"Sobre o Desenho no Brasil" Claudio Mubarac (Org.) Editora Escola da Cidade, 260 Páginas - Preço R$70,00
“ABOUT DRAWING IN BRAZIL”, a book organized by Claudio Mubarac and recently published by the Escola da Cidade publishing house, bridges a gap, bringing the reflection on drawing – which is usually relegated to a secondary position in arts education in Brazil – to the place of protagonist. Bringing together sparse texts, representative of different historical moments, and a powerful set of images, the work brings a selection of seven studies on the subject. this dive is greatly enriched by the option to accompany each of the essays with works of close artists – in time and style – by the authors of written analyzes.
The choice to merge image and text, in this order, is a kind of positioning, a way of putting theoretical discourse and artistic work on an equal footing. Thus, thought-provoking dialogues are established between Joachim Lebreton and Jean-Baptiste Bebret; Rui Barbosa and Henrique Bernardelli; Mario de Andrade and Lasar Segall. In the cases of Lucio Costa, Vilanova Artigas and Flavio Motta, they are authors of both written reflection and accompanying drawings, further deepening the intelligent relationship between the two forms of expression proposed by the work.
The opening reflection, essential for all who study the history of art in brazil, is the detailed project presented by Joaquim Lebreton, head of the french mission, in 1816 and unpublished until 1958. addressed to the count of barca, the writing presents a detailed proposal. for the foundation of an education system in the country. it is actually a project with two bases: it defends the creation of an imperial school of fine arts and also a lyceum of the arts – that would only exist decades later. he argues for the need to stimulate, at the same time, the science of drawing as the basis of art and as a vital technique for the formation of a skilled workforce.
similar questions run through the subsequent texts. the writings of ruy barbosa and lucio costa, related to educational reform projects begun in the 1880s and 1930s, respectively, also emphasize the need to incorporate the art and tool of illustration, sketching, and design into youth education, enabling not only to technique but to a formal sensibility, developing an aesthetic quality whose germination is necessary for the not only economic but cultural progress of the country, which longed for accelerated national updating and modernization.
Mario de Andrade, Vilanova Artigas and Flávio Motta, the authors of subsequent essays, adopt differentiated and complementary points of view. what fascinates mubarac in andrade’s essay on lasar segall is his poetic tone, his boldness in trying to scrutinize the relationship between visual work and writing. “if for lucio costa, scribbling is not drawing, for mario de andrade,” exemplifies the artist and teacher at the school of communications and arts (eca-usp), who has long panned texts and reflections on the subject. “i’m not a theorist, i’m a draftsman who likes to study,” he jokes.
The appreciation of diversity, the importance of considering the different ways of thinking / making / tracing images, gives emphasis to the essay of conclusion of his own, whose starting point is the effort of synthesis for a class on drawing, given in 2017 at the city school. for this closing text, the selection of graphic works to which it relates is even wider. it includes visual essays by eight contemporary artists, with whom the artist and teacher have been maintaining an intense exchange about graphic making for decades. they are alberto martins, elisa bracher, ester grinspum, jose spaniol, madalena hashimoto, marco buti, paulo monteiro and paulo pasta. the diversity and complementarity between them only reinforce the idea expressed by the author, regarding the complexity, centrality and diversity of the theme, which can neither be reduced to a single point of view, nor considered as something in decay, inexorable victim of profound transformations in our visual culture.
although diagnosing that in the second half of the twentieth century there was a decline in theoretical production on drawing (the task of gathering reflections on the issue was not easy), the 21st century appears, according to him, with a renewed view. “when i look at art, architecture and design courses and speeches, i see that drawing remains firm and strong, as praxis and as reflection,” he concludes.
"Tan Tan Bo", 2001, da série de pinturas de Mr. DOB. Foto: Divulgação/ Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co.
Tudo parece grandioso no universo artístico de Takashi Murakami. Seja a dimensão das obras – o artista japonês chegou a produzir um quadro de 100 metros de comprimento; o tamanho de seu estúdio perto de Tóquio, onde trabalham cerca de 100 funcionários; os valores estrondosos de seus trabalhos, que alcançam alguns milhões de dólares; e a influência que Murakami alcançou no mundo da cultura pop, tendo feito parcerias com músicos como Kanye West e Pharrel Williams e com grifes como Louis Vuitton. Criador de uma empresa com escritórios no Japão e nos EUA (a Kaikai Co.), de uma galeria de arte em Tókio e organizador de uma feira de arte bienal que promove novos artistas, Murakami montou um verdadeiro império que vai muito além das fronteiras de seu país.
Inevitavelmente, é grandiosa também a repercussão controversa que sua produção e atuação receberam ao longo das décadas. O artista de 57 anos, que possui 1,6 milhão de seguidores no Instagram, coleciona fãs e críticos ao redor do mundo, desde aqueles que o consideram um gênio comparável a Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst ou mesmo Andy Warhol até os que o enxergam mais como uma personalidade pop do que como um artista de produção relevante. Para alguns, a estreita relação de Murakami com o mercado carrega também ironia, crítica ao sistema e profundidade artística; para outros, trata-se apenas do reflexo de uma produção de fácil aceitação, estrategicamente pensada para agradar demandas comerciais.
Seja como for, no destacado currículo de Murakami – que inclui individuais nos mais importantes museus dos EUA, Europa e Ásia – surpreendentemente não havia ainda nenhuma exposição na América do Sul. A lacuna é suprida agora com a mostra Murakami por Murakami, em cartaz no Instituto Tomie Ohtake, que reúne grandes pinturas, esculturas, vídeos e animações feitas pelo artista ao longo de sua carreira, especialmente na última década.
Em entrevista à ARTE!Brasileiros concedida em uma das salas da mostra, as roupas coloridas e extravagantes vestidas pelo artista contrastavam com a formalidade de seu comportamento, o ar pacato e o volume baixo de sua voz. “O mundo da crítica e o mercado não andam juntos, são coisas distintas”, afirma Murakami. “O curioso é que eu recebo muitas críticas, mas continuo vendendo. E quem compra meus trabalhos conhece essas críticas, mas às vezes é isso mesmo que faz com que me apoiem comprando minha arte. Então eu acho que a discussão sobre o que é bom ou ruim, a crítica, não é algo negativo. Ela fala sobre o impacto que um trabalho tem e inclusive agrega valor à arte.”
Estudioso desde jovem do nihonga, estilo de pintura tradicional japonesa, o artista também bebeu desde cedo nas linguagens mais modernas do mangá e do anime – os quadrinhos e animações que são a base da cultura otaku, associada aos jovens japoneses. Nos anos 1990, no entanto, ao se aproximar do universo artístico norte-americano, Murakami passou a desenvolver uma produção que transitava entre oriente e ocidente, entre a pop art e as correntes de seu país. Uma certa obsessão por ser aceito nos EUA, segundo palavras do próprio artista, acabou por dar resultado em meados daquela década, período em que o artista concebeu também seu mais famoso e longevo personagem, o Mr. DOB.
Evocando ao mesmo tempo personagens como Mickey Mouse, de Walt Disney, e Doraemon, do mangá japonês, Mr. DOB ganhou maior complexidade ao incorporar, para além da simpatia, inocência e “fofura” destes ícones, ares de ironia, violência e bizarrice. O resultado é uma curiosa figura com atributos ambíguos, assim como grande parte da obra de Murakami. Em esculturas, quadros e animações, o personagem foi ganhando versões distintas ao longo do tempo, sendo muitas vezes considerado uma espécie de alter ego do artista. Assim como Murakami, Mr. DOB passaria a ser visto simultaneamente como agente capitalizador – transformado em camisetas, bonés e bonequinhos – e elemento crítico da sociedade de consumo.
Já aclamado internacionalmente, Murakami cunhou o termo superflat no ano 2000, para descrever um estilo pictórico nipônico realizado em imagens bidimensionais. Através de um manifesto, o artista enquadrou sua própria produção dentro do termo, mas destacou que superflat se referia também a características para além da pintura: “achatadas”, ou planas, seriam não apenas as figuras representadas, mas também a difícil distinção entre arte erudita e arte comercial. O manifesto se refere ainda à complicada relação entre Japão e EUA após a Segunda Guerra, considerando que a influência americana teve consequências diretas na cultura nipônica desenvolvida nas décadas seguintes.
“Arhats: The Four Heavenly Kings”, 2016. Foto: Divulgação/ Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co.
Reviravolta
Uma grande tragédia ocorrida em 2011 no Japão – com o terremoto e o tsunami que deixaram milhares de mortos na costa leste do país – resultou também em uma virada radical na obra de Murakami. Ao acompanhar as notícias sobre as mortes, destruições e as crianças que ficaram órfãs, o artista se sentiu impelido a retomar suas raízes culturais. “Ali eu senti que precisava virar minha arte do avesso. Até então eu usava muito uma gramática da arte nova-yorkina, mas a partir de 2011 comecei a inserir mais essa história e cultura japonesas dentro da minha arte”, afirma.
Boa parte das obras expostas no Instituto Tomie Ohtake são deste período mais recente, no qual Murakami estreitou também seus laços com o Zen Budismo. Alguns exemplos são os grandiosos quadros – o maior da mostra de com 10 metros de comprimento – com motivos tradicionais, animais e feras mitológicas ou com os célebres arhats, que no budismo são seres que alcançaram elevada estatura espiritual. A exposição conta ainda com uma série de vídeos e animações; esculturas banhadas a ouro que transparecem um lado mais “gracioso” da produção do artista; um autorretrato escultórico de silicone com dispositivos robóticos, que apresenta o próprio artista em tamanho real; uma série pinturas de ares inquietantes baseada em trabalhos de Francis Bacon (1909-1992); e, claro, uma parte dedicada ao Mr. DOB.
Estranhamente, apesar de afirmar a crescente proximidade de sua obra com a cultura japonesa, Murakami soa rígido ao dizer que não tem mais vontade de expor em seu país – uma mostra aberta recentemente em uma galeria foi uma exceção, por conta de um projeto pontual de terceiros. Isso porque não considera que seu trabalho é bem recebido no Japão como foi em outros países, inclusive por conta da pouca distinção entre cultura de massa – mangá e anime – e as artes plásticas. “Quando eu expus os 500arhats [a obra de 100 metros] em Tóquio, as pessoas acharam legal, gostaram, mas ninguém se dispôs a preservar, a cuidar. Não sinto o trabalho valorizado. E ali, em 2015, eu senti que o Japão não daria mais, no sentido de que minha arte ali não era considerada artes plásticas, que eu considero que é o principal”, conclui.
Murakami por Murakami
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Faith Ringgold, "American People Serie #20: Die", 1967.
By Gustavo Von Ha, in Nova York
ONE OF THE FIRST US INSTITUTIONS devoted exclusively to the exhibition of modern art, the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) emerged in the late 1920s, initially conceived as a constantly changing museum. In the words of founding director Alfred H. Barr Jr. himself, “a torpedo moving in time-space with its nose always advancing from the present and its syrup reaching a recent past at most 100 years ago.” The idea was that as the MoMA collection grew older, his works would be recycled, selling those over fifty to other museums – such as the Metropolitan and Whitney – while works by emerging artists would continue to be bought.
Since 2014, MoMA has been undergoing an expansion process. This renovation goes far beyond the museum’s new “west wing”: the old MoMA merged perfectly with the extra 14,000 square meters. Walking through the museum you can no longer understand where the new part begins and ends. The real value of the “New MoMA” expansion is to rescue its initial mission, a space that allows us to rethink the collection, transforming artistic experience into critical thinking within the museum, and to question how this collection has been presented to this day, discovering new voices and new perspectives.
Jac Leirner, Pulmão (Lung), 1987
MoMA has often been bold in positioning itself by inserting American artists into broader narratives of art history. An example of this is the case of Jackson Pollock, who for decades stayed in the room next to Monet’s, equating these two artists as the pinnacle of art history and forcing a partial reading by projecting an American artist into world art history.
If the “new MoMA” is grounded in the first idea of its foundation – less formalist, perhaps – it now leaves, on the other hand, gaps between works confronted with each other, leaving the possibility of systematically comparing what was produced before and after. At the same time, MoMA now enables a freer experience by making and allowing new connections to work from the collection in constant dialogue with new works.
In its new rearrangement, the museum places photographs on the same level as paintings allowing the collection to be viewed in a different way. What was once always shown in isolated or underground cores now mixes with paintings, drawings, prints and performances. There are movies running everywhere, even in the galleries that still hold the “masterpieces” of modernism.
Rrivane Neuenschwander, “Work of Days”, 1998
It is still possible to contemplate a single work in some galleries, but with its new configuration the museum opens radically for live rehearsals within Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Studio, where there is always something unexpected happening from time to time. It is a new space dedicated to performance and new moving image experiences, fundamental to inserting the MoMA collection in a current historical perspective through new projects and emerging artists.
Although the presentation still has a chronological tone, it brings ambiguities, anachronisms and some surprises. Galleries now speak of ideas and eras and no longer in categories and vanguards. The conceptual issue is the new thread, inaugurating a more permeable museum that is more in line with today’s world.
This can raise two questions: the very transformation of art historiography about how its methodologies and theories are thought; and artistic training, since the vast majority of people who access a museum today have no history of art and are there for an experience that transcends any nomenclature or fact sheet. So how to deal with this new approach to the public within a museum? How to access this new dispersed human being with the whole world at the click of a mouse?
Today’s audience divides their attention between the works on the walls and their phones. Today the world presents itself through images, the idea of contemplation has changed radically since the emergence of smartphones. The keys are different, almost everyone is familiar with the works that are in the museum even before the experience of being before them; the works in the museum are also reproduced outside the museum, simultaneously in cell phones, computers, magazines and newspapers. In addition to critical texts that reinforce the idea of the work giving us other access keys. When we finally have the actual experience, it is like a déjà vu, that strange feeling of having experienced it before. There are several mediators in the relations between the imaginary museum and the royal museum.
Senga Nengudi, R.S.V.P.I., 1977-2003.
The MoMA collection has over 200,000 pieces and now also offers digital browsing and searching, making it possible to access images of about 81,000 works online. Even this new audience that is already conditioned to see everything online may notice cross-cuts in the associations of images displayed in both the museum and the museum’s website.
In a contemporary logic dictated by algorithms, the new MoMA has also changed its logic to review the art of the last century. Today it is impossible to look at a job ignoring the reality in its surroundings. All social, identity, color, and gender agendas are also inevitably connected with these works that can now be read and re-signified on the way back to the past.
From this, the institution begins to replace the idea of “masterpiece” with a more permeable narrative type, providing more democratic readings, where each can enter their own keys in the works presented, although the entry costs $ 25, except on Fridays between 5:30 pm and 9:00 pm when tickets are sponsored by a company.
A new narrative about modern art is emerging with associations of seemingly unlikely works. For decades MoMA curators have associated Picasso’s works with cubist cores, such as Georges Braque, or surrealists in one room and geometric abstraction in another room. Now the strategy is to conceptually use some work and from it to group in the same gallery works of different categories confronted in the same space. This was unthinkable until a few decades ago, as it breaks with the (hegemonic) narrative invented by the museum itself and further enhances the contemporary dispersion packed by the public that springs from this network logic. This contributes to the formation of future generations within a dynamic that refuses to accept only one version of the story.
MoMA is less in a cast, seems to be trying to get rid of the modernist issues that still haunt the entire art system. Thus it also seems to want to redeem itself from an authoritarian narrative that in the past used art as a political weapon of dispute for global hegemony.
Listen to soundtrack to visit “MoMAX” museum on Spotify
n the occasion of the conceptualization of the Cultural Management Seminar: Contemporary Challenges, in addition to the speakers who added to the event, we discovered numerous professionals who have been working together with the difficulties faced by culture in our country.
Here, an interview with Lucimara Letelier, founder and director of the Museu Vivo, consultancy for innovation and economic sustainability in museums and culture, co-creator of HiperMuseus. She has been working in cultural, social and museum management for 20 years, with projects with over 40 organizations, such as the Portuguese Language Museum, Immigration Museum, Villa Lobos Museum, Oi Futuro, Museum of Tomorrow, MAR and Espaço BNDES. She holds a master’s degree in cultural administration from Boston University, and was an adjunct director of the arts at the British Council, director of fundraising at ActionAid. She is a counselor at ICOM Brazil and ICOM MPR, ActionAid and ABGC.
ARTE!Brasileiros –Lucimara, how did you come up with the idea of creating the consulting company Museu Vivo?
With 20 years of experience in the area of Cultural Management, Museum Management and Human Rights, I felt the need to create a platform that synthesized a bit of everything I had observed with the difficulties and learned along the way. In that sense, I spent a year and a half studying the UNESCO Program for leaders, change agents, focused on the 20/30 Agenda. This is a program that tries to discuss planetary boundaries, what are the most urgent causes, discussions at the service of a transition process in the world, but in fact aimed at environmentalists, social entrepreneurs, agents of social pacts. In taking the course they propose, Gaia Education caught my attention, that there was no discussion around change agents in the cultural sector and museums. At that moment I decided to try to see how these guidelines could talk to the museum area, cross-check and bring oxygen to the dying Museums. Trying to think organic solutions.
How is this implemented in practice?
We researched models of institutions and decided to create a platform that proposes sustainability solutions for culture. We set up a network consultancy that tries to use several areas to create these solutions. What new skills, what new languages are needed to go through?
Yes, but it does not escape them that, most of the time, it is an economic problem.
I think you are bringing a borderline situation, which is the absence of public policy. In our opinion, today we have to have a mixed pizza with diversification of resources. For many years we had direct and indirect transfers, such as Rouanet Law or the transfer made to the OS, which always leave the institution “waiting” and without reaction or requirement to think of other alternatives. This system in Brazil is bankrupt. I think in Brazil there was no public, civil mobilization that understands that sustainability is a political act.
MAR, for example, which is going through a major financial crisis, has a huge capillarity and a huge participatory relationship. But we think there is no real search for how to turn progressive campaigns into campaigns that can generate resources. We have progressive people, these people have to be involved to the point where they feel part of the place that is being sustained.
Lucimara Letelier, fundadora do Museu Vivo.
Have you operationalized this idea in any way?
Yes. We have partnered with benfeitoria.com, a crowdfunding platform with expertise in crowdfunding campaigns; SITAWI – Finances of Good, which manages the fund, and we, who manage the proposals with the knowledge of cultural management. The three – Living Museum, benfeitoria.com and SITAWI are organizations that have their own expertise. On the other hand, BNDES has a financing line for investment sustainability campaigns of up to R $ 300 thousand. Thus, in matchfunding campaigns: every $ 1 that citizens put, the BNDES puts another $ 2. In this line, we have already created, for example, two campaigns: one for the Museum of the Unconscious and another for the Bispo do Rosário Museum, which involve the preservation of works and restoration.
As part of the project, the institution then receives a consultancy to work with the mailing that was produced in this initiative. It is one thing for a donor to reach a campaign, another is what to do with your “data.” In fact, it becomes an “economic entity”. At the box office, you just “sell an event, an activity.” In this proposal, people “buy an idea”. And being able to retain your data contributes to the possibility of continuing to offer you support services to the institution.
People in crowfunding leave money for a campaign, at the box office they leave money for an event, for an activity. It’s different, because in the first case you are giving money to a cause you want to support. At the box office, it’s just a cost. At the Children’s Museum, where I worked, they strongly consider the person who enters the museum as an economic entity. When you come in to buy a ticket, just like a telecom, they create an economic relationship with that person. I think it would be very important for technology companies, for example, in addition to paying sponsorships, to be able to offer museum know-how.
About the title of our seminar, how would you summarize these challenges?
The institution understands itself as a cause; have a listening to your problems as co-curated; work the married cultural connection with public and private policies, bring the knowledge of entrepreneurial culture in the managers.
Management in times of tragedy
Inhotim’s executive director since last April, Renata Bittencourt arrived at the institute three months after the breaking of the Feijão Dam in the city of Brumadinho. Previously, among other things, she had been Director of Muscular Processes at the Brazilian Museum Institute (IBRAM) from 2017 to 2019, and secretary of Citizenship and Cultural Diversity in 2016, both at the now-defunct Ministry of Culture (MinC). She holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in art history from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), a degree in Social Communication from the School of Advertising and Marketing (ESPM). Renata is specialized in Art Museum Studies and Communication and Culture Process Management from the University of São Paulo (USP).
Renata Bittencourt, diretora executiva de Inhotim. FOTO: William Gomes
The mud of human and environmental tragedy did not reach the large open-air museum, but it affected the functioning in various ways. In an interview to ARTE!Brasileiros website in June this year, Renata stated that some of her main goals when arriving in Inhotim was to stimulate a return visitation and strengthen ties with the local community. After the event in Brumadinho, the institute assumed an important social commitment role in the life of the city, an action that the director knows well, since between 1997 and 1998 she was a Fulbright organization scholar to observe programs focused on this sphere: “A challenge that I think it is important to emphasize that it is important for Inhotim in particular, but I think it is for many other spaces as well, it is the challenge of connecting with the territories where the institutions are inserted”, she comments.
In the context of Renata’s arrival at the institute, a new phase of the Nosso Inhotim program began, which has so far registered approximately 1500 residents of the municipality of Brumadinho for free admission to the institution and a 50% discount on space activities. Previously, residents had only the right to half-entry. “There is a desire and action from us for an even stronger reconnection, an even stronger bond with the city”. She points out that this involves from artists to the reinforcement of links with schools in the region and reaching out to residents in general, thus being a way of exchange, where the institution opens its doors and the city makes a gesture of saying what It is interesting to Brumadinho: “This opening to the territory today helps to define what Inhotim is”.
For the director, one of the main situations when arriving in Inhotim was to see even more clearly the fact that institutions are made by people. “Inhotim lived this tragedy a lot on the skin because Inhotim’s skin is made of these 600 people who work here”, she says. She says that the idea that a management needs, in all its spheres and decisions, to be humanized was a reflection provoked by this event.
Decolonizing management
Within the management sphere of public and private cultural institutions in the country, it is important to highlight that Renata Bittencourt is one of the only black people in charge of an institution of great importance in the country. The fact is related to an institutional racism unfortunately still very ingrained in Brazilian society. Renata points out that it is important that her position at this time serves as a way to create a dialogue in this regard and highlights people like Rosana Paulino, Renata Felinto, Janaina Barros, Amanda Carneiro and Helio Menezes, who do not necessarily act as managers but have active voice: It gives me an impression that there are ways that open up”.
Claudinei Roberto da Silva, professor e curador independente. FOTO: Antonio Trivelin.
At this point, curator, visual artist and teacher Claudinei Roberto da Silva says that what one can “perceive is what is easy to see: there is a black-Brazilian competence that has been historically neglected”. He holds a degree in Fine Arts from the School of Communication and Arts of the University of São Paulo (USP), former coordinator of the Education Center of the Afro Brasil Museum, and serves as an independent curator and professor of drawing, painting and art history. institutions across the country. He points out that this concern with including this competence exists today, but in a proportion that could be greater, highlighting the lack of black people in management positions in institutions across the country and points out: “The institution is not decolonial because it promotes Diaspora Afro-Atlantic symposium, it will be decolonial when it has blacks and natives in board positions”.
According to Claudinei, there is no possibility of talking about decolonialism without working on the idea of anticolonialism: “Treating decolonialism without talking about hegemony, not to mention cultural hegemony, whiteness is very difficult. People need to recognize their delay at this point in history”, he points out, are from what he observes a lot in Sao Paulo. He points to the utmost importance of making an effort to bring out a story, to record it in books, catalogs, or “extraordinarily well done” documents, but that nothing is more fundamental than observing in the staff of institutions. The black presence is contemplated.
iagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, Arthur Bispo do Rosário lived for almost 50 years, between entrances and exits, as an intern of psychiatric, in hospitals in Rio de Janeiro. He took advantage of the precarious materials that surrounded him to recreate the world in a priceless work. From the threads of his own uniforms, he created cloaks and fabrics. He also conceived sculptures and murals covered with objects that he compulsively collected, assembling an entire parallel universe.
Deceased in July 1989, the artist’s work has been revisited, restored, sanitized and cataloged since the end of 2016. In September 2019, the Bispo do Rosário collection was listed by the Institute of National Historical and Artistic Heritage (Iphan), by unanimous decision of its advisory board.
With sponsorship from the Marcos Amaro Foundation (FMA), the Bispo do Rosário Museum of Contemporary Art, in Rio de Janeiro, will incorporate into its current space, where the exhibition area and the restoration collection, one of the pavilions of the former Juliano Moreira Colony, hospital where the artist lived for many years. The building, which has to be completely restored, houses the cell occupied by Bispo, who saw it as a kind of studio.
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Imagens do pavilhão e das paredes da cela. Fotos por Patricia Rousseaux.
“The walls of the cell whereBispo do Rosário lived are completely filled with drawings that have been covered with layers of paint over the years. We will remove them gradually, in a process of restoration of the original coat of paint, in an attempt to reveal the whole creative universe of the Bishop printed on those walls”, says Ricardo Resende, curator of the Museum and also of the FMA. Once restored, the cell will function as a permanent exhibition space for the works of the Sergipean artist. “The idea is precisely to present to the public his work in its natural environment, where it was created – even because the Bispo’s work gains meaning, significance and potency of immeasurable proportions when contextualized in that asylum landscape”, he comments.
For the beginning of the pavilion restoration project, the Marcos Amaro Foundation donated to the Rio de Janeiro institution the amount of R$ 350 thousand. In 2017, the foundation supported the readjustment and renovation of the museum’s current technical reserve. In early 2018, the incentives were for the readjustment of the current exhibition halls, ensuring better museological conditions of exhibition for the work. “With this support, the FMA reaffirms its purpose not only to boost contemporary production by creating awards and residencies for young and active artists, but also for the preservation and conservation of contemporary Brazilian art”, says Raquel Fayad, Managing Director of the foundation.
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Obra na exposição UTOPIAS.
Obra na exposição UTOPIAS.
Odete, artista paciente do ateliê do museu, foi retratada em obra de Pola Fernandez.
O "Veleiro" de Bispo do Rosário.
Obra de Bispo na Reserva técnica.
“This procedure is the largest ever performed on contemporary works of art in Brazil. The method consists of removing oxygen from a structure built precisely for this purpose, a hermetically sealed bubble, where half of the work of Bispo do Rosário was accommodated in its first stage. From there, through a mechanism, all oxygen was removed from its interior leaving only hydrogen ”, explains Ricardo Resende. “This process ensures effective elimination of termites, fungi or any other asphyxiation microorganism. It is a technology that does not affect the work, it is extremely fragile, and requires the utmost care”.
UTOPIAS: Life for All Times and Glory is currently on display at the Museum’s headquarters, which continues the Museum’s proposal to guarantee and expand access to art and culture outside the conventional axes of the city. Curated by Diana Kolker and Ricardo Resende, the exhibition features works by Atelier Gaia artists, linked to theBispo do Rosário Museum, and works by artists Pola Fernandez, Val Souza, Ercilia Stanciany, Veridiana Zurita and Seu Hernandes José da Silva, invited to participate in the Casa B residency program.
Pola Fernandez’s work was also exhibited at the opening of the exhibitionBispo do Rosário: Things of the World, opened at the Marcos Amaro Art Factory (FAMA), in Itu, São Paulo, in September.
Sempre Gay: meninas de azul e meninos de rosa (Always Gay: girls in blue and boys in pink) addresses, conceptually and artistically, the resistance of young artists in situations of hatred, discrimination and erasures. Organized by Transarte, a gallery focused on LGBTq-themed projects and transgressive art, the exhibition brings together Liz Under, Bia Leite, Eduardo Mafea, Pedro Stephan, with works of pure militancy.
Contemporary art has developed a strategy of approximation with everyday life. The narrative of all of them does not separate the art of life, and the countersign to survival is to remain in a state of permanent alert in the face of a violent society for gays, women, blacks, indigenous and poor people.The works are born spontaneously, without worrying about the invoice and most of them mirror experienced situations. Liz Under, 24, opens the exhibition with photos of a performance with red sheets with vaginal crevices, held in her studio in Salvador, where she lived and worked. The essay starring her places the viewer as a voyeur of a sensual immersion. Liz lives in Araraquara and, in the three years she spent in Salvador he studied and began in art doing graffiti through the streets andstreet posters . It was there that she experienced on her skin the challenge of making a transgressive art. “Even within the Museum of Modern Art, where I took lithography classes, I did not escape an oppressive society.”Her aversion to the macho world inspired a drawing with the image of a cat with a penis crossed in his mouth, which angered her classmates. “They started treating me badly, calling the cat Miserable. The pressure was such that I came to dress as a man to be able to impose myself in that sexist and discriminatory environment.” Liz also suffered from the engravings of her bricked muses. In art history men paint naked women for male delight and I put my muses on paper in the search for the construction of their own pleasure, their own affection. When Liz exhibited these works at the 5th Bienal de Gravura Lívio Abramo in Araraquara, she was morally assaulted by a local journalist, known by his surname, Madalena. “Outraged, he offended me and classified my work as bitch art. I loved the name, I didn’t even have to think of another title, I took his.” She recalls that today in Brazil, we have the legitimation of violence that comes from those in power. The artist talks about a necro-political installed with social and political power to decide who lives and who dies. “The preferred targets are LGBTq, black and poor people.”
Bia Beite, série Naoparanao
Just as Liz’s work is considered socially inappropriate by a conservative class, Bia Leite’s work also causes insults. She won the news pages when her painting Criança Viada was censored at the Queermuseu exhibition at the Santander Cultural Center in Porto Alegre. Under protests from some visitors the exhibition was closed and she was pursued and threatened with death. The show was only released after a collection program promoted by Parque Lage in Rio de Janeiro was created, where the show was exhibited with epic queues. The painting that horrified the people in Porto Alegre brings printed several prejudiced insults suffered by homosexuals since childhood.
Bia was discovered and awarded by the Edital Transarte LGBT, in 2015 and has now just signed an exclusive contract with the gallery where she exhibits paintings inspired by alienists and a Japanese poster of horror film, by director John Carpenter. Her painting resembles the neo-expressionist traces of the 1980s, with corrosive colors and quotes from the pop universe.
Under also expressionist influence, Eduardo Mafea defends his work as a dive into the dualism of gay men and the compulsory connection to the macho universe of soccer, a sport appreciated by families as a symbol of virility. With other concerns, Pedro Stephan, passionate about Rio de Janeiro, author of several homoerotic photos, shows for the first time the essay Lâmpadas de Mercúrio, which can be seen as a non-narrative photonovel having as scenariothe Parque do Flamengo, local where he has lived since childhood while riding there by bike. The 30 images from the essay show Stephan’s friends clicked in 2005 in love scenes. “I tried to subvert the cliché by proving that groping is not only slutty, it can also be romance.”
The director of Transarte, Maria Helena Peres writes in one of her catalogs that we need to be attentive to Brazil that has been proposing the gay cure, which closes exhibitions, beats and kills transvestites and creates monsters within the members of the LGBTq movement.
At the modest entrance of 427 Álvaro de Carvalho Street, in downtown São Paulo, it is Dona Irene Silva who honors the house. She lives there, taking care of the entrance during the day, where about 500 residents of 120 families pass daily to enter the 9th of July Occupation, managed by the Center’s Homeless Movement (MSTC).
In addition to the entrance, Dona Irene also takes care of the garden and garden of the occupation, “great hands that when they plant everything gives”, as the artist Lourival Cuquinha wrote, when answering my message requesting her name.
It is Dona Irene, with a smile on her face, which indicates how to get to the ReOcupa gallery, where the show What is not a forest is a political prison, with about 100 artists, including Cuquina himself. Art in the central space of a space of resistance. I felt in Bacurau.
The show, which runs from Wednesday to Sunday, from 2 pm to 8 pm, has been held since September with 74 artists, 15 of which were added in October and now in November another group will be added. It is not known exactly how long it remains, but it is safe to see until the end of the year.
Artist is the proper term to name who participates in it, even though not everyone there has their main activity in art. There are internationally recognized figures in the art circuit, such as Ernesto Neto and Renata Lucas, among others who live and produce in the Occupation itself, while others stand out in nearby areas, such as photojournalist Marlene Bergamo or philosopher Peter Pál Pelbart. However, this is the best place to put into practice Joseph Beuys’s famous expression that “every human being is an artist.”
Despite the 89 names on the maps that indicate the layout of the works in the exhibit, at least two dozen also participate in interventions along eight other floors of the occupation – the ReOcupa gallery is actually on the ground floor of the building, where the entrance to 9 de Julho avenue, which is not in use, and its surroundings.
With 14 floors, the building was built as the headquarters of the INSS in São Paulo, inaugurated in 1943. Designed by Jayme Fonseca Rodrigues, the building is one of the icons of São Paulo architecture during the Vargas Era, president honored with bust in the entrance, which disappeared after throughout recent history. Since 1997, occupations have taken place there after 20 years of neglect, and the current one, organized by the MSTC, began in 2016.
In it, artists have been collaborating organically since the beginning. The Rigging, for example, which emerged in 2016, when Funarte began to be shut down by the Temer government, helped to organize the communal kitchen, which prepares festive lunches once a month, and has been important for maintaining the building’s condition.
Vista do espaço da galeria reocupa, que recebe a exposição “O que não é floresta é prisão política”.
In the gallery, who speaks of the works is Felipe Figueiredo, monitor and activist who lives in the Occupation since its first moments in 2016, and who knows not only about each work, but about the history of the movement itself. He develops his narrative from the importance of carrying mattresses in the early hours of an occupation to stimulating the visitor to listen to Georgia Miessa’s Serenade of Love, a compilation of macho songs in Brazilian popular music since 1920.
Living in the Occupation, Felipe guarantees a close link between artistic production and its context. Not that works are placed there outside of space, as if it were a white cube. Far from it. But it is precisely this vital character triggered by occupation that gives particularity and relevance, and Philip’s voice is essential. But getting into ReOcupa is also smelling the food being prepared on the floors above, the cleaning products in use, listening to the children playing, watching the weather wearing away from a once abandoned public building. All very far from the traditional and sanitized spaces of art. All much more powerful.
Not only is the environment libertarian, but the curation strategies themselves, starting with selecting the name of the show. As you descend from the first floor to ReOcupa, you can read the message exchange in the group of artists participating in the show to choose the name. “It’s our fender,” explains Cuquinha, describing the assumed transparency process, even if the names are erased. The important thing is the process after all.
Most of the artists present there have collaborated in the occupation in an active and systematic way, whether in the kitchen or in other functions. But not necessarily. Who inaugurated the space, by the way, was the carioca Nelson Felix, last year, in parallel to his presence at the Bienal de São Paulo, at the invitation of the Apparel.
The current show took four months to conceive and, as the name implies, part of two very current issues: the forest as a space for survival in the face of burning and indigenous genocide, and the current political prisons, which range from Lula to other leaders. popular, such as Preta Ferreira, daughter of Carmem Silva, of the MSTC.
Not surprisingly, obviously, Lula, Carmen and Preta are remembered in this scenario, present in several works, including works by Suspresa de Uva, the name given for when the authorship is not essential and a work is created collectively.
But what is really important is to understand how this exhibition starts a new artistic positioning key, stimulated through a collaborative network outside the traditional institutional circuit and away from the conventional commercial circuit of galleries and fairs, because there are works sold to maintain the art. space and aid to occupation, pointing out that it is possible to rethink the relationship of sales in art. In this sense, Galeria ReOcupa adds to other strategies involving artists, such as Casa Chama, in São Paulo and Lanchonete <> Lanchonete, in Rio de Janeiro. If present times seem like constant nightmares, “What is not forest is political prison” shows that the dream still has room and can be viable. And Dona Irene still says goodbye smiling with an invitation: “Come back always!”
Artur Lescher, "Rio Máquina", 2010. FOTO: Fernando Laszlo
T
he Miami Beach edition of the traditional Art Basel fair has begun to heat up the market since it announced the new section Meridians in October, which will feature large-scale works. Nara Roesler Gallery is the only Brazilian to participate in this premiere, with a work by Artur Lescher. There are 34 works exhibited in the section, curated by Magalí Arriola, critic and curator, current director of the Museo Tamayo in Mexico. All works can be seen during the fair, that takes place in December 5-8 at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Meridians will be shown in the Grand Ballroom.
In addition to Lescher, works by Argentine artist Luciana Lamothe, Cuban artists Flavio Garciandía and Ana Mendieta, Colombian artist Antonio Suárez Londoño and Mexicans artists Jose Dávila, Pepe Mar, and Tercerunquinto can be seen in Meridians. The curatorship did not follow a specific theme for the chosen works: “Given the uniqueness of each project, Meridians articulates a very organic exchange of ideas and positions, unveiling conceptual overlaps, themes and interests that have emerged from this year’s strong selection of projects”, Arriola said during the project announcement.
In the exhibitors sectors, the Brazilian galleries appear as usual. The galleries Jaqueline Martins and Luciana Brito announced that they will make a joint participation in the fair, with works by the artists Robert Barry, Lydia Okumura, Augusto de Campos and Geraldo de Barros. It is the first time in the history of the fair that two galleries are sharing a booth in the main event space, provoking dialogues between artists who they represent: “The joint project seeks to create a space where both intersections and differences between their productions can be perceived by visitors”, says the galleries’ report.
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Thiago Martins de Melo, Moiras do Rio Preguiças, 2019. FOTO: Bruno Leão. No estande da Galeria Leme/AD.
Geraldo de Barros, "Estudos", dec 80. No estande da Galeria Luciana Brito.
Mariana Palma, Sem Título, 2019. No estande da Casa Triângulo.
Lydia Okumura, "PASSAGEWAY VII", 1986. No estande da Galeria Jaqueline Martins.
Anita Schwartz Art Gallery, from Rio de Janeiro, will make a solo stand with works by the artist Paulo Vivacqua. Babbling Forms and Corale work as musical poems, says the gallery owner. “They deal with the same starting point: the speakers, which set a counterpart to each other”, she explains. “While Corale emphasizes form, with a composition of sculptures made from color speakers in nuances of color, Babbling Forms is deeply involved with the function of language, where ‘pre-verbal’ sounds talk”. Their interaction focuses on artistic inquiry into how the preconceived ideas of sculpture disappear and shift in unexpected directions. The artist considers the transmission of sound and silence as a musical state that acquires concreteness and presence in space – music as sculpture.
In turn, Casa Triângulo will present some of its artists to the fair, but the gallerists bet on a pair of artists, Ascânio MMM and Mariana Palma. According to the gallery’s director, Camila Siqueira, Ascânio sculptures produced between the 60’s and 70’s will be shown. “To reinforce the historical importance of his production during this period”, she says. In 2020, Mariana Palma will have an individual at the Tomie Ohtake Institute. Thus, the gallery also focuses on her paintings that exploits an exuberance of colors.
Nunca, Ai Lovi, 2019.
Arround
Kogan Amaro Gallery debuts at SCOPE, one of the main fairs of the contemporary circuit, which reaches its 19th edition in 2019. Gallery director Marlise Corsato researched other fairs in Miami during her visits to Art Basel. As an international fair that has been in the market for a long time, already established, but with a younger, lighter and more casual feel, Marlise bet on SCOPE for the gallery’s debut in a fair outside Brazil: “I felt it would be interesting for us to start at an international fair in this style”.
Daniel Mullen, Mundano, Nunca and Samuel de Saboia are the four artists who will be at the booth of Kogan Amaro, the only Brazilian to participate in SCOPE. Mundano and Nunca will create some outdoor work in Miami, as both work with street art. The actions were thought to happen due to the participation in the fair, incorporating the artists to the city.
ontemporary sociopolitical conflicts emerge at this 14th Curitiba Biennial, inaugurated on September 21. The works range from contemporary Russian art and its shrapnel in the system to those denouncing diasporas forced by conflicts, racism, persecution. Under the theme Open Borders this edition also brings poetic intersections with purely artistic suggestions and interests, but attention is drawn to the proposals engaged at the saying: “to create is resist”. The general theme is inspired by the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall that reconfigured part of the world, in particular Eastern Europe.
The volume of works reaches 400, executed by about 100 artists, and testifies to the mutation of contemporary art that transforms the space into a place of traces, clues to be deciphered. This time the Curitiba Biennial, whose central axis is the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, expands its edges and reaches other cities and countries.
The porosity of art is sensitive to the changes of society and contemporary issues of all kinds. Tereza de Arruda, a Brazilian who lives in Germany, and Spaniard Adolfo Montejo Navas sign the general curatorship and understand the border as an element far beyond geographic space. A group of foreign curators join them: Massimo Scaringella (Italy/Argentina), Gabriela Urtiaga (Argentina), Ernestine White (South Africa), Esebjia Bannan (Russia) and Julie Dumont (Belgium).
Sethembile Msezane, performance “Hosue of Reflexão”
More than twenty years after apartheid, South African Sethembile Msezane became a militant through her denouncing performances of the black woman’s unviability in her country. Her performances merge ritualism, activism and usually occupy public spaces with a lot of audience. Sitting on the floor of her tent covered by transparent red cloths, she individually welcomed visitors to the Biennale who wanted to think about the moment we are living. Certainly Sethembile was horrified by what he heard about Brazil. By becoming an artist, she became a militant against racism, oppression and the lack of opportunity for blacks. “Having lived in Cape Town for about five years, I felt a profound sense of displacement and invisibility.” Her conversations with the audience were accompanied by an African musician who performed songs typical of his region.
Arthur Omar, Série “A Origem do Rosto”
Imagine a restless eye that wants to denounce the ills of the world through intercropped scenes of cyber space. This is how works Hito Steyerl’s retina, a german filmmaker, cultural critic and cyber artist, one of the special names of this 14th Biennial. The striking aspect of Factory of the Sun is the focus on the privileged of the system, which she calls “people of the world” and in the human beings forced to the diaspora. The video is actually a game temperate with complaints and humor in which the main character, Yulia, a cyborg type, makes the narration in which she discusses, among other topics, the forced exile of her Jewish family to Russia.One of the strengths of discourse is the way she simulates the infiltration and influence of money in the world of art. Hito became known for taking a political stance without fear of defying market power. The artist has exhibited in several countries and represented Germany at the Venice Biennale 2015.
Hito Steyerl, “Factory of the Sun”
Russia, India, China and South Africa are gathered in the Brics segment, curated by Ernestine White-Mifetu, Esenija Bannan, Lu Zhengyuan and Tereza de Arruda. Humor and criticism of the system move the Russian collective AES + F that provokes the intersection of photography, video and digital technology. With the multimedia work Inverse World the group dramatizes criticism among these media, some non sense, diving into art history and social issues limits of the current world. AES + F became known after representing the Russian pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale with the provocative Last Riot.
Biennials are heterogeneous territories with fragmentation in ways of producing. In these large shows there are no dimensions limits to present a work, nor scales. Cruzeiro do Sul, 1969/1970, the sculpture of Cildo Meirelles, a tiny wooden block that can be enjoyed at the tip of an index finger, grows under a spotlight while taking the center of the room. The artist demarcates a territory, in a political sense, and connects with the points of the constellation of the same name. This work, since its creation has provoked numerous interpretations and remains open. In the Entremundos segment, among others of the show, several Brazilians are presented, among them Arthur Omar with five paintings and a fragment of the video Os Cavalos de Goya (The Horses of Goya) made with images of a hockey game in which the ball is an animal carcass. Working boundaries, Regina Vater presents Bordas, 2019, a long and delicate sculpture that seems to shape territorial designs born by borders, instruments of territorial regulation.
Vista de parte da Bienal de Curitiba dedicada a artistas brasileiros. No centro, em evidência, obra de Regina Vater, “Bordas”, 2019
On earth nothing is permanent. Territorial contours fall apart, move according to conflicts, political arrangements, geographic accidents. The idea of constant movement led the 14th Curitiba Biennial to hitchhike on all municipal buses, where until March 1 projects a series of videos during the trips, presenting a new audience, different from those that normally pass through the fairs and Biennials.
Sem título, 1981, lápis de cor, lápis metálico, guache e aquarela sobre, papel 32,5 x 36,5 cm
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t was in the late 1970s that two art students, upon entering a gallery, realized that art is not just about creation. “What caught our attention the most was the price of labor. It was a totally unrealistic business, the reality of Brazil at that time. It is not possible, it does not cost that, it must be wrong!”, says Luiz Zerbini, today ironically one of the most expensive Brazilian artists, remembering his visit with José Leonilson to an Antonio Dias show (1944-2018).
The statement, however, serves as a preamble to the friendship that would eventually develop between Leonilson (1957-1993) and Dias in Milan shortly thereafter. These bonds were so strong that, decades later, the valuable artist would buy works by his friend, who was prematurely deceased as a result of AIDS, making possible today the exhibition Leonilson by Antonio Dias – Profile of a collection, which from November 11 and December 14 is on display at Pinakotheke São Paulo (Ministro Nelson Hungria Street, 200), after passing by the Rio de Janeiro headquarters.
If it all started with the shock of high values, as Zerbini tells in the exhibition catalog, it was in the fall of 1981 that Leonilson would indeed meet Antonio Dias at his home in Milan, on the recommendation of another Brazilian, Arthur Luiz Piza (1928 – 2017), who lived in Paris.
In another statement in the show’s catalog, now by Paola Chieregato, she tells how Dias influenced the then young artist who had just arrived at his home in Milan, who was ready to return to Jericoacoara. of the arms. “It was there, in that house in Milan in front of the castle, that Leonilson was propelled by his mentor to finally take the reins of his profession as an artist in his own hands and thus, with courage and determination, was performing on the Italian scene”, says Paola, widow of Dias.
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4 pedras, 1981, aquarela, guache, lápis de cor, pastel oleoso e tinta de caneta permanente sobre papel
Sem título, 1987, tinta acrílica e recorte sobre linho, 100 x 44 cm
O que ele está fazendo, 1986, tinta acrílica, lápis de cor, hidrográfica e recorte sobre lona, 47 x 221 cm
abaixo, Sem título, cerca de 1983 , acrílica sobre lona, 175 x 200 cm assinada “L.”.
Sem título com fundo azul da prussia, 1984, tinta acrílica sobre lona, 100 x 160 cm.
It was in this context that he nominated the gallery of Enzo Cannaviello to Leonilson, who bought his works and inserted it in some shows, besides the father of Transvanguarda, Achille Bonito Oliva. The friendship strengthened and even Antonio Dias living in Europe both met regularly. A letter of May 3, 1993, sent shortly before Leonilson’s death, shows Dias’s appreciation for his friend, speaking of two works by Leonilson that he had brought to his permanent residence in Cologne, Germany: “Now, I think on you every day. (…) I would love to see you again and say that I really like to have you as a friend”.
There was no time, but after Leonilson’s death, Dias began to pursue his work, especially those sold in Milan, with the help of Paola, the “gold digger,” as he called her. The exhibition at Pinakotheke brings together 38 drawings and paintings from Antonio Dias’ collection, an exhibition that was planned in 2015, when Antonio Dias was preparing his solo show at Galeria Multiarte, in Fortaleza. Four works belonging to other private collections complement the exhibition.
It is, therefore, a somewhat unknown facet of Leonilson, taking into account the recent shows dedicated to him in Brazil, a clipping of his early career, with most of the works coming from 1981 and 1982. There is only an embroidery from the 1990s, for example, a technique that gives it greater projection and recognition, especially for the autobiographical character it gives to its later years.
The works in the show are more experimental, such as a colored paper polyptych, which even resemble certain works by Antonio Dias himself. On the other hand, the sculpture Ponte, from 1982, already has an image that will recur in his career.
The works on display actually have a joy, which contrasts with the melancholy of the end of his career, partly as seen by the tone of the tapes left by the artist. In this recorded diary, which generated two films, Leonilson projects an image contested by Zerbini in the catalog, which led him to plan the destruction of the tapes, together with Antonio Dias: “We thought, and I think, that they propagate an image that does not correspond to reality. Leonilson was one of the funniest, smartest, and fastest thinking people I have ever met. Owner of a rasping, cruel humor”.And Zerbini concludes that “the suffering caused by the disease should not contaminate his work, but, for that, we should not reflect, overvalue the moment when he appears most fragile”.
