Torneira [Faucet] (2018) is a mundane object that surges with life. This piece is from a series of faucets of outsized proportions that de Souza has been working on since the 1990s. From the mouth of the gold-plated bronze faucet flows a large drop resembling human secretion.

In the Act of… series Komatsu works the composition of his frames from the ruin of items made to control the safety of framed works. Glass and structure are broken, instituting both the image and the fixation system for the wall

Ephemeral Monuments, originally presented at the 13th Havana Biennial, is based on a series of performances carried out by professional Cuban athletes at the José Martí Sports Center (Havana). The action was orchestrated around building and sustaining ephemeral bodily constructions which explores ideas of solidarity, union and resilience. The constructions symbolize an exercise of trust and collective effort: if one of the participants fails, everything collapses. The deteriorated sports facilities in the city of Havana, Cuba, are the starting point of this visual essay in which some ideas about the modern architectural movement, sports as an ideological flag and the abandonment of public infrastructure interwoven.

The works from the Realidade Perecivél series were made with glass fiber mesh coated with concrete, painted, lacquered, varnished attached to tbrackets form the top and subsequently fixed to the wall. The artist?s actions causes the concrete layer to be broken gradually, showing the structure of the work, in this manufactoring process coexists the construction and destruction of forms and symbols.

Influenced by pre-Colombian and brutalist architecture, Argote’s work often contain messages/ words in various languages that are adopted by what the artist calls “Ternura Radical [Radical Tenderness]” an on-going strategy that relies upon using affection, emotions and humor as subversive tools to engage public audiences on political and personal levels.

In the Radiante system, the word sun is written in different languages, according to a graph that simulates the sun’s rays and that, for each quadrant,the artists assign a letter. Each module/ letteris reproduced in goldplated wood, Nar is the word for sun in Mongolian

Prismatic disjunction is part of a series of works that has as its central axis the concept of rotation of authorial architectures creating a dialogue with the architects Adolf Loos (1870-1933), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) and Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012). Tavares uses materials and finishes present in the works of these architects to create modular relationships typical of her own production.

Based on field trips and archival images of a German photographer of the XIX Century – Albert Frisch – that already manipulated his pictures from indigenous people from the Brazilian Amazon rain forest, a new combined photo manipulation is made over Frisch’s files. A false giant leaf is augmented and a drawing is made to create a ficcional scale and narrative about the forest imaginary. An exotic Colonizer’s tale pushed to the limits of imagination, just like in the old times.

This series is composed of a set of photographs that show masked figures manipulating snakes. The images are reminiscent of gay fetish practices associated with “sexual deviations”. The title of the series reproduces the first lines of Inferno, Canto 1, from The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri. The epic poem narrates an allegorical journey through what is essentially the medieval concept of hell.

The Corpo Fechado series is comprised of a series of vintage whips cast in bronze and sculpted in such way that their motions appear as a frozen instant. These pieces are also part of the series of sculptural and photographic objects that relate to Corpo Fechado: The Devil’s Work. Like in the film, there is a reversal on the handling of the whip as these tools for punishment are inverted in these works, drawing near to BDSM practices where pleasure and pain converge, and where relations of power and submission are consensual.

The Incarnated Figure series features red articulated wooden shapes that resemble dolls used in human figure drawing classes. Installed through the space, the figures seem to float or dance. The morphologies of the figures – called ‘Trans-human’ by Chaia -, although referring to the human anatomy, are deformed.

“Incarnated Figure is a work that refers to the ‘Trans-human’, as it considers not only the human body, but other bodies existing in nature and mythological bodies. This work is also inspired by the body paintings of the original peoples of Brazil, made as protection against evil spirits and as a form of defense to face the enemy,” says Chaia. In this context, the choice of the red color was fundamental for her, since it concerns the awakening of vitality and the potency of the movements, being the color of fire and blood. Chaia quotes Wassily Kandinsky: “Red evokes strength, momentum, energy, decision, joy, triumph. It sounds like a fanfare where the loud, obstinate, annoying sound of the trumpet dominates”.

WE THE ENEMY (2019) is a series comprised of 41 bronze sculptures based on representations of the devil drawn from art history: historical paintings that portray Satan in hell, drawings, illustrations, and sculptures that represent evil embodied. Each figure defies normative moral standards of beauty, respectability, and behavior. Among this army of demons, there are characters who suggest sexual perversion – as typified by traditional catholic imagery.

Tania Candiani’s work often seeks to make explicit the discursive contents of artifacts and textual materials. Her work also evidences nostalgia for the obsolete. This sense of nostalgia also materializes in works she articulates around the invisible passing of time by creating awareness of such time. In Sobre el tiempo, wall pieces containing large numbers of common alarm clocks that resonate loudly, create a texture of time marking a constant presence.

Part of the Social Hieroglyphs series, the artwork connects art, architecture, engineering, and nature through the works of the English architect and gardener Joseph Paxton (1803–1865), the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012) and the Brazilian landscape designer and artist Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994). The table surface shows images from the transformed Oca Building by Oscar Niemeyer: by constructing a digital maquette and using mirroring processes to alter the referent, the artist combines the gesture and sensuality of the design, presented here in a renewed way. Like a platform to be seen from above, the table houses several pristine plexiglas domes, beneath which different handmade Victoria regia water lilies are placed. Protected from external contamination, these encapsulated natural species reference Paxton and Burle Marx’s interest in tropical flora and nature’s role in constructing the modern world. The exquisitely handmade objects, created in collaboration with Brazilian artisans, are a tribute to the traditional textile work of women, which was historically undervalued as either decorative or merely utilitarian and thus undeserving of scholarly attention or public display. Bringing together high-tech industrial processes and handmade craftwork, the work challenges Adolf Loos’ idea of purity as stated in his ‘Ornament and Crime’ manifesto of 1910. By doing so, it aims to explore the relationships and inconsistencies between tropical nature, modernism, and contemporary life.

Newspapers whose denominations are somehow absolutes, such as Le Monde (The World) and El País (The Country), are covered by a blanket of lead that allows for only a glimpse of their titles, blocking any proper reading. Lead, by virtue of progressive applications of atomic energy, has become increasingly important as shielding against radiation thanks to its excellent corrosion resistance. The material is, however, extremely toxic to the human body. Komatsu’s lead blanket thus both protects us from the power of the media and contaminates us at the same time.

Fugues are polyphonic compositions, where one melody overlaps another. The fugues are structured by a main theme, the subject of the composition, with which subsequent “voices” establish variations.
In her series of paintings called Fuga (2019), Longo Bahia employs an Augmented Reality experience where one painting leads to another through the use of an app that reveals covert images.
In Fuga (terceira voz), the series portrays women that were persecuted, tortured or murdered by the military dictatorships of each of the South American countries that aligned themselves with the United States during Operation Condor (1968-1989).

Fugues are polyphonic compositions, where one melody overlaps another. The fugues are structured by a main theme, the subject of the composition, with which subsequent “voices” establish variations.
In her series of paintings called Fuga (2019), Longo Bahia employs an Augmented Reality experience where one painting leads to another through the use of an app that reveals covert images.
In Fuga (terceira voz), the series portrays women that were persecuted, tortured or murdered by the military dictatorships of each of the South American countries that aligned themselves with the United States during Operation Condor (1968-1989).

Nuptias consists of photo-paintings and collages made by Rennó based on wedding photographs. The artists alterations are made with paint, objects, cuttings and recompositions. Besides referring to the plurality of affective unions without regard to belief, race, sexual orientation or any other convention, the artist revisits various icons of the culture of visuality, in both the Occident and the Orient. The photo-paintings and their titles make reference to the ceremonial, the pop culture, recent politics, religion and social inequality.

The works from the Realidade perecível series were made with glass fiber mesh coated with concrete, painted, lacquered, varnished attached to tbrackets form the top and subsequently fixed to the wall. The artist?s actions causes the concrete layer to be broken gradually, showing the structure of the work, in this manufactoring process coexists the construction and destruction of forms and symbols.