The surge of life drive embedded in everyday objects is a constant in Edgard de Souza’s oeuvre and becomes evident in the series of spoons the artist have been developing. The objects were meticulously sculpted from wood logs and, here, they were cast in silver. In Colher lambe colher the silver comes to life with human features and, in a pair, seem to serve each other voluptuously. The size and material of the pieces bring the objects closer to those of daily use and has the potential to envelop the viewer – who could lead them to the mouth – in their malice.

ESCADINHA [LITTLE LADDER] is part of Gross’s body of work that investigates ladders as simple machines that require effort from the body to “reach heights desired by the eye.” Ladders were born as instruments of war and, together with arrows and stones, took conflicts beyond the ground. This ambivalence between simple construction and complex uses is present in the organization of the materials that make up ESCADINHA: the bronze, which is heavier, is tied in a rudimentary way to the wooden piece, which struggles to support its pair.

Cara de pau (theater), 2020, features two carved mahogany ping-pong paddles in full play: one in joy, the other in anguish, ready to receive the ball in its face. The reference to Greek theater and the tragedy-comedy duality signals the polarity of emotions that has taken over the world: a zigzag of emotions where one is always in opposition to the other.

“In times of intense denialism, rapid publications on the internet and fake news, we have failed to communicate, we have failed to listen. Dialogues have turned into a violent ping-pong game, a dispute”, contextualizes de Souza.

Among the many subjects of Dora Longo Bahia’s research is the exploration of violence as both theme and form. The artist works with “bad images”—those that are blurred, damaged, or incorrect, often sourced from quick internet searches or low-quality reproductions of famous works. Through painting, printmaking, photography, and video, she contrasts idyllic imagery with the destruction of these images.

Her work aims to explore the tension between the surface and what lies beneath.

In this work, the objects evoke the presence of the invisible. It is possible to imagine, by the arrangement of the paintings, the body of two people sitting on the benches and using the objects that orbit them. They are objects of religious use by the pretos velhos, but which refer, as it should be, to the culture and customs of the enslaved black peoples in Brazil.
The work is done with raw cotton rags, pencil and coffee. With that, Vargas elaborates a construction that makes use of some of the most recognized commodities of the period of slavery in Brazilian lands – coffee, cotton and sugar – and, not by chance, products that tell the story of his ancestors who were forced to work in mills that had these plantations.

The Organoids that give the exhibition its name are hand-painted amoeboid mobiles. Here, they no longer have recognizable shapes, they are organically shaped pieces held together by steel wires, which dance as the wind passes through them. The reconstruction of Lia Chaia’s hand through science led the artist to celebrate the advancement of research that makes natural what is synthetic, or that synthesizes the natural.

Sources is an emblematic series in Gaviria’s production, as it explores the limits of the perceptible and the possibilities of making the invisible visible through different translation logics.

The series is made up of analog magnifications of images of radio waves emitted millions of years ago by quasars in remote cosmic space. It is assumed that these waves occurred at a time when the universe was in its infancy.

Captured by wave telescopes, the sound signals were digitized and later converted into twodimensional images with the support of Zsolt Paragi, Joint Institute for VLBI, and Sandor Frey, FOMI Satelite Geodetic Observatory.

Four round clocks, with hands positioned at right angles, create a square within circles. The piece’s lean geometry establishes associations with time zones as temporal spaces and makes a subtle reference to Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ work, “Perfect Lovers.”

This series of embroidered drawings is inspired by the theory developed by Hungarian dancer, choreographer, and architect Rudolf Laban, regarded as the founder of modern dance in Central Europe. Laban enhanced the observation and appreciation of movement, creating a method to experiment with, describe, and document movements, making both their functional and expressive implications fully evident.
Laban’s theory serves as a tool to analyze and understand movement, exploring the body’s reactions to its environment in greater depth.

This series of embroidered drawings is inspired by the theory developed by Hungarian dancer, choreographer, and architect Rudolf Laban, regarded as the founder of modern dance in Central Europe. Laban enhanced the observation and appreciation of movement, creating a method to experiment with, describe, and document movements, making both their functional and expressive implications fully evident.
Laban’s theory serves as a tool to analyze and understand movement, exploring the body’s reactions to its environment in greater depth.

For someone who has spent much of her life in transit, like Andujar, the house (yano or xapono in the Yanomami languages) and, more broadly, the social organization of the Yanomami, becomes a topic of interest. The xaponos are collective spaces where more than one family lives. From these structures, various trails lead to the river, the forest, and other neighboring communities. The artist’s observation of the local flora, the detailed study of the structures of each element—leaves, fungi, and tree trunks—is part of her investigation into the elements of the forest that make up both the everyday life and the imagination of the Yanomami.

This work was produced with infrared film in an analog camera. In Brazil, this type of film was controlled, with its use restricted to the military and some specific scientific purposes. By subverting the traditional use of infrared, Andujar and other experimental photographers of the time propose a playful and poetic operation in contrast to the programmatic and functional use of the technology.

Excerpt from a text by Thais Rivitti for the exhibition “My Life in Two Worlds”, at the Pinacoteca do Ceará.

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.

The power relations inherent in the materials chosen by Komatsu often constitute the real raw material used in his works. Lusco-Fusco brings together the precariousness of Drywall with the ephemeral of the news. With cuts and strokes, Komatsu breaks the surfaces of his paintings into geometric or gestural abstractions, while news fragments suggest representations of what could appear there. While his titles suggest a place between day and night, his forms suggest something between figuration and abstraction.

“The skies are attempts to synthesize landscapes constructed with various materials found on the streets into a smaller pictorial space. The spatial limitation requires a more precise constructive reasoning and allows for a more direct relationship with the original use of the element that constitutes the landscape and its new function (such as, for example, a bath towel that becomes a road). The encaustic technique runs through the series, functioning at times as a copper plate on which we can carve and engrave lines, and at other times as a homogeneous paste that refers to the skies in their multiple personalities (green, blue, lilac, gray, brown). These are paintings that strengthen by being linked to each other, but at the same time leave room for other skies to appear and promote new constructive attempts to organize the landscape and the various elements that constitute it.”
Meia, 2024

In this series, Candiani draws inspiration from the mathematical qualities of traditional Mexican dances. Using the choreographic notation methodology developed by Zacarías Segura Salinas and presented in the book Danzas Folklóricas de México, Candiani explores the codification outlined in Segura Salinas’ study, as well as the symbolic qualities of hoop embroidery.
The piece is based on the choreographic notation of the dance Los Acatlaxquis. Los Acatlaxquis is a traditional dance from Puebla, Mexico, symbolizing the sowing and harvesting of corn. Dancers, dressed in colorful costumes, carry sticks and perform rhythmic movements representing fieldwork. This dance has pre-Hispanic roots and honors agricultural deities. It is performed during local festivities, especially in Atlixco, during the Huey Atlixcáyotl, a celebration of Puebla’s identity.

The panel lit by LEDs, Figurantes (2016), by Carmela Gross, resembles so many other such panels usually found in bars, stores and gasoline stations, bearing advertisements. But here, instead of products and services, the panel presents an extraordinary procession of dubious figures. They are those listed by Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852), as members of the Society of December 10, consisting of temporary workers, parvenus, ruined heirs, vagabonds and all sorts of shiftless people: pickpockets, ex-cons, swindlers, decadent ruffians and many others… The luminous redemption of this peculiar group of political activists, shown on the LED panel mounted by the artist, reactualizes other groups that came in the wake of that one, and points to so many more which circulate in the contemporary cities.

Prologue (Siete Campanas) is a series of sound sculptures that explore how the presence of nature resonates in urban and extra-urban environments.

Candiani captured the soundscapes of key locations of different geographies, such as rivers and hills, integrating them into the work. A recurring motif in the artist’s practice, the trumpet, serves as a metaphorical amplifier for the messages that nature conveys. The installation features seven intricately woven wicker bells, positioned at a height that invites visitors to momentarily inhabit them. The work fosters a connection between the forms of sound and those of nature, encouraging an attentive listening experience.

Prologue also pays homage to artisanal knowledge, reflected in its materials. The shapes of the bells evoke seeds, fungi, or microscopic organisms, symbolizing the countless entities that coexist with us in our world, landscapes, and cities. The Campanas are an invitation to refine our listening perception.