Page 87 - ARTE!Brasileiros #60
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work, there was also a relationship between   her career and is one of the guests at the   no individuality. It’s cruel and absurd. It
                                           59th Venice Biennale.
          black and luminous spots that, in a game                           seems that we do not even have the right
          of attraction, increased the expansion of   By EdUArdo SimõES      to subjectivity.”
          the black areas.                                                     Her creations presented in Venice try
           The world that emerged in these drawings   Carnival has been in rosana paulino’s   to refound or even suggest new myths,
          had a somewhat violent and traumatic   imagination, 55, since her childhood.  based on new archetypes. The Senhora das
          constitution. And from the 2000s onwards,  Behind her grandmother’s house, in São   Plantas series , she says, refers to women
          as happens in life, the joy of areas and   Paulo, there was a prop factory and, as   in the 30-50 age group, while the Jatobás
          reliefs of luminous colors was introduced.  a teenager, she attended samba schools   are the big trees, women in their maturity.
         To show itself with force, the world needed   in the company of an aunt and her sisters.  “They refer to the great mothers of saints,
          to become immeasurable. The intensity   In the 1980s, one of these performances   who managed to keep the black community
          of black surfaces came from the ability to   marked the future artist quite a bit: the last   together throughout history, they are the
          go beyond their limits, rather than from   parade of a Mocidade Alegre triad, on Afro   holders and maintainers of knowledge, they
          saturation or extreme concentration. The   culture, was dedicated to black artists and   are our grandmothers, in fact”, she says.
          traumatic nature of the works resulted from   revered names such as Heitor dos Prazeres.  Ancestry, as can be seen, is intrinsically
          this: to assert themselves, the black regions   “For the first time I saw the figure of   linked to Rosana Paulino’s production. Born
          had to incessantly move beyond themselves   the black person portrayed in a dignified   in São Paulo, she was raised in Freguesia
          and collide between the colored regions,  way within History. And I realized that   do Ó, where she moved ten years ago to
          putting on the horizon an identity that could   black art existed because, until then, in   Pirituba, a close neighborhood. It was at her
          never be achieved. I think this is also the   my childhood universe, there was only   family home, in Freguesia, that she learned
          reason for a kind of painful sensuality that   what came from Europe, or someone like   to sew from her mother, a skill she took to
          permeates all of Germana Monte-Mór’s   Portinari, in Brazil. In general, I only knew the   her craft, something seen in her emblematic
          drawings. The movement towards what is   so-called geniuses of painting”, she recalls.  works, such as Memory Wall (1994), which
          beyond us — the search for continuity with  “So, it was a very important aesthetic and   she considers the inaugural work of her
          the other implied in eroticism — reveals   political experience, for the construction   career. There, photographs of the artist’s
          itself as a condemnation to exile, as unrest   of my identity.”    family members appear, printed in patuás,
          and pain. Without ever losing your serenity.  In April of this year, Rosana returned to   amulets of African-based religions.
           Precisely because it is beyond us,  the carnival universe, this time as one of the   In 1997, sewing returned in Stretched
          because there the will does not reign, even   30 black personalities honored by Beija-Flor.  (1997), in which she portrayed women
          if we promise each time not to knock on   At the Rio Sambadrome, she represented   on fabrics, stretched over the wooden
          that door again. And now she comes here   the visual arts, under the theme Empretecer   structure that gives the series its name
          again. She kept her base experience and left   o Pensamento é Ouvir a Voz da Beija-Flor   and is used to weave embroidery. In these
          enriched. Joy is also the proof of nines. As  , in a tribute that also included Conceição   works, the female figures appeared with
          the Levantine poet said, roughly translated   Evaristo and Abdias do Nascimento, among   risks, scribbles, sutures that represent their
          by me: “It is not the water that passes / that   others. Her works were part of the costumes   silencing in society.
          quenches thirst / it is the one that is drunk / it   of Ala das Baianas, which, according to her,   Still in the family environment, Rosana
          is necessary to ascend to heaven / descend   are “the soul of a school, its foundation”.  and her sisters were also encouraged by
          to hell / to know a few”.        “When I saw the sketch of the fantasy, I cried,  their mother to create their own toys with
           I have the impression that Germana’s   I got emotional, I lost my speech”, she says.  clay, to design characters, resources that
          re-encounter with the work of Hans Arp   The show was one of the defining   also remained in the performance as an
          brought with it the criticism of her modern   moments of her career in 2022, a particularly   artist that the future had in store for her.
          contemporaries with their Dadaist bias,  busy year from a professional point of view.   “From a very early age, this thing of
          which mocked the marked form that comes   On the verge of completing 30 years of   craftsmanship, and even the aesthetic
          from Cézanne. I think that the skepticism   artistic career, Rosana was also invited   sense, were being developed on a daily
          of Germana’s works with asphalt – very   to participate in the 59th Venice Biennale,  basis. However, I have always had a
          good by the way – when crossing with Arp,  where until November she exhibits 25 works,  fascination with biology, especially for
          produces an unlikely tangency with our   from three series: Jatobás , Senhora das   living in a house on the outskirts, with a
          tradition, with Amílcar de Castro, above all.  Plantas and Weavers . The works are based   large front yard and another large yard at
           Furthermore, the vitalist, organic   on an investigation by the artist, an attentive   the back. There were wild animals, toads,
          dimension of Germana renewed the   reader of the works of Swiss psychoanalyst   frogs, bees, etc.”, she recalls.
          sculpture of Maria Martins or Lygia Clark.  and psychiatrist Carl Jung, about female   At first, however, Rosana felt, she points
          Without the postmodernist mania of citing   archetypes.            out, torn between biology and the visual
          important moments in the history of art,   “Within traditional psychology, there’s a   arts. Already at university, she did not think
          the artist maintains a good-humored   flood of Heras, Venus, Athena, etc., who   about being an artist. “I joined because I
          conversation with the modern tradition.  don’t talk to black women here. When I   really like museums and research. I had
                                           look at my profile, for example, within this   a scientific inclination”, says Rosana,
         artist roSAnA PAUlino [PAGES 60 To 65]  psychology based on European mythology,  who was a restoration and conservation
         ANCESTRY, TERRITORY               I don’t fit in at all. I am the daughter of Ogun   assistant at mAC USP in the early 1990s.
                                           and Iansã”, she says. “The construction of  “This inclination continues to this day, so
         AND SCIENCE                       the female psyche does not contemplate   much so that I consider myself a very
         These are some of the elements that   black women, like me. Not even a black,  technical artist, who researches areas
          permeate the works of Rosana Paulino, an   African goddess appears. It is as if the   that were not present in the construction
          artist who is about to celebrate 30 years of   woman of African origin had no psyche,  of visuality, black representation and

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