For ArPa 2024, Vermelho presents an encounter between the works of Marilá Dardot and Meia. Here, the works of both artists are grounded in material and conceptual deconstructions and rearticulations that highlight ambiguities and contradictions challenging fixed meanings.
From Marilá Dardot, Vermelho presents works where the artist deals with the materiality of books to construct new readings beyond their original contents. Dardot began working with books in 2014, during a residency in Austria. Surrounded by books written in a language she could not read, the artist turned her attention to their constitutive parts. “Freed from their words and content, I began to read their bodies: covers, text blocks, and endpapers; colors, shapes, and designs from different times and origins,” says Dardot.
From Meia, Vermelho exhibits recent paintings that are created from the artist’s transit, in his movements through the streets or through his circles of affection. Both circuits equip the artist with material for the elaboration of his paintings. On the street, he identifies, selects, and collects elements with constructive and pictorial potential; from his circles of affection, he gains elements that carry symbolic qualities that imbue the works.
Oil paint, acrylic paint, spray paint, oil pastel, charcoal, brass, raw cotton, interlining, lycra, cardboard, canvas, chair lining and felt on wood mounted on battens
Photo Vermelho
“Tornadoes are phenomena that make things happen. Wherever they pass, human life cannot sustain itself and the landscape is altered, creating fertility or destruction. For humans, they can only be observed, seen from afar. In this painting, they emerge from the canvas because it couldn’t contain them.”
Meia
“Tornadoes are phenomena that make things happen. Wherever they pass, human life cannot sustain itself and the landscape is altered, creating fertility or destruction. For humans, they can only be observed, seen from afar. In this painting, they emerge from the canvas because it couldn’t contain them.”
Meia
Oil paint, acrylic paint, encaustic, oil pastel, dry pastel, charcoal, leather and sheet on discarded drawer
Photo Filipe Berndt
“Irmãos [brothers] is the name I give to graphic marks that I add to compositions, aiming to distance them from painting and make them something more familiar. They are structural elements of the works that operate in the realm between figuration and abstraction.”
Meia
“Irmãos [brothers] is the name I give to graphic marks that I add to compositions, aiming to distance them from painting and make them something more familiar. They are structural elements of the works that operate in the realm between figuration and abstraction.”
Meia
pieces made of book fragments glued to MDF, fixed to the wall with Velcro
Photo Ana Pigosso
One Thousand and One Nights is a book without authorship, derived from a legion of anonymous storytellers whose tales were gathered over centuries to form the anthology that is a classic of literature.
The work The Book of the Thousand and One Night’ by Marilá Dardot materializes the history of this obscure and multifaceted origin book, polyphonic, full of intersections, additions, subtractions, anthropophagies, and promiscuities.
One Thousand and One Nights is a book without authorship, derived from a legion of anonymous storytellers whose tales were gathered over centuries to form the anthology that is a classic of literature.
The work The Book of the Thousand and One Night’ by Marilá Dardot materializes the history of this obscure and multifaceted origin book, polyphonic, full of intersections, additions, subtractions, anthropophagies, and promiscuities.
pieces made of book fragments glued to MDF, fixed to the wall with Velcro
Photo Ana Pigosso
One Thousand and One Nights is a book without authorship, derived from a legion of anonymous storytellers whose tales were gathered over centuries to form the anthology that is a classic of literature.
The work The Book of the Thousand and One Night’ by Marilá Dardot materializes the history of this obscure and multifaceted origin book, polyphonic, full of intersections, additions, subtractions, anthropophagies, and promiscuities.
One Thousand and One Nights is a book without authorship, derived from a legion of anonymous storytellers whose tales were gathered over centuries to form the anthology that is a classic of literature.
The work The Book of the Thousand and One Night’ by Marilá Dardot materializes the history of this obscure and multifaceted origin book, polyphonic, full of intersections, additions, subtractions, anthropophagies, and promiscuities.
101 pieces made of book fragments glued to MDF, fixed to the wall with velcro
Photo Filipe Berndt
In Unknown Code, Dardot works with fragments of books. The covers and areas where the texts were printed have been removed, leaving only the spines organized by size, forming blocks resembling barcodes. It is no longer possible to read the narratives; what remains are only their structures, which used to arrange the pages in the correct order.
This work was presented at the exhibition ‘War of Time,’ Dardot’s solo show at Chácara Lane in São Paulo in 2016
In Unknown Code, Dardot works with fragments of books. The covers and areas where the texts were printed have been removed, leaving only the spines organized by size, forming blocks resembling barcodes. It is no longer possible to read the narratives; what remains are only their structures, which used to arrange the pages in the correct order.
This work was presented at the exhibition ‘War of Time,’ Dardot’s solo show at Chácara Lane in São Paulo in 2016
Collage with book and book covers on crescent paper and wood base
Photo Ana Pigosso
The Book of Girls was an anthology released in Portugal in 1945, aimed at a young female audience, seeking to blend ‘education and entertainment’. The publisher advertised the anthology as ‘wholesome and pleasant, varied and suggestive’. Despite being authored by women, what characterizes the collection is the propagation of an ideology conforming to the dominant standards of the time. From the apparent superficiality proposed by the collection, Dardot critically transforms it into chromatic fields devoid of content.
The Book of Girls was an anthology released in Portugal in 1945, aimed at a young female audience, seeking to blend ‘education and entertainment’. The publisher advertised the anthology as ‘wholesome and pleasant, varied and suggestive’. Despite being authored by women, what characterizes the collection is the propagation of an ideology conforming to the dominant standards of the time. From the apparent superficiality proposed by the collection, Dardot critically transforms it into chromatic fields devoid of content.
Spray paint on donation blanket (textile chipboard)
Photo Vermelho
In “Projeto (re)construtivo: “Movimento” de W.C”, Marcelo Cidade reimagines one of the most emblematic works from Brazilian Concretism, Waldemar Cordeiro’s painting “Movimento”.
Cordeiro’s work was exhibited at the 1st São Paulo Biennial in 1951 and marked the Concrete Art in Brazil. For Cordeiro, the artwork was a product resulting from visual ideas that the artist executed plastically, without any connection to natural reality. In his text “The Object,” from 1956, Cordeiro states: “Artists create […] objects that have historical value in the social life of humanity. The created objects become part of the external, real, and banal world. The partiality of romantics, who seek to make art a mystery and a miracle, discredits the social potential of formal creation.”
For Marcelo Cidade, the external world has basic urgencies that surpass the power of formal creation advocated by Cordeiro. In his work, the painting from 1951 is juxtaposed in a textile conglomerate commonly used in social actions against the cold felt by the growing population experiencing homelessness. With spray paint on a donation blanket, Cidade reaffirms the material potential of everyday needs and confronts the numerous failures of the Brazilian modern project.
In “Projeto (re)construtivo: “Movimento” de W.C”, Marcelo Cidade reimagines one of the most emblematic works from Brazilian Concretism, Waldemar Cordeiro’s painting “Movimento”.
Cordeiro’s work was exhibited at the 1st São Paulo Biennial in 1951 and marked the Concrete Art in Brazil. For Cordeiro, the artwork was a product resulting from visual ideas that the artist executed plastically, without any connection to natural reality. In his text “The Object,” from 1956, Cordeiro states: “Artists create […] objects that have historical value in the social life of humanity. The created objects become part of the external, real, and banal world. The partiality of romantics, who seek to make art a mystery and a miracle, discredits the social potential of formal creation.”
For Marcelo Cidade, the external world has basic urgencies that surpass the power of formal creation advocated by Cordeiro. In his work, the painting from 1951 is juxtaposed in a textile conglomerate commonly used in social actions against the cold felt by the growing population experiencing homelessness. With spray paint on a donation blanket, Cidade reaffirms the material potential of everyday needs and confronts the numerous failures of the Brazilian modern project.
Permanent marker on books and artwork crate
Photo Filipe Berndt
While compiling the units of a language, dictionaries also represent a paradigm in which words perpetuate the powers and privileges of a particular class or nation. In Domine seu idioma [Master your language], Marilá Dardot uses a collection of dictionaries as the basis for a lexical game with expressions associated with speech. The idea of a common language is replaced by that of “their language”, presupposing differences and dissidences, opening gaps for new plural articulations.
While compiling the units of a language, dictionaries also represent a paradigm in which words perpetuate the powers and privileges of a particular class or nation. In Domine seu idioma [Master your language], Marilá Dardot uses a collection of dictionaries as the basis for a lexical game with expressions associated with speech. The idea of a common language is replaced by that of “their language”, presupposing differences and dissidences, opening gaps for new plural articulations.
Permanent marker on books and artwork crate
Photo Filipe Berndt
While compiling the units of a language, dictionaries also represent a paradigm in which words perpetuate the powers and privileges of a particular class or nation. In Domine seu idioma [Master your language], Marilá Dardot uses a collection of dictionaries as the basis for a lexical game with expressions associated with speech. The idea of a common language is replaced by that of “their language”, presupposing differences and dissidences, opening gaps for new plural articulations.
While compiling the units of a language, dictionaries also represent a paradigm in which words perpetuate the powers and privileges of a particular class or nation. In Domine seu idioma [Master your language], Marilá Dardot uses a collection of dictionaries as the basis for a lexical game with expressions associated with speech. The idea of a common language is replaced by that of “their language”, presupposing differences and dissidences, opening gaps for new plural articulations.
Permanent marker on books and artwork crate
Photo Filipe Berndt
While compiling the units of a language, dictionaries also represent a paradigm in which words perpetuate the powers and privileges of a particular class or nation. In Domine seu idioma [Master your language], Marilá Dardot uses a collection of dictionaries as the basis for a lexical game with expressions associated with speech. The idea of a common language is replaced by that of “their language”, presupposing differences and dissidences, opening gaps for new plural articulations.
While compiling the units of a language, dictionaries also represent a paradigm in which words perpetuate the powers and privileges of a particular class or nation. In Domine seu idioma [Master your language], Marilá Dardot uses a collection of dictionaries as the basis for a lexical game with expressions associated with speech. The idea of a common language is replaced by that of “their language”, presupposing differences and dissidences, opening gaps for new plural articulations.
Peeled book covers and Letraset
Photo Filipe Berndt
In this series, Dardot works with stripped book covers and Letraset. With the adhesive letters, the artist creates an imaginary glossary with the qualities of words. These qualities, which appear in pairs in the work, sometimes oppose each other and sometimes complement each other, forming verses that could inhabit those vestiges of covers.
In this series, Dardot works with stripped book covers and Letraset. With the adhesive letters, the artist creates an imaginary glossary with the qualities of words. These qualities, which appear in pairs in the work, sometimes oppose each other and sometimes complement each other, forming verses that could inhabit those vestiges of covers.
Acrylic, oil, oil pastel, dry pastel, charcoal, canvas, iridescent paper and string on wood mounted on a slat
Photo Vermelho
“Irmãos [brothers] is the name I give to graphic marks that I add to compositions, aiming to distance them from painting and make them something more familiar. They are structural elements of the works that operate in the realm between figuration and abstraction.”
Meia
“Irmãos [brothers] is the name I give to graphic marks that I add to compositions, aiming to distance them from painting and make them something more familiar. They are structural elements of the works that operate in the realm between figuration and abstraction.”
Meia
Acrylic paint, oil paint, oil stick, silver tape, wood veneer, felt, net, raw cotton, leather and masking tape on mounted wood
Photo Filipe Berndt
“The harvest represents cutting and gathering, symbolizing both death and prosperity. The reaper tends to the land, nurturing crops, yet also embodies death, as it is a name given to the one who transports souls from this realm.”
Meia
“The harvest represents cutting and gathering, symbolizing both death and prosperity. The reaper tends to the land, nurturing crops, yet also embodies death, as it is a name given to the one who transports souls from this realm.”
Meia
Oil paint, acrylic paint, silkscreen paint, dry pastel, oil stick, colored glue, satin, felt, linen, cardboard, matchstick, charcoal, gold pigment and string on resined wood mounted on a wooden slat
Photo Vermelho
“Irmãos [brothers] is the name I give to graphic marks that I add to compositions, aiming to distance them from painting and make them something more familiar. They are structural elements of the works that operate in the realm between figuration and abstraction.”
Meia
“Irmãos [brothers] is the name I give to graphic marks that I add to compositions, aiming to distance them from painting and make them something more familiar. They are structural elements of the works that operate in the realm between figuration and abstraction.”
Meia
Acrylic, oil, encaustic, oil pastel, dry pastel, charcoal, bed sheet and leather on wood from a desk
Photo Vermelho
“Irmãos [brothers] is the name I give to graphic marks that I add to compositions, aiming to distance them from painting and make them something more familiar. They are structural elements of the works that operate in the realm between figuration and abstraction.”
Meia
“Irmãos [brothers] is the name I give to graphic marks that I add to compositions, aiming to distance them from painting and make them something more familiar. They are structural elements of the works that operate in the realm between figuration and abstraction.”
Meia
book endpapers and acrylic
Photo Edouard Fraipont
“A collection of endpapers bearing incomplete ex libris (a mark used to associate the book with a person or a library). It is not known who the books belonged to or what their contents were, but the designs and colors lead us to imagine secret books, enigmas, magical portals to latent knowledge”
– Marilá Dardot
“A collection of endpapers bearing incomplete ex libris (a mark used to associate the book with a person or a library). It is not known who the books belonged to or what their contents were, but the designs and colors lead us to imagine secret books, enigmas, magical portals to latent knowledge”
– Marilá Dardot
Peeled book covers and Letraset
Photo Filipe Berndt
In this series, Dardot works with stripped book covers and Letraset. With the adhesive letters, the artist creates an imaginary glossary with the qualities of words. These qualities, which appear in pairs in the work, sometimes oppose each other and sometimes complement each other, forming verses that could inhabit those vestiges of covers.
In this series, Dardot works with stripped book covers and Letraset. With the adhesive letters, the artist creates an imaginary glossary with the qualities of words. These qualities, which appear in pairs in the work, sometimes oppose each other and sometimes complement each other, forming verses that could inhabit those vestiges of covers.
Oil paint, acrylic paint, oil pastel, suede paper, plastic paper, wood, felt, glue and charcoal on MDF mounted on a slat
Photo Vermelho
Tissue paper, gum arabic, acrylic paint, oil paint, oil stick, leather, and charcoal on hardboard and MDF mounted on slats
Photo Vermelho
“This painting begins with these sticks that survived a bonfire, likely made by someone experiencing homelessness trying to stay warm. They are remnants of a landscape that I used to structure this other landscape depicting a well, a place for water collection from underground, which could also serve as a pool for diving.”
Meia
“This painting begins with these sticks that survived a bonfire, likely made by someone experiencing homelessness trying to stay warm. They are remnants of a landscape that I used to structure this other landscape depicting a well, a place for water collection from underground, which could also serve as a pool for diving.”
Meia
Oil paint, acrylic paint, silkscreen paint, encaustic paint, varnish, oily stick, suede, glue, paraná paper, plastic paper, brass, cement, gravel, earth and Iansã swords on plasticized wood mounted on a lath
Photo Vermelho
“The Crossing of Souls is a regulator, a portal between day and night, where the strength of souls resides.”
Meia
“The Crossing of Souls is a regulator, a portal between day and night, where the strength of souls resides.”
Meia
Oil paint, acrylic paint, silkscreen paint, encaustic paint, varnish, oily stick, suede, glue, paraná paper, plastic paper, brass, cement, gravel, earth and Iansã swords on plasticized wood mounted on a lath
Photo Vermelho
“The Crossing of Souls is a regulator, a portal between day and night, where the strength of souls resides.”
Meia
“The Crossing of Souls is a regulator, a portal between day and night, where the strength of souls resides.”
Meia
Acrylic paint, oil paint, encaustic, canvas, thermal canvas, tissue paper, oil pastel, charcoal and white glue on discarded drawer
Photo Filipe Berndt
“Irmãos [brothers] is the name I give to graphic marks that I add to compositions, aiming to distance them from painting and make them something more familiar. They are structural elements of the works that operate in the realm between figuration and abstraction.”
Meia
“Irmãos [brothers] is the name I give to graphic marks that I add to compositions, aiming to distance them from painting and make them something more familiar. They are structural elements of the works that operate in the realm between figuration and abstraction.”
Meia
Gomide&Co, in collaboration with Vermelho, is pleased to present the series Marcados (1981–83/2006) by Claudia Andujar (Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 1931) at Art Basel Unlimited 2024.
This series, one of the most well-known works of the artist's career, will be shown in its largest set, with 87 portraits subdivided into 14 groups. The series has been widely exhibited around the world, but it has rarely been seen in a set of this significance. Besides the 27th São Paulo Biennial (2006), when it was first exhibited, there have been only five occasions in Brazil and two abroad. In addition to the rare opportunity to see the original complete set, this will be the first time the series is exhibited in Switzerland, the artist's country of origin.
During the 1980s, road construction projects in the Yanomami territory of the Brazilian Amazon brought diseases to which the Yanomami people had no antibodies, quickly turning these diseases into epidemics. Claudia Andujar, who had been living and working with the Yanomami since 1971, joined a relief expedition with two doctors from the Escola Paulista de Medicina to treat and vaccinate the population and to assess the effects of illegal mining in the villages. The series Marcados emerged in this context, between 1981 and 1983, when Andujar took portraits of the indigenous people identified by the number corresponding to their registration forms, as the Yanomami do not have individual names. The portraits were used to track vaccination records and medical treatments for each person.
"One of my activities was to document the Yanomami communities on record cards. For this, we hung a numbered plaque around the neck of each Indigenous person: 'vaccinated.' It was an attempt at salvation. We created a new identity for them, undoubtedly a system foreign to their culture." These are the circumstances of this work that I intend to show through these images taken at the time. It is not to justify the mark placed on their chest but to make it clear that it refers to a sensitive, ambiguous area that can cause embarrassment and pain.
It was this ambiguous feeling that led me, sixty years later, to transform the simple record of the Yanomami in the condition of 'people' - marked to live - into a work that questions the method of labeling beings for various purposes.
Today I see this work, an objective effort to organize and identify a population at risk of extinction, as something on the borderline of conceptual work.” Claudia Andujar.
Andujar's personal experience, having her paternal family of Jewish origin marked and killed during World War II, contributed to her reflections on the act of marking people – whether for life or death.
The series is considered a testimony to the precarious conditions the Yanomami people lived in at the time and a warning about the insecure conditions they continue to live in today.
The set exhibited at the 27th São Paulo Biennial was later acquired by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. It is an edition of this set that Gomide&Co and Vermelho are presenting at Art Basel Unlimited 2024. It took more than ten years for the collection from which the work comes to gather the complete set as conceived by the artist after its first exhibition. Except for the MoMA, there is no other set like it in private collections.
Exhibition History
2023 - Natives. Spirits. Survivors. Photo Exhibition of Claudia Andujar. Museum of Ethnography, Budapeste, Hungary.
Vertical 8, Horizontal 4, Vertical 13, Vertical 12, Horizontal 3, Vertical 9, Horizontal 1, Horizontal 6
2023 - Amazonia. Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, USA.
Horizontal 2, Vertical 14
2023 - Justiça de Transição. Memorial da Procuradoria da República, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Horizontal 2
2022 - 2023 -Coração na aldeia, pés no mundo. Sesc Piracicaba, Piracicaba, Brasil.
Vertical 7, Vertical 14
2023 - Claudia Andujar. Retratos Yanomami. Festival de Fotografia de Paranapiacaba, Rio Grande da Serra, Brasil.
Horizontal 2
2021 - 2022 - How Long Is Now. The Israel Museum, Jerusalém, Israel.
Vertical 9
2021 - Colección. Episodio 2. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain.
Vertical 9
2021 - Amazonia. Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo [CAAC], Seville, Spain.
Horizontal 2, Horizontal 4, Horizontal 6, Vertical 10, Vertical 12
2019 - 2021 - Portraits and Community. Tate Modern, London, England.
Horizontal 2, Vertical 8
2019 - A Queda do Céu. Caixa Cultural Brasília, Brasília, Brasil.
Horizontal 1
2018 - Festival Photo de La Gacilly. Jardin du Relais postal. Gacilly, France.
Vertical 8, Vertical 9, Vertical 14, Vertical 7, Vertical 8
2018 - Mulheres Radicais: arte Latino-americana, 1960-1985. Pinacoteca do Estado,
São Paulo, Brasil.
Horizontal 2
2018 - Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985. Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA.
Horizontal 2
2017 - Claudia Andujar. Morgen darf nicht gestern sein. Museum für Moderne Kunst [MMK], Frankfurt, Germany.
Full set
2017 - Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA.
Horizontal 2
2017 - Modos de Olhar o Brasil: Itaú Cultural 30 Anos. Oca - Pq do Ibirapuera, São Paulo, Brasil.
Vertical 7
2016 - Claudia Andujar. Marcados, Museu de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires [MALBA], Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Full set
2016 - A Queda do Céu. Sesc SJRP, São José do Rio Preto, SP, Brasil.
Horizontal 1
2015 - A Queda do Céu. Paço das Artes, São Paulo, Brasil.
Horizontal 1
2015 - Parati em Foco. Casa da Cultura de Parati, Parati, Brasil.
Horizontal 2
2014 - Histórias Mestiças. Instituto Tomie Ohtake [ITO], São Paulo, Brasil.
Full set
2014 - Amazonia ciclos de modernidade, Museu do Estado do Pará, Belém, Brasil.
Horizontal 1, Horizontal 4, Vertical 8, Vertical 13, Vertical 14
2014 - Amazonia ciclos de modernidade, Palácio da Justiça, Manaus, Brasil.
Horizontal 1, Horizontal 4, Vertical 8, Vertical 13, Vertical 14
2014 - América Latina, 1960-2013. Museu Amparo, Puebla, Mexico.
Vertical 8, Horizontal 3
2014 - 30×bienal. Transformações na Arte Brasileira da 1ª à 30ª edição. Sesc Rio Preto, São José do Rio Preto, Brasil.
Horizontal 4
2013 - 2014 - América Latina, 1960-2013. Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, France.
Vertical 8, Horizontal 3
2013 - 30×bienal. Transformações na Arte Brasileira da 1ª à 30ª edição. Pavilhão da Bienal, São Paulo, Brasil.
Horizontal 4
2013 - Claudia Andujar. Marcados. Galeria Vicente do Rego Monteiro, Recife, Brasil.
Full set
2011 - Marcados Para, Centro da Cultura Judaica (CCJ), São Paulo, Brasil.
Full set
2009 - Retratos Yanomami, CAIXA Cultural Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Horizontal 2
2009 - Retratos Yanomami, CAIXA Cultural Salvador, Salvador, Brasil.
Horizontal 2
2009 - Retratos Yanomami, CAIXA Cultural São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil.
Horizontal 2
2009 - Claudia Andujar. Marcados Para. Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brasil.
Full set
2007 - Claudia Andujar. Uma Autobiografia Visual. Solar do Unhão, Salvador, Bahia.
Full set
2006 - 27ª Bienal de São Paulo. Como viver junto. Pavilhão da Bienal, São Paulo, Brasil.
Full set
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo Courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
photograph – gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
gelatin silver print on Ilford Multigrade MG IV, matt, double-weight paper, with selenium toning
Photo courtesy of artist
Photo Filipe Berndt
Printing with pigment ink on cotton Hahnemühle Photo Rag Barytha 315g paper
Photo Filipe Berndt
In 1988 I took a ‘double decision’ that radically transformed my relationship with photography: to stop producing new images and dedicate myself to the appropriation and re-reading of what I called ‘photographic residues’, limiting the photographic act to what I considered strictly necessary.
From here on emerged, not as a purpose but as a consequence, both a principle of economy in the production of new imaginaries, and the beginning of an investigation about the different life cycles that photographs have, according to their existence in the world of subjects and their representations. I thought that many of the photographs that I found on the verge of abandon asked for (and also deserved…) a new life, that is, some resignification or a new symbolic function.
I started with the vernacular, which seemed the most natural to me, revisiting and reusing images from family albums. Soon after, I was compelled to enter the magical territory of cinema and its direct relationship with the photographic device. Newly admitted to the post-graduation program at the School of Communications and Arts at USP, having cinema as my main area, the 35mm photograms discarded in the garbage of ECA’s editing room immediately became objects of scrutiny and desire.
The photogram isolated from its context is like a survivor that tells about the suspension of a time that has passed, which is revised (and edited), again, as phantasmagoria. If the phantasmagoria leaves no trace, as soon as the cinematographic device is turned off, the photogram is the proof of its existence. Through mechanisms of intertextuality with painting, advertising, art history and photography, there was in the photograms a myriad of possibilities for reading this ‘suspended time of time’, paraphrasing Maurício Lissovsky, ‘a time of unlimited duration, but determined to end’. The anti-cinema was a cinema in reverse.
Parallel to the frames transformed into large format images there was a small group of objects where movement was something invented or attributed, as if the suspension of time could happen from a collage of photographic images; however, the anti-cinema, here, was a humorous pastiche of what in the 19th century was the phantasmagoria that oscillated between photography and cinema.
Rosângela Rennó, 2022
In 1988 I took a ‘double decision’ that radically transformed my relationship with photography: to stop producing new images and dedicate myself to the appropriation and re-reading of what I called ‘photographic residues’, limiting the photographic act to what I considered strictly necessary.
From here on emerged, not as a purpose but as a consequence, both a principle of economy in the production of new imaginaries, and the beginning of an investigation about the different life cycles that photographs have, according to their existence in the world of subjects and their representations. I thought that many of the photographs that I found on the verge of abandon asked for (and also deserved…) a new life, that is, some resignification or a new symbolic function.
I started with the vernacular, which seemed the most natural to me, revisiting and reusing images from family albums. Soon after, I was compelled to enter the magical territory of cinema and its direct relationship with the photographic device. Newly admitted to the post-graduation program at the School of Communications and Arts at USP, having cinema as my main area, the 35mm photograms discarded in the garbage of ECA’s editing room immediately became objects of scrutiny and desire.
The photogram isolated from its context is like a survivor that tells about the suspension of a time that has passed, which is revised (and edited), again, as phantasmagoria. If the phantasmagoria leaves no trace, as soon as the cinematographic device is turned off, the photogram is the proof of its existence. Through mechanisms of intertextuality with painting, advertising, art history and photography, there was in the photograms a myriad of possibilities for reading this ‘suspended time of time’, paraphrasing Maurício Lissovsky, ‘a time of unlimited duration, but determined to end’. The anti-cinema was a cinema in reverse.
Parallel to the frames transformed into large format images there was a small group of objects where movement was something invented or attributed, as if the suspension of time could happen from a collage of photographic images; however, the anti-cinema, here, was a humorous pastiche of what in the 19th century was the phantasmagoria that oscillated between photography and cinema.
Rosângela Rennó, 2022
Pre molded concrete structure
Photo Vermelho
The sculptures in the Uma churrasqueira muito triste series appropriate pre-molded structures for the construction of barbecue grills. Cidade rearranged them in ways that allude to formalist sculptures and public monuments.
The sculptures in the Uma churrasqueira muito triste series appropriate pre-molded structures for the construction of barbecue grills. Cidade rearranged them in ways that allude to formalist sculptures and public monuments.
Pre molded concrete structure
Photo Vermelho
The sculptures in the Uma churrasqueira muito triste series appropriate pre-molded structures for the construction of barbecue grills. Cidade rearranged them in ways that allude to formalist sculptures and public monuments.
The sculptures in the Uma churrasqueira muito triste series appropriate pre-molded structures for the construction of barbecue grills. Cidade rearranged them in ways that allude to formalist sculptures and public monuments.
Cotton thread on linen fabric
Photo Filipe Berndt
In the embroidered R series, by Edgard de Souza, one can see the artist’s body at work, moving in a continuous movement back and forth. The only figuration among the embroideries are clouds, in a comment on the search for images in gestural abstraction, which is similar to the game of looking for representations in clouds. The embroideries are produced on linen fabrics, with silk, cotton or linen threads.
The R series is related to the Rabiscos series, produced by de Souza between 2013 and 2015, and shown in the artist’s first solo show at Vermelho. In the series, large and small scribbles, little doodles, were produced from simple tasks imposed on himself by the artist, such as drawing while dancing, drawing with both hands at the same time, or drawing until the paper was torn. The doodles dealt with the movements of the artist’s body.
The R series and the Rabiscos follow Restoration, from 2011. In the work, presented at Edgard de Souza’s first solo show at Vermelho in 2015, and shown at the current solo show, an old, used floor cloth was meticulously restored by the artist. Restoration brings together the dualities with which de Souza works in the three series – and in all of his work: the virtuous and the spontaneous; the private and the public; high and low cultures; the diverging opinions.
In the embroidered R series, by Edgard de Souza, one can see the artist’s body at work, moving in a continuous movement back and forth. The only figuration among the embroideries are clouds, in a comment on the search for images in gestural abstraction, which is similar to the game of looking for representations in clouds. The embroideries are produced on linen fabrics, with silk, cotton or linen threads.
The R series is related to the Rabiscos series, produced by de Souza between 2013 and 2015, and shown in the artist’s first solo show at Vermelho. In the series, large and small scribbles, little doodles, were produced from simple tasks imposed on himself by the artist, such as drawing while dancing, drawing with both hands at the same time, or drawing until the paper was torn. The doodles dealt with the movements of the artist’s body.
The R series and the Rabiscos follow Restoration, from 2011. In the work, presented at Edgard de Souza’s first solo show at Vermelho in 2015, and shown at the current solo show, an old, used floor cloth was meticulously restored by the artist. Restoration brings together the dualities with which de Souza works in the three series – and in all of his work: the virtuous and the spontaneous; the private and the public; high and low cultures; the diverging opinions.
Statuary bronze
Photo Filipe Berndt
In the largest bronze piece produced by the artist to date, two bodies appear mirrored and joined at the torso, one on top of the other. The absence of specific particularities of the original model that shapes the work transforms this body into a representation of the collective.
The bronze pieces based on the human body, which de Souza has been producing since the 1990s, deal with existential themes such as loneliness, death, affection, sex, and with references to art history.
In the largest bronze piece produced by the artist to date, two bodies appear mirrored and joined at the torso, one on top of the other. The absence of specific particularities of the original model that shapes the work transforms this body into a representation of the collective.
The bronze pieces based on the human body, which de Souza has been producing since the 1990s, deal with existential themes such as loneliness, death, affection, sex, and with references to art history.
acrylic varnish, acrylic plaster on raw linen
Photo Filipe Berndt
In Terra Incognita (2022), the title of the work appears written in acrylic over linen canvas, using the Timezonetype system, developed by Detanico Lain. Timezonetype is a typography created from the relationship between time zones and the letters of the alphabet. Portions of the map cut by the time zone are used to designate letters. By this way, words are written with pieces of maps, creating arrangements that break the cartographic order and propose new readings of the world based on the written word.
In Terra Incognita (2022), the title of the work appears written in acrylic over linen canvas, using the Timezonetype system, developed by Detanico Lain. Timezonetype is a typography created from the relationship between time zones and the letters of the alphabet. Portions of the map cut by the time zone are used to designate letters. By this way, words are written with pieces of maps, creating arrangements that break the cartographic order and propose new readings of the world based on the written word.
iron
Photo Vermelho
Carmela Gross “HOOK” is both drawing and sculpture simultaneously. This apparent quick gesture took a series of artisanal and industrial procedures to be created. Its title, like its sharp edge, suggests perforation and, consequently, a certain degree of danger.
Douglas de Freitas points out in his text ‘Carmela Gross’ vast primer to face the world’ that Gross’s works “blurres boundaries between sketch, machine-made and handmade / city, crowd and individual, with its tools for questioning the established order, its imagistic assaults, and its weapons for facing the world and art”.
In 1989, Gross presented her works made in iron for the first time. Ana Maria Belluzo wrote at the time: “The figures that define Carmela’s visible universe appear at a time prior to the sign. As a form, they resist the automatisms and facilities of language and impose themselves as visual presences prior to any meaning.”
Carmela Gross “HOOK” is both drawing and sculpture simultaneously. This apparent quick gesture took a series of artisanal and industrial procedures to be created. Its title, like its sharp edge, suggests perforation and, consequently, a certain degree of danger.
Douglas de Freitas points out in his text ‘Carmela Gross’ vast primer to face the world’ that Gross’s works “blurres boundaries between sketch, machine-made and handmade / city, crowd and individual, with its tools for questioning the established order, its imagistic assaults, and its weapons for facing the world and art”.
In 1989, Gross presented her works made in iron for the first time. Ana Maria Belluzo wrote at the time: “The figures that define Carmela’s visible universe appear at a time prior to the sign. As a form, they resist the automatisms and facilities of language and impose themselves as visual presences prior to any meaning.”
Photo Filipe Berndt
Acrylic on canvas and wood
In the Mamarracho series, doodles are drawn, digitalized, enlarged 1000 times and then painted on white canvases. The black lines haphazardly cross the canvas, overflowing onto the wall, making these works hybrid image-objects.
In the Mamarracho series, doodles are drawn, digitalized, enlarged 1000 times and then painted on white canvases. The black lines haphazardly cross the canvas, overflowing onto the wall, making these works hybrid image-objects.
Cut on mdf board, acrylic mass and aluminium corner
Photo Ana Pigosso
The white slates from the “Ruído retórico” [Rethorical noise] series have words and phrases that are carved (and sometimes erased with acrylic mass) on their surface. Messages such as “tudo vai bem” [everything is going well] or “dócil” [docile] call our attention viewed from a critical perspective of the current Brazilian sociopolitical situation.
The white slates from the “Ruído retórico” [Rethorical noise] series have words and phrases that are carved (and sometimes erased with acrylic mass) on their surface. Messages such as “tudo vai bem” [everything is going well] or “dócil” [docile] call our attention viewed from a critical perspective of the current Brazilian sociopolitical situation.
Cut on mdf board, acrylic mass and aluminium corner
Photo Filipe Berndt
The white slates from the “Ruído retórico” [Rethorical noise] series have words and phrases that are carved (and sometimes erased with acrylic mass) on their surface. Messages such as “tudo vai bem” [everything is going well] or “dócil” [docile] call our attention viewed from a critical perspective of the current Brazilian sociopolitical situation.
The white slates from the “Ruído retórico” [Rethorical noise] series have words and phrases that are carved (and sometimes erased with acrylic mass) on their surface. Messages such as “tudo vai bem” [everything is going well] or “dócil” [docile] call our attention viewed from a critical perspective of the current Brazilian sociopolitical situation.
Grooved panel, metal bracket, car exhaust
Photo Filipe Berndt
Parte da série ‘A retórica do poder’, em que Cidade se apropria das emblemáticas Black Paintings de Frank Stella como base formal para uma critica ao emprego da arte como estratégia de dominação. “Essas formas minimalistas já estão implícitas no nosso cotidiano, desde a arquitetura hostil, a bolsa de valores e as formas dos prédios espelhados. […] As “Black Paintings’ poderiam ser feitas por um robô: todos pretos e repetitivos com formas geométricas totalitárias que te levam a perceber símbolos velados através do jogo geométrico”, diz Marcelo Cidade
Part of the series ‘The Rhetoric of Power’, in which Cidade appropriates Frank Stella’s emblematic Black Paintings as a formal basis for a critique of the use of art as a strategy of domination.“These minimalist forms are already implicit in our daily lives, from hostile architecture to the stock market and the shapes of mirrored buildings. […]
The ‘Black Paintings’ could be made by a robot: all black and repetitive with totalitarian geometric shapes that lead you to perceive veiled symbols through the geometric articulation,” says Marcelo Cidade.
Parte da série ‘A retórica do poder’, em que Cidade se apropria das emblemáticas Black Paintings de Frank Stella como base formal para uma critica ao emprego da arte como estratégia de dominação. “Essas formas minimalistas já estão implícitas no nosso cotidiano, desde a arquitetura hostil, a bolsa de valores e as formas dos prédios espelhados. […] As “Black Paintings’ poderiam ser feitas por um robô: todos pretos e repetitivos com formas geométricas totalitárias que te levam a perceber símbolos velados através do jogo geométrico”, diz Marcelo Cidade
Part of the series ‘The Rhetoric of Power’, in which Cidade appropriates Frank Stella’s emblematic Black Paintings as a formal basis for a critique of the use of art as a strategy of domination.“These minimalist forms are already implicit in our daily lives, from hostile architecture to the stock market and the shapes of mirrored buildings. […]
The ‘Black Paintings’ could be made by a robot: all black and repetitive with totalitarian geometric shapes that lead you to perceive veiled symbols through the geometric articulation,” says Marcelo Cidade.
Sandblasted glass and stainless steel
Photo Edouard Fraipont
In “In a Fog,” Marilá Dardot collected phrases with the word “silence” written by various authors, creating an archive. This collection has taken various forms.
“Bajo la niebla [In a Fog],” from 2010, is one of the glass notebooks that compile part of the archive in Spanish. Its structure is stainless steel, and its pages are made of glass, featuring sandblasted texts.
In “In a Fog,” Marilá Dardot collected phrases with the word “silence” written by various authors, creating an archive. This collection has taken various forms.
“Bajo la niebla [In a Fog],” from 2010, is one of the glass notebooks that compile part of the archive in Spanish. Its structure is stainless steel, and its pages are made of glass, featuring sandblasted texts.
Peeled book covers about world nations and index pages
Photo Filipe Berndt
Book covers from the Nations of the World collection are undone, leaving fragments of maps and composing new geographies.
The indexes of the same books announce chapters that describe countries using nationalist phrases. A part of the fabric of the cover, folded, gives the title to the work: Actions of the world.
Book covers from the Nations of the World collection are undone, leaving fragments of maps and composing new geographies.
The indexes of the same books announce chapters that describe countries using nationalist phrases. A part of the fabric of the cover, folded, gives the title to the work: Actions of the world.
Oil and oil stick on wood
Photo Filipe Berndt
This work is part of a research by Longo Bahia focused on the relationship between the image of communism as a political utopia and images of ruins from a “real” communism, such as the monuments built in the Republic of Yugoslavia between the 1960s and 1980s. The research of the Concrete Communism cycle began to be developed during an artist residency at the Hestia Art Residency & Exhibitions Bureau in Belgrade, Serbia.
“Niemeyer” is part of a series of paintings on art transport crates, based on images of Brazilian brutalist buildings and Yugoslav monuments. The wooden crates are dismantled and then reassembled as planned constructions. The figures are painted in colors ranging from black to white, and the compositions between figure and background.
This work is part of a research by Longo Bahia focused on the relationship between the image of communism as a political utopia and images of ruins from a “real” communism, such as the monuments built in the Republic of Yugoslavia between the 1960s and 1980s. The research of the Concrete Communism cycle began to be developed during an artist residency at the Hestia Art Residency & Exhibitions Bureau in Belgrade, Serbia.
“Niemeyer” is part of a series of paintings on art transport crates, based on images of Brazilian brutalist buildings and Yugoslav monuments. The wooden crates are dismantled and then reassembled as planned constructions. The figures are painted in colors ranging from black to white, and the compositions between figure and background.
Acrylic paint and cut on newspaper glued on drywall plaque and Steel frame
Power relations permeate the materials chosen by Komatsu. It is these relations that often constitute the true raw material used in his work. “Lusco Fusco” brings together the precariousness of Drywall with the ephemerality of news from newspaper clippings.
With cuts and punches, Komatsu breaks through the surfaces of his paintings into geometric or gestural abstractions, while fragments of news suggest representations of what could emerge there. While his titles suggest a place between day and night, his forms suggest something between figuration and abstraction.
Power relations permeate the materials chosen by Komatsu. It is these relations that often constitute the true raw material used in his work. “Lusco Fusco” brings together the precariousness of Drywall with the ephemerality of news from newspaper clippings.
With cuts and punches, Komatsu breaks through the surfaces of his paintings into geometric or gestural abstractions, while fragments of news suggest representations of what could emerge there. While his titles suggest a place between day and night, his forms suggest something between figuration and abstraction.
offset printing on 75 gr perforated paper, black gouache and aluminum
Photo Vermelho
This series stems from a curiosity about notions of future that were used in dead languages. Among the languages used in the work are those that disappeared by domination of some other culture, by the decline of political organizations that had that language as mother tongue, by transformations and mergers with other linguistic registers or by the isolation of their speakers.
From this research, the work seeks to create the panorama of different “becomings” that have never really been consummated. It also seeks to record the projections of a future that have become past. In its form, the work also weighs on these transformations, for the letters that form the words are presented in blocks of detachable sheets, allowing the viewer to take the letters that make up these expressions and reassemble them as they wish.
In this way, the public at the same time activates and “kills” the original work through its transformation.
This series stems from a curiosity about notions of future that were used in dead languages. Among the languages used in the work are those that disappeared by domination of some other culture, by the decline of political organizations that had that language as mother tongue, by transformations and mergers with other linguistic registers or by the isolation of their speakers.
From this research, the work seeks to create the panorama of different “becomings” that have never really been consummated. It also seeks to record the projections of a future that have become past. In its form, the work also weighs on these transformations, for the letters that form the words are presented in blocks of detachable sheets, allowing the viewer to take the letters that make up these expressions and reassemble them as they wish.
In this way, the public at the same time activates and “kills” the original work through its transformation.
photopainting made with oil paint on cotton paper
Photo Filipe Berndt
The analog enlargement altered with oil paint and other chemical interventions made in the laboratory was conceived from an image that captures the artist’s first communion as a child. The many layers of interventions refer to what is sublimated in the original image: He’s black roots and the knowledge that has been erased from history. In the new image, reoriented and resized by the artist, his young figure appears holding symbols that refer to both moments: that of domination and the one of belonging.
The analog enlargement altered with oil paint and other chemical interventions made in the laboratory was conceived from an image that captures the artist’s first communion as a child. The many layers of interventions refer to what is sublimated in the original image: He’s black roots and the knowledge that has been erased from history. In the new image, reoriented and resized by the artist, his young figure appears holding symbols that refer to both moments: that of domination and the one of belonging.
Color pencil on paper, inkjet print on Photo Rag ( Heritage Woodfree Bookwhite 315gsm)
Photo Vermelho
Amazônia, Rio Branco is part of the group of works produced by Albergaria from the study trip “Amazon Expedition: Seeking to understand the greatest diversity of the planet”, coordinated by botanist Lúcia Lohmann (Institute of Biosciences of USP), which traveled the rivers Black and White and its margins.
Amazônia, Rio Branco is part of the group of works produced by Albergaria from the study trip “Amazon Expedition: Seeking to understand the greatest diversity of the planet”, coordinated by botanist Lúcia Lohmann (Institute of Biosciences of USP), which traveled the rivers Black and White and its margins.
oil paint on concrete and metal
Photo Filipe Berndt
The Bondage series consists of small-scale concrete paintings that depict the actual or fictional removal of various statues around the world, specifically those celebrating colonial figures or military ideologues. The statues are portrayed against an abstract background, as if they were levitating.
The Bondage series consists of small-scale concrete paintings that depict the actual or fictional removal of various statues around the world, specifically those celebrating colonial figures or military ideologues. The statues are portrayed against an abstract background, as if they were levitating.
Spray paint on donation blanket (textile chipboard)
Photo Vermelho
In “Projeto (re)construtivo: “Movimento” de W.C”, Marcelo Cidade reimagines one of the most emblematic works from Brazilian Concretism, Waldemar Cordeiro’s painting “Movimento”.
Cordeiro’s work was exhibited at the 1st São Paulo Biennial in 1951 and marked the Concrete Art in Brazil. For Cordeiro, the artwork was a product resulting from visual ideas that the artist executed plastically, without any connection to natural reality. In his text “The Object,” from 1956, Cordeiro states: “Artists create […] objects that have historical value in the social life of humanity. The created objects become part of the external, real, and banal world. The partiality of romantics, who seek to make art a mystery and a miracle, discredits the social potential of formal creation.”
For Marcelo Cidade, the external world has basic urgencies that surpass the power of formal creation advocated by Cordeiro. In his work, the painting from 1951 is juxtaposed in a textile conglomerate commonly used in social actions against the cold felt by the growing population experiencing homelessness. With spray paint on a donation blanket, Cidade reaffirms the material potential of everyday needs and confronts the numerous failures of the Brazilian modern project.
In “Projeto (re)construtivo: “Movimento” de W.C”, Marcelo Cidade reimagines one of the most emblematic works from Brazilian Concretism, Waldemar Cordeiro’s painting “Movimento”.
Cordeiro’s work was exhibited at the 1st São Paulo Biennial in 1951 and marked the Concrete Art in Brazil. For Cordeiro, the artwork was a product resulting from visual ideas that the artist executed plastically, without any connection to natural reality. In his text “The Object,” from 1956, Cordeiro states: “Artists create […] objects that have historical value in the social life of humanity. The created objects become part of the external, real, and banal world. The partiality of romantics, who seek to make art a mystery and a miracle, discredits the social potential of formal creation.”
For Marcelo Cidade, the external world has basic urgencies that surpass the power of formal creation advocated by Cordeiro. In his work, the painting from 1951 is juxtaposed in a textile conglomerate commonly used in social actions against the cold felt by the growing population experiencing homelessness. With spray paint on a donation blanket, Cidade reaffirms the material potential of everyday needs and confronts the numerous failures of the Brazilian modern project.
Photo Galeria Vermelho
wood and paint
Photo Vermelho
Embroideries mounted on bamboo hoops
Photo Vermelho
In this series Candiani works with the mathematical qualities of traditional Mexican dances. The
artist worked from the choreographic notation methodology developed by Zacarías Segura
Salinas and presented in the book Danzas Folkloricas de Mexico. Dance Scores deals with the codification presented in the study by Segura Salinas and also with the symbolic qualities of
frame embroidery.
Los Sonajeros is a traditional dance that is performed with variations throughout the state of
Jalisco in Mexico. The purest is the one performed in Tuxpan, which is danced on January 20,
the day of the town's patron saints, San Fabian and San Sebastián.
The dance dates back to pre-Hispanic times, according to the chronicler Sahagún, the Toltecs, founders of Tuxpan "were good singers and while they sang or danced they used drums and
wooden rattles" very precious to those that accompany this dance to this day.
In this series Candiani works with the mathematical qualities of traditional Mexican dances. The
artist worked from the choreographic notation methodology developed by Zacarías Segura
Salinas and presented in the book Danzas Folkloricas de Mexico. Dance Scores deals with the codification presented in the study by Segura Salinas and also with the symbolic qualities of
frame embroidery.
Los Sonajeros is a traditional dance that is performed with variations throughout the state of
Jalisco in Mexico. The purest is the one performed in Tuxpan, which is danced on January 20,
the day of the town's patron saints, San Fabian and San Sebastián.
The dance dates back to pre-Hispanic times, according to the chronicler Sahagún, the Toltecs, founders of Tuxpan "were good singers and while they sang or danced they used drums and
wooden rattles" very precious to those that accompany this dance to this day.
Woven copper wires
This series of works continue the artist´s investigation on the role of copper in Peru´s economy, where this natural resource is exported as a raw material for its use in tech industries. These new works incorporate a series of abstract symbols that are based on different modernist corporate logos used by diverse industries and corporate entities. By using these geometric symbols in a traditional woven form, Garrido-Lecca questions the relation between these modern images, tied to the engines of modernization, the global economy, and their links to pre-Columbian abstraction.
This series of works continue the artist´s investigation on the role of copper in Peru´s economy, where this natural resource is exported as a raw material for its use in tech industries. These new works incorporate a series of abstract symbols that are based on different modernist corporate logos used by diverse industries and corporate entities. By using these geometric symbols in a traditional woven form, Garrido-Lecca questions the relation between these modern images, tied to the engines of modernization, the global economy, and their links to pre-Columbian abstraction.
In its 16th participation at ARCOmadrid, Vermelho presents a dialogue between the works of Carmela Gross and Ximena Garrido-Lecca.
The presentation includes historical pieces by Gross, including X, a piece that was part of her participation in the São Paulo Biennial of 1989. From Garrido-Lecca's recent production, Vermelho presents emblematic works of her research that tenses ancestral knowledge and colonial structures.
Stainless steel rope
The work questions extractivism in opposition to the production of traditional handmade pieces. The work comments on the increasing demand for metals such as steel, valued by industry at the expense of environmental and cultural preservation.
The work questions extractivism in opposition to the production of traditional handmade pieces. The work comments on the increasing demand for metals such as steel, valued by industry at the expense of environmental and cultural preservation.
English nett, tulle and iron structure
Photo Vermelho
MORENINHA, NEGRINHA, POBREZINHA [Dark, Black, Poor litle girl] is a reinterpretation of Gross’s work A negra [Black Woman], from 1997 scaled to 1/10 of the original piece, and so it multiplies in 10 copies. Its title refers to 3 suites from Villa Lobos’s short piano pieces titled Prole do Bebê [baby’s offspring]- the number 2: Moreninha, a boneca de massa [dark little girl – the clay doll]]; the number 5: Negrinha, a boneca de pau[black little girl – the wooden doll]; the number 6: [poor little girl – the rag doll].
MORENINHA, NEGRINHA, POBREZINHA [Dark, Black, Poor litle girl] is a reinterpretation of Gross’s work A negra [Black Woman], from 1997 scaled to 1/10 of the original piece, and so it multiplies in 10 copies. Its title refers to 3 suites from Villa Lobos’s short piano pieces titled Prole do Bebê [baby’s offspring]- the number 2: Moreninha, a boneca de massa [dark little girl – the clay doll]]; the number 5: Negrinha, a boneca de pau[black little girl – the wooden doll]; the number 6: [poor little girl – the rag doll].
6 pieces of painted brass
Photo Ana Pigosso
“A writing with the suggestion of an X (an X marks: here, an X cancels: no). This is a suggestion, the signal not being configured, whose risks, oriented to different spatial senses, are dispersed. Strictly speaking, it is not a question of scratches or painting. Nor is it necessary to speak of an object, despite the fact that the drawing is constructed with metal shafts painted in black and enhanced by the tensions obtained through the ambiguity between the tracing of the hand and the molten material. […] Moment of concentration, resulting from the superposition of several agglomerated layers. It is the necessary counterpoint to the imaginary webs that entangle man in space”.
excerpt from “Carmela Gross” – Ana Maria de Moraes Belluzzo in ARTISTAS brasileiros na 20ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo. São Paulo: Fundação Bienal: Ed. Marca D’Água, 1989
“A writing with the suggestion of an X (an X marks: here, an X cancels: no). This is a suggestion, the signal not being configured, whose risks, oriented to different spatial senses, are dispersed. Strictly speaking, it is not a question of scratches or painting. Nor is it necessary to speak of an object, despite the fact that the drawing is constructed with metal shafts painted in black and enhanced by the tensions obtained through the ambiguity between the tracing of the hand and the molten material. […] Moment of concentration, resulting from the superposition of several agglomerated layers. It is the necessary counterpoint to the imaginary webs that entangle man in space”.
excerpt from “Carmela Gross” – Ana Maria de Moraes Belluzzo in ARTISTAS brasileiros na 20ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo. São Paulo: Fundação Bienal: Ed. Marca D’Água, 1989
Mud, straw, stainless steel
Each piece in the “Dissections” series looks like a precise, machine-cut fragment of an ancient technology. They are parts of a discontinued construction method that uses the same land that will support the building as material for its composition. The pieces appear to have been taken from a historical site and are displayed as artifacts in an anthropological museum.
Each piece in the “Dissections” series looks like a precise, machine-cut fragment of an ancient technology. They are parts of a discontinued construction method that uses the same land that will support the building as material for its composition. The pieces appear to have been taken from a historical site and are displayed as artifacts in an anthropological museum.
Mud, straw, stainless steel
Each piece in the “Dissections” series looks like a precise, machine-cut fragment of an ancient technology. They are parts of a discontinued construction method that uses the same land that will support the building as material for its composition. The pieces appear to have been taken from a historical site and are displayed as artifacts in an anthropological museum.
Each piece in the “Dissections” series looks like a precise, machine-cut fragment of an ancient technology. They are parts of a discontinued construction method that uses the same land that will support the building as material for its composition. The pieces appear to have been taken from a historical site and are displayed as artifacts in an anthropological museum.
Copper plate, patina, stainless steel, aragonite, desert rose, carcopyrite, quartz, copal, candle, palm brooms, ceramics, pallares, coca leaves, corn, copper ropes
For the Signal Restorations series, Ximena Garrido-Lecca reproduces electronic circuits drafted on perfboards (sheets used for prototyping circuits). She selected a series of circuit boards that had sensors which used elements from nature to perform different tasks, replacing their components (resistors, capacitors, etc.) with objects used as ritual offerings to the elements in Peru and Mexico.
For the Signal Restorations series, Ximena Garrido-Lecca reproduces electronic circuits drafted on perfboards (sheets used for prototyping circuits). She selected a series of circuit boards that had sensors which used elements from nature to perform different tasks, replacing their components (resistors, capacitors, etc.) with objects used as ritual offerings to the elements in Peru and Mexico.
cast aluminum
Photo Vermelho
PERDIDAS are compositions formed from tree bark cast in aluminum. They are almost-forms, hinting at incompleteness. They are primitive masses, grouping together like residues from many tactile experiments. The compositions of PERDIDAS seek scale, rhythms, gaps, equivalences, and differences in constructing each group.
PERDIDAS are compositions formed from tree bark cast in aluminum. They are almost-forms, hinting at incompleteness. They are primitive masses, grouping together like residues from many tactile experiments. The compositions of PERDIDAS seek scale, rhythms, gaps, equivalences, and differences in constructing each group.
Acrylic resin and graphite powder on banana fiber craft paper. Iron bracket
Photo Filipe Berndt
In 1992, Carmela Gross presented the solo show “Drawings” at MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo).
The exhibition brought together a set of works called “SOLO,” made with graphite and resin on handmade paper, with irregular edges. Later, Gross decided to fold some drawings in a regular way. This is how the work is presented today: as closed notes, condensed bodies of work, which reveal traces of their initial compositions.
Moreover, the reworking of the piece juxtaposes a formerly gestural and expressionist approach with one that is now characterized by geometric precision and restraint.
In 1992, Carmela Gross presented the solo show “Drawings” at MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo).
The exhibition brought together a set of works called “SOLO,” made with graphite and resin on handmade paper, with irregular edges. Later, Gross decided to fold some drawings in a regular way. This is how the work is presented today: as closed notes, condensed bodies of work, which reveal traces of their initial compositions.
Moreover, the reworking of the piece juxtaposes a formerly gestural and expressionist approach with one that is now characterized by geometric precision and restraint.
Acrylic resin and graphite powder on banana fiber handmade paper
Photo Filipe Berndt
In 1992, Carmela Gross presented the solo show “Drawings” at MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo).
The exhibition brought together a set of works called “SOLO,” made with graphite and resin on handmade paper, with irregular edges. Later, Gross decided to fold some drawings in a regular way. This is how the work is presented today: as closed notes, condensed bodies of work, which reveal traces of their initial compositions.
Moreover, the reworking of the piece juxtaposes a formerly gestural and expressionist approach with one that is now characterized by geometric precision and restraint.
In 1992, Carmela Gross presented the solo show “Drawings” at MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo).
The exhibition brought together a set of works called “SOLO,” made with graphite and resin on handmade paper, with irregular edges. Later, Gross decided to fold some drawings in a regular way. This is how the work is presented today: as closed notes, condensed bodies of work, which reveal traces of their initial compositions.
Moreover, the reworking of the piece juxtaposes a formerly gestural and expressionist approach with one that is now characterized by geometric precision and restraint.
Braided copper with lead weights
This series of works continues the artist’s investigation into the role of copper in Peru’s economy, where this natural resource is exported as a raw material for use in tech industries. These new works incorporate a series of abstract symbols based on different modernist corporate logos used by diverse industries and corporate entities. By using these geometric symbols in a traditional woven form, Garrido-Lecca questions the relation between these modern images, tied to the engines of modernization, the global economy, and their links to pre-Columbian abstraction.
This series of works continues the artist’s investigation into the role of copper in Peru’s economy, where this natural resource is exported as a raw material for use in tech industries. These new works incorporate a series of abstract symbols based on different modernist corporate logos used by diverse industries and corporate entities. By using these geometric symbols in a traditional woven form, Garrido-Lecca questions the relation between these modern images, tied to the engines of modernization, the global economy, and their links to pre-Columbian abstraction.
Braided copper with lead weights
This series of works continues the artist’s investigation into the role of copper in Peru’s economy, where this natural resource is exported as a raw material for use in tech industries. These new works incorporate a series of abstract symbols based on different modernist corporate logos used by diverse industries and corporate entities. By using these geometric symbols in a traditional woven form, Garrido-Lecca questions the relation between these modern images, tied to the engines of modernization, the global economy, and their links to pre-Columbian abstraction.
This series of works continues the artist’s investigation into the role of copper in Peru’s economy, where this natural resource is exported as a raw material for use in tech industries. These new works incorporate a series of abstract symbols based on different modernist corporate logos used by diverse industries and corporate entities. By using these geometric symbols in a traditional woven form, Garrido-Lecca questions the relation between these modern images, tied to the engines of modernization, the global economy, and their links to pre-Columbian abstraction.