the theme. And in a way updates it. what he has of modesty and discretion”.
“There are various production and dissemination strategies, sometimes of opposite Married to the painter Maria Leontina since the late 1940s, he worked hard with
ideological hues”, explains the curator, to reaffirm that somehow your strategy is her. Some rumors spread that Milton would have appropriated features of his wife’s
to dilute the great creative talent, by inserting them in a wider and diverse set. It work in what he produced in the next decade. It is in this decade, inclusively, that he
is clear that are represented the most outstanding artists throughout this process participates in the Venice Biennial and wins the prize of the best national painter
and that there is a slight predominance of Brazilian authors (which corresponds in the II São Paulo Biennial. Son of the relationship, the multi-artist Alexandre
to about 60% of the list). The selection – that doesn’t includes just works of art, Dacosta says that some people confuse their work, but disagree: “I think you can
but also designs, texts, documents – begins with an older work, held in 1962, by not confuse because her painting was a more fluid thing, in his was a painting more
Augusto de Campos. And closes at the end of the 80’s with a work of Jac Leirner. seated on the floor so to speak”.
Within this range there is room for different poetics, by artists such as Cildo Born in 1959, Alexandre recalls that when they lived in São Paulo in the 1960s, the
Meireles, Victor Grippo, Lygia Pape and Leon Ferrari. To gather this group, it was couple had an atelier in their own home. In a sort of two-story cellar at the back of
necessary to resort to the various collections and, despite occupying a comercial the house, Maria was producing downstairs while Milton was producing upstairs.
gallery, not all works are for sale. Of course, too, the couple of artists exchanged little cards about their studies and
According to Sardenberg, the show suffers purposefully by excess, as if the curators ideas. Alexander defines this closeness of both as “a closeness of soul.”
looked up to “re-unmaterialise” these objects, decrease the fetishization that were Also dedicated to painting, besides other artistic modalities, the son affirms that he
submitted in the subsequent decades and strengthen important aspects of these has already tried to deny the influence of Milton in what it produces. But he could
proposals like its political intent, the revolt against the merchandise that marks not, when he saw he was already doing a work connected to the constructive, both
the conceptual art and the emphasis in a collective art. with traits of father and mother. “The phase I’m doing now is called deconstructive”,
It’s not a coincidence that so many exhibitions have, now and in the recent past, he says. Paulo Pasta also believes he was influenced in some way by Dacosta. The
deal with this period of challenge, in which art turns also on combat and resistance balance of light between composite colors, despite using different palettes, is
language. It’s possible to cite, for instance, the Radical Women exhibition at the for him a teaching he learned by observing the work of the painter who, for him,
Pinacoteca do Estado and AI-5, at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake (see articles in the pgs, “abandoned realism, but never abandoned the real”. The exhibition at Almeida e
and ...). There is no doubt that looking to the past illuminates the dark present,but Dale can be visited until November 24.
we must keep in mind that times have changed. “The authoritarian impulse is
similar, but not the same”, ponders the curator. EXHIBITION SÃO PAULO | PAGES 80 AND 81
A YOUNG MAN WHO FLED THE
EXHIBITION SÃO PAULO | PAGES 76 TO 79
A CHAMELEONIC DICTATORSHIP OF THE TIME
MILTON DACOSTA BEGINNER, DEDICATED AND FOCUSED, THE ARTIST ALREADY SHOWS HIS
STRENGTH
THE ARTIST PAULO PASTA AND THE SON OF MILTON, ALEXANDRE DACOSTA,
SPEAK TO ARTE!BRASILEIROS ABOUT THEIR IMPRESSIONS AROUND THE SANTIDIO PEREIRA is 22 years old, was born in Curral Cumprido, rural district
ARTIST, HONORED IN RETROSPECTIVE IN ALMEIDA E DALE GALLERY of Isaías Coelho, a small town in Piauí, where he spent his whole early childhood.
The arrival to São Paulo, nevertheless, not interrupted his relationship with time.
BY JAMYLE RKAIN On his second exhibition at Galeria Estação, in São Paulo, Um olhar da memória
(A memory look), features woodcuts, ancient technique that requires a longer and
MORE THAN A DECADE AFTER his last solo show in São Paulo, Milton Dacosta different kind of relationship with matter, which bleeds the wood, and that matches
is honored with a retrospective at Almeida and Dale Gallery. Dacosta was not adept the way Santidio sees his past. Layers of memory, appears in his work. Caburés,
at labels, taking a free path in his transition from figuration to abstraction, while garrinchas, lambus, juritis, that are birds and plants from the caatinga, are mixed
his fellow artists disputed the importance of styles. in tones that make his job less figurative.

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