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