240 x 160 cm
Watercolor on 100% cotton paper
Photo Samuel EstevesThe series Tríades by Chiara Banfi explores the intersection between geometry, music, and symbolism, investigating the deep structural connections between harmonic patterns and geometric forms. By examining these relationships, the artist seeks to reveal the correspondences between musical harmony, sacred geometry, and its connection to universal archetypes.
93 x 90 cm
embroidery on velvet and wet velvet
Photo Filipe BerndtThe concept of a central sun, often considered as the cosmic heart of the universe, has intrigued various cultures throughout history. This idea is rooted in the belief that there is a celestial source of life force from which all creation emanates. Several ancient civilizations and mystical traditions have woven intricate cosmological narratives around the notion of a central sun. For them, this radiant and transcendent entity represents the origin of energy, consciousness, and cosmic harmony.
While interpretations may differ, the common thread among these beliefs is the notion that the central sun serves as a guiding force, illuminating the paths of existence and infusing life with purpose and vitality. Such cultural perspectives on the central sun offer profound insights into the interconnectedness of all living beings with the cosmos, inspiring a deep reverence for the vast mysteries beyond our understanding.
Contemplating the concept of the central sun, these cultures encourage us to explore the boundless nature of the universe and our place within its grand tapestry.
129 x 80 x 9 cm open/ 69 x 80 x 13 cm closed
Plush, mdf, styrofoam and polypropylene fabric
Photo Filipe BerndtIn Cases (2022) Banfi builds objects that provide packaging, transport and protection for a single vinyl record. However, there is only the memory of these objects and their different sound possibilities given by materials and colors suggesting different rhythms for each work.
Ø 30 cm
vynil Photo Filipe Berndt “In 2012 I had the luck of witnessing a recording of Elza Soares singing Aquarela do Brasil for the album Sonzeira - Brasil Bam Bam Bam, produced by Gilles Peterson and Kassin. It was a unique experience. I asked Gilles if I could use the take where Elza gets emotional - and that they weren’t going to use for the album - to think of an art piece. He loved the idea. At the time I wanted Elza’s voice acappella but the guitar leaked into the voice’s microphone and I had no way of separating them. Last year, with a new plugin we managed to separate the guitar from the voice, and I started thinking about the project again, and after a visit to a friend’s record pressing plant, I thought of a collection of “painted” records with Elza’s voice. I got in contact with Pedro Loureiro, Elza’s agent telling him about the project, he found the idea beautiful and gave me full support. On the 19th of January of 2022 I went to the pressing plant and spent the day with their team creating a way of unifying the colored parts of residual polymers and pieces of vinyl to create unique records. Elza passed away the next day. I am so grateful to everyone that was part of the project and helped made it come true” – Chiara Banfi
64 x 52 x 3 cm (each) - diptych
Laminated plywood sheet coated with sapele and water based marker; laminated plywood sheet coated with faia and solid beech wood collage
Photo courtesy of artistChiara Banfi’s interest lies in the confluence between nature and sound – or nature and music. From her early large scale expansive drawings that invaded and dialogued with the given architectural space forming visual soundwaves to her more recent works deploying rocks as rhythm dispersing solids, her production seeks to give corporality to bodiless findings.
Shelf 25 x 35 x 3 cm / RCA cable 3m
White quartz, smoky quartz, RCA cable and solid cumaru wood
Photo Fabio AudiMy current work explores sound structures in a sensory way, where I feel that music and nature come together in a kind of code. … I’ve always thought of sound, volume, and rhythm breaking boundaries and barriers in search of a place, looking for ways to visualize how that sound could be ‘seen’ if traveling in a room, a body, or a garden.
Chiara Banf
Shelf 25 x 40 x 3 cm / RCA cable 3m
Grenade, RCA cable and solid cumaru wood
Photo Fabio Audi
Variable dimensions
Bach sheet music book, painted with ink and pedestal
Photo Edouard Fraipont
210 x 480 cm
13 obsidian stones, RCA and RCA cables
Photo Edouard Fraipont
134 x 90 x10 cm
Solid wood and plywood, black synthetic leather and Marshall orthophonic screen
Photo Edouard Fraipont
Variable Dimensions
Imbuia wood, quartz stones and RCA cables
Photo Edouard Fraipont
160 x 110 x 7 cm
Re-thickened laminated plywood, MDF coated with imbuia veneer, sealer and exposed screws
Photo Edouard Fraipont
160 x 110 x 7 cm
Photo Edouard Fraipont
160 x 110 x 7 cm
Sunburst painting on wood
Photo Rafael CañasSunburst refers to a technique used in the finishing of musical instruments such as acoustic, electric and bass guitars. In the solo show, Banfi presents a set of twelve large-format paintings on wood, which incorporate this technique. The result reveals fields that radiate from their interiors with bursts of light, which approximate this new phase of Banfi with the abstract pictorial fields created by Mark Rothko and Arcângelo Ianelli. On these shiny surfaces, measuring 1.60 x 1.10 meters each, the observer will see his/her image reflected at the center of the pictorial field, thanks to the painting techniques employed.
160 x 110 x 7 cm
Sunburst painting on wood
Photo Rafael CañasSunburst refers to a technique used in the finishing of musical instruments such as acoustic, electric and bass guitars. In the solo show, Banfi presents a set of twelve large-format paintings on wood, which incorporate this technique. The result reveals fields that radiate from their interiors with bursts of light, which approximate this new phase of Banfi with the abstract pictorial fields created by Mark Rothko and Arcângelo Ianelli. On these shiny surfaces, measuring 1.60 x 1.10 meters each, the observer will see his/her image reflected at the center of the pictorial field, thanks to the painting techniques employed.
65,5 x 33,5 cm each - polyptych composed of 12 pieces
Photo Edouard Fraipont
57 x 78,3 cm
Collage on paper
51 x 36 cm
Inkjet on paper
75 x 75 x 4 cm
Adhesive vinyl on paper and painted wood
55 x 50 x 15 cm
Different kinds of cloths
33 x 124cm
Vinyl records, paper and wood Photo Edouard Fraipont
Wooden slats and string
33 x 65 cm (each)
Caixeta wood, paper and vinyl Photo Edouard Fraipont “O magnífico mundo novo da música” [The Magnificent New World of Music] (2013), materializes the finalizing of a currently obsolete process. A set of 36 vinyl records, also known as LPs, are presented alongside their album covers, in wooden frames, thus suggesting the completion of an anachronistic ritual in our days of MP3, which involved a different relation between the body (hearing) and sound.
variable dimensions
White and obsidian quartz, RCA and RCA cable
Photo Edouard FraipontChiara Banfi’s interest lies in the confluence between nature and sound – or nature and music. From her early large scale expansive drawings – that invaded and dialogued with the given architectural space forming visual soundwaves – to her more recent works deploying rocks as rhythm dispersing solids, her production seeks to give corporality to bodiless findings.
Chiara Banfi’s interest lies in the confluence between nature and sound – or nature and music. From her early large scale expansive drawings – that invaded and dialogued with the given architectural space forming visual soundwaves – to her more recent works deploying rocks as rhythm dispersing solids, her production seeks to give corporality to bodiless findings.
The unseen dispersion of information through sound has led Banfi to investigate silence as a constructive part of sound. The idea is not silence as the absence of sound, quite the opposite, pauses are as important as the notes in a musical composition. Banfi’s work performs an investigation into the vibrations and oscillations unperceived by the human ear – either due to matters of frequency, or to an unawareness of pauses.
In this regard, Banfi has worked around the musical writings of Johan Sebastian Bach by obliterating musical notations on the composer’s musical sheets leaving only the signs of silence and pauses in a gesture that shifts the comprehension of his scores.
When working with stones, cables and RCA plugs Banfi makes evident the spectral form of frequencies traveling through the complex network of nature. She uses vinyl records as monuments to the ailing music industry and, at times, as visual elements heralding new forms of representation of sound. Banfi’s vinyl records are grooveless – without any recorded music – and colored as in, for example, the series of works entitled “The Empty Recordings” (2013) and “The Albers collection” (2019).
This monumentality is also present in works that pay homage to certain musical instruments by transforming their constitutive materials into monoliths, or by exposing the interior environment of these instruments where sound is created and dispersed into space.
Material selection is key to Banfi’s production. Specific paper fibers, woods, stones and gems are in dialogue with the conceptual production of composers, record labels or musical trends offering a new awareness of the various soundscapes.
Chiara Banfi’s interest lies in the confluence between nature and sound – or nature and music. From her early large scale expansive drawings – that invaded and dialogued with the given architectural space forming visual soundwaves – to her more recent works deploying rocks as rhythm dispersing solids, her production seeks to give corporality to bodiless findings.
The unseen dispersion of information through sound has led Banfi to investigate silence as a constructive part of sound. The idea is not silence as the absence of sound, quite the opposite, pauses are as important as the notes in a musical composition. Banfi’s work performs an investigation into the vibrations and oscillations unperceived by the human ear – either due to matters of frequency, or to an unawareness of pauses.
In this regard, Banfi has worked around the musical writings of Johan Sebastian Bach by obliterating musical notations on the composer’s musical sheets leaving only the signs of silence and pauses in a gesture that shifts the comprehension of his scores.
When working with stones, cables and RCA plugs Banfi makes evident the spectral form of frequencies traveling through the complex network of nature. She uses vinyl records as monuments to the ailing music industry and, at times, as visual elements heralding new forms of representation of sound. Banfi’s vinyl records are grooveless – without any recorded music – and colored as in, for example, the series of works entitled “The Empty Recordings” (2013) and “The Albers collection” (2019).
This monumentality is also present in works that pay homage to certain musical instruments by transforming their constitutive materials into monoliths, or by exposing the interior environment of these instruments where sound is created and dispersed into space.
Material selection is key to Banfi’s production. Specific paper fibers, woods, stones and gems are in dialogue with the conceptual production of composers, record labels or musical trends offering a new awareness of the various soundscapes.
Chiara Banfi
São Paulo, 1979
Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro
Solo show
2022
– Chiara Banfi. Tempo – Galeria Silvia Cintra + Box4 – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
– Chiara Banfi. Take 3 – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
2020
– Loud Sound (mostra digital)
2018
– Chiara Banfi. The Runout – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
2017
– Ebu D’Água – Oi Futuro Flamengo – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
2016
– Palpitaciones – Carmem Araujo Arte – Caracas – Venezuela
– Notações – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
2015
– Fiume Achates – Galeria Silvia Cintra+Box4 – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
2013
– Gravações Perdidas – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
– No No Yes Please – Galeria Silvia Cintra + Box4 – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
2012
– Sunburst – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
2011
– O papel do jardim – Galeria Silvia Cintra + Box4 – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
2010
– KOTO – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
– Place to Be – GaleryRio – Nantes – França
2009
– LUGAR – Camara de Comércio de Bogotá – Bogotá – Colômbia
2007
– Mirante – Galeria Lunara – Porto Alegre – Brasil
– Pausa – Galeria Vemelho – São Paulo – Brasil
2006
– Cruzamentos – Caminhos – DRCLAS – Cambridge – EUA
– Cruzamentos – Encontros –Boston Arts Academy – Boston – EUA
– Sweet Melody – LABF15 – Lyon – França
2005
– Firehouse – De Vleeshal – Middelburg – Holanda
– Viga Mestra – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
2004
– Várias Marés – Espaço ECCO – Brasília – Brasil
– Open Studios – Gasworks – Londres – Inglaterra
Group shows
2023
– Andar pelas bordas: bordado e gênero como práticas de cuidado – Arte132 – São Paulo – Brasil
– Casa no céu – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
– Liga Pontos – Tropigalpão – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
2019
– Novas Frequências – Cine Jóia Copacabana e MAC Niterói – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
– Canção Enigmática – relações entre arte e som nas coleções MAM RJ – Museu de Arte Moderna [MAM] – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
– Ambages – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
– Entre Sentidos – Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán [MUNT] – San Miguel de Tucumán – Argentina
– Lado B: O disco de vinil na arte contemporânea brasileira – Sesc Belenzinho – São Paulo – Brasil
2018
– Uniqueness and Convergence. Especial Exhibition of BRICKS Alliance of Art Museums and Galleries – National Art Museum of China – Pequim – China
2017
– A invenção da praia – Instituto Europeu de Design – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
– Disco É Cultura: o disco de vinil e o toca-disco na arte contemporânea brasileira 1969-2017 – Castelinho do Flamengo – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
2016
– Os muitos e o um: a arte contemporânea brasileira na coleção de José Olympio e Andrea Pereira – Instituto Tomie Ohtake (ITO) – São Paulo – Brasil
– Do Clube para a Praça – Jacarandá – Rio de Janeiro, RJ – Brasil
– Fase 3 – MUBE – São Paulo – Brasil
– Natureza Franciscana – Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM SP) – São Paulo – Brasil
2015
– Imagine Brazil – DHC/Art Foundation for Contemporary Art – Montreal – Canadá
– Intervenções Públicas ArtRio – Museu da República – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
– Ruído – Oficina Oswald Andrade – São Paulo – Brasil
2014
– Huna, Hunak: Here/There – Al Riwaq Exhibitihion Space Doha – Catar
– Imagine Brazil – MAC Lyon – Lion – França
2013
– Imagine Brazil (Artist’s Books) – Astrup Fearnley Museet – Oslo – Noruega
– Além da Biblioteca – Feira do Livro de Frankfurt 2013 – Frankfurt – Alemanha
– Além da Biblioteca – Itochu Aoyama Art Square – Tóquio – Japão
– Brasil Vívido – Sotheby’s – Nova York – EUA
– Prospect 1 – Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego – San Diego – EUA
– Tomie Ohtake Correspondências – Instituto Tomie Ohtake – São Paulo – Brasil
2011
– Contra a Parede – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
– 32º Panorama da arte Brasileira – Museu de Arte Moderna [MAM SP] – São Paulo – Brasil
– Convivendo com Arte [diálogos do moderno ao contemporâneo] – Torre Santander – São Paulo – Brasil
– Miradas Sin Coordenadas – Galería 80m2 Arte & Debates – Lima – Peru
2010
– Paralela 2010- A contemplação do mundo- Liceu de Artes e Ofício- São Paulo- Brasil
– Quem tem medo? – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
2009
– Artérias e Capilares – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
– pH Neutro – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
2008
– Blooming Brasil-Japão – O seu lugar – Toyota Municipal Museum of Art – Província de Aichi – Japão
– Exposição de Verão – Galeria Silvia Cintra-Box 4 – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
2007
– Futuro do Presente – Instituto Itaú Cultural – São Paulo – Brasil
2006
– 10 anos + 1 – Os anos recentes da arte brasileira – Instituto Tomie Othake – São Paulo – Brasil
– Paralela – Prodan – São Paulo – Brasil
– Urban Spaces – DNA Galerie – Berlin – Alemanha
– Rumos Itaú Cultural 2005/2006 Artes Visuais – Instituto Itaú Cultural – São Paulo – Brasil
– Rumos Itaú Cultural 2005/2006 Artes Visuais – Paço Imperial – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
– Rumos Itaú Cultural 2005/2006 Artes Visuais – Casa das Onze janelas – Belém – Brasil
– Rumos Itaú Cultural 2005/2006 Artes Visuais – Dragão do Mar – Fortaleza – Brasil
2005
– Além da Imagem – Centro Cultural Telemar – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
– Panorama – Museu de Arte de São Paulo [MAM SP] – São Paulo – Brasil
– Verbo – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
– J’en Rêve – Fondation Cartier – Paris – França
2004
– Tudo Aquilo que Escapa – 46° Salão Pernambucano de Artes Plásticas – Espaço Cícero Dias do Museu do Estado – Recife – Brasil
– Prêmio Chamex de Arte Jovem – Instituto Tomie Ohtake – São Paulo – Brasil
– Underground – Corpo de Baile – Sesc Consolação – São Paulo – Brasil
2003
– Yba – Young Brazilian Artists – Galeria André Viana – Porto – Portugal
– Sem Título – Chiara Banfi – (A Operação Ilegal/ O Lugar Do Homem) – Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – SP
– Figura 4 – Espaço Bananeiras – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
– Corpo de Baile- Galeria Vermelho – São Paulo – Brasil
– Metacorpos – Corpo de Baile – Paço das Artes – São Paulo – Brasil
– 35° Anual de Arte – FAAP – São Paulo – Brasil
2002
– 34° Anual de Arte – Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado [FAAP] – São Paulo – Brasil
Grants and Residencies
2013
– URRA – Residencia de Arte de Buenos Aires – Buenos Aires – Argentina
2008
– Mountain School of Arts – Los Angeles – EUA
Awards
2013
– Prêmio Aquisição EFG Bank e ArtNexus
2004
– Art in Residency Programme at Gasworks Gallery – 1° lugar Prêmio Chamex de Arte Jovem – Londres – Inglaterra
2003
– Bolsa-Prêmio – 35° Anual de Arte – FAAP – São Paulo – Brasil
Public Collections
– Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR) – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
– Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil
– De Vleeshal – Middelburg – Holanda
– Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego – EUA
– Harvard University – Cambridge – EUA
Private Collections open to the Public
– Coleção Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Comodato Roger Wright – São Paulo –Brasil
– Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand – Museu de Arte Moderna [MAM RJ] – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
– Sayago & Pardon Collection – Tustin – CA – EUA
“The real sunset is imponderable and transitory. The sunset of your dreams is fixed and eternal”
Livro do desassossego [The Book of restlessness], Fernando Pessoa
When Chiara Banfi showed me her exhibition project for the Galeria Vermelho, I raised a thousand issues – as I usually do – but I was especially skeptical with her wish to make the main beam of the mezzanine “descend and spin” (in the mental, not physical sense, of course) and “embrace the place with the drawing”. I’ve known that exhibition space since it still was three joint houses. After the remodeling, the mainstay of the building consists of five crossbeams scissoring away from the main beam, forming the roof’s framework. From a bottom-up perspective, this trellis obstructs the overlying effect of the main beam. I let my questions keep some tension in the air.
How to write a critique along with the artistic creation, i.e., based on a still invisible object on the order of the ideas, which would not be the cold description of a result visible to any observer once it was ready? The critic’s task requires comments (a less evident requirement than it seems), and then what? Yet the search of interpretation demands, in the case of contemporary art, the knowledge of a fumbling walk in the dark We will arrive somewhat together, Chiara at the gallery and I at the printer’s, blind to each other. Not so blind, however.
Like few artists of her generation, Chiara Banfi has built her own repertoire, characterized by a spontaneous line, which dilates into cellular elements; free in space, they would be blessed conversations with Calder’s mobiles. To be recognizable for a formal unity is a double-edged sword: while it represents an achievement, it can signal a shyness to experiment a feat outside of the assured territory. Not content in having an unmistakable stroke, Chiara lets herself be guided by curiosity, which has given her the transition from a wall painting to an environmental occupation.
Chiara’s drawing unfolded after a trip to the Amazon, from the contact with the traces of Toltec civilization and from her bond with the phenomena of nature, the rational field being activated by the spiritual . There is a “magical” dimension – always present in Chiara’s statements – whose transcendental character reminds me of Kandinski’s freedom with balance, his painting integrated to musicality
Her apotheosis took place last year in Brasília, with “Várias marés” [Many tides], her first individual exhibition. Waters and clouds penetrated and came out of eight shades of gray. It can even be said that Chiara’s slow metamorphosis came from a surrealist wave foretelling a latent surrealism, but found stability in a kind of abstraction, in which the third dimension corresponds to an ideal plane to be cautiously subdued. The material world, reality as it presents itself, does not seem to seduce this artist.
Yesterday, when I arrived at the gallery, the beam had already been taken down. Just with the strength of the green color. Together with Calder, it was possible to distinguish a tangent toward Leda Catunda’s shapes (drops, tongues, bellies). The trimmed wood structures showed the outline of extracted “fullness”, each one maintaining its autonomy. The glued vinyl drawing was not there yet, awaiting the end of the dust-raising sanding and polishing phase; nor was the sound track of the “minima” band, which would give the impression of constant rain outside. As to the mezzanine, I suddenly saw it reduced to a rudimentary shoulder pad. Besides the main beam, a liquid beam, spilled or drunk, overflows from the walls to the floor. The beam is down and there is a beam which almost rises, inflated by the drawing. This very beam, stretched on the floor, gets in the way. This obstacle-beam will certainly trip the inattentive, and a sharpening of the senses will come, I believe, from this inattention. The environment can influence traffic: the public will “avoid” the passage through a virtual wall raised with the simple drop down of a girder, now dividing space…
The role of art, for Chiara, is still close to the moment in which the sun shines on the leaves and has the power to take the visitor to another place. Just like Alice’s rabbit….
Lisette Lagnado, January, 2005
House in the Sky
Take 3
The runout
Overload
Coletiva
Notations
Gravações Perdidas
Sunburst
Contra a Parede
Who’s afraid of?
Koto
Artérias e Capilares [Arteries and Capillaries]
Ph Neutro [Neutral Ph]
Pause
Viga Mestre
Modos de Usar [How To Use]