Biennial, but not much

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Exhibition | New Power: passability
From April 19st to September 29th
Tuesday to Friday – From 10am to 21:30pm, Saturday – From 10am to 19:30pm and Sunday – From 10am to 18:30pm

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Exhibition | A Color Defect
From April 25th to December 01th
Tuesday to Saturday from 10:30 am to 21 pm | Sundays and holidays from 10:30 am to 18:XNUMX pm

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Exhibition | of the Brazils
From May 3nd to October 27st
Tuesdays to Sundays and holidays, from 10am to 17pm

One of the most important photographers in the world, Claudia Andujar is the new artist to occupy the Ceará art gallery. The museum, which is part of the Public Network of Cultural Equipment and Spaces (Rece) of the Secretariat of Culture of Ceará (SECULT) and is managed by Instituto Mirante, opens the exhibition “Claudia Andujar. My life in two worlds” on Saturday, June 22th, from 17pm. Entry is free and there will be accessibility in Libras.

The opening program will feature a special session of the documentary “The Lady with the Arrows”, 2024, by Heidi Specogna. The film, which was shown in Brazil only during this year's “It's All True” festival, addresses Claudia Andujar's relationship of affection and activism with the indigenous Yanomami people. The session takes place at 17:30 pm and 80 tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, starting at 16 pm.

Divided into five cores, “Claudia Andujar. My life in two worlds” is curated by Eduardo Brandão and brings together around 200 photographs by the Swiss artist naturalized in Brazil. The title reinforces the curatorial proposal, which brings different views and traffic in Andujar: between photojournalism and experimental art; the big cities and the forest; Europe, where she was born, and America, the continent that welcomed her after the Nazi persecution of her paternal family; herself and the Other.

Recognized for her humanistic work in photography, Andujar builds his work based on long coexistence with the environment, people and customs. This is what you see in series like “Brazilian Families”, one of the first rehearsals she carried out in Brazil, in which she spent long periods living with different families in cities in São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Bahia. The intense work of reworking of images made by the artist is also highlighted in the exhibition. In “Sonia”, to reflect aesthetically on the shapes of the female body, photographs with infrared film are subsequently rephotographed, with an experimental use of color filters and overlays.

“Bahian Train” is another important work present in the exhibition, which portrays migrants who tried to settle in São Paulo by returning to their cities of origin, sent by the São Paulo Department of Immigration and Colonization. To do the essay published in a report from the classic magazine Reality, in 1969, Andujar boarded the train alone that left São Paulo and stopped in several cities in Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Bahia.

Collaboration with Reality led the photographer to have the first contact with the Yanomami indigenous people, working on a special edition on the Amazon, in 1971. From then on, Claudia Andujar establishes a careful and committed connection with those people threatened at the time – and still today – by mining and by political and economic interests, such as the military government's industrial development project, which built large highways in the region.

During the military dictatorship, Claudia began to take part in the political struggle in defense of the Yanomami people, who welcomed her and recognized the artist as an ally.. During the 1970s, she made several trips to the territory, living for 14 months in the Catrimani Reserve and getting involved with the local way of life, culture, habits and rituals of those people.

In 1977, as part of the National Security Law, published by the Military Government, she was forcibly removed from indigenous territory, being prohibited from returning to the Amazon. From there, In 1977, the photographer founded the Commission for the Creation of Yanomami Park (CCPY), which aimed to demarcate the territory, which only came to fruition in 1992, with the creation of the Yanomami Indigenous Land.

This period is portrayed especially in series “Catrimani”, “Reahu”, “Sonhos Yanomami” and “Marcados”, in which it is possible to perceive the real rapprochement between the photographer and the Yanomami people, in addition to the language experimentalism which, over time, was expanded until reaching extremely innovative aesthetic proposals.

The retrospective “Claudia Andujar. My life in two worlds” will be on display at Pinacoteca do Ceará until December 29, 2024 and connects Ceará to an international circuit of museums that have reflected the great work of Claudia Andujar. In recent years, the artist's work has been exhibited in institutions around the world, with support from the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain (France), such as in Mexico, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, England, the United States and Germany. Always free, the Pinacoteca offers visitors the chance to meet one of the most celebrated photographers in contemporary art who, at 93 years old, makes a fundamental contribution to understanding Brazil.

The exhibition has indicative rating of 12 years and will have several accessibility features, such as tactile works, audio description, Braille and video in Libras, in addition to a series of training activities, with different audiences, throughout the entire exhibition period.

Documentary “The Lady of the Arrows”

Shown in Brazil in April this year, during the “It’s all true” festival (SP), the documentary “The Lady of the Arrows” (The Lady With the Arrows, 2024), by Swiss director Heidi Specogna, shows Claudia Andujar's deep relationship with the Yanomami people, in an emotional seam from the artist's biography, her relationship with photography and activism in the fight against the exploitation of the Amazon forest and the defense of the Yanomami people

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Exhibition | Claudia Andujar. My life in two worlds
From June 22rd to December 29th
Monday to Friday, 10am to 19pm; Saturdays, from 10am to 11:30am

Screening of the documentary | The Lady With the Arrows, 2024
Saturday, June 22nd, from 17:30 pm
Ceará Pinacoteca Auditorium
Free access | 80 tickets distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, starting at 16pm

It is impossible to reflect on the work of the artist and intellectual Lia D Castro (Martinópolis, São Paulo, 1978) not to mention encounters, contrasts, frictions and transformations. From July 5th, the public can find the exhibition Lia D Castro: everywhere and nowhere, No. MASP – São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand Art Museum. The artist's first solo exhibition in a museum brings together 36 works, the majority of which are figurative paintings. The selected works explore scenarios where affection, dialogue and imagination become important tools for social transformation.

The title of the exhibition is based on the observation of the historical absence of minority groups in positions of power and decision-making — nowhere —, while its presence and workforce make up the foundations that support society — everywhere. Curated by Isabella Rjeille, curator, MASP, and Glaucea Helena de Britto, assistant curator, MASP, the exhibition presents works that cover the artist’s entire production.

Lia D Castro uses prostitution as a research tool and develops her production based on meetings with her clients – cisgender men, mostly white, heterosexual, middle and upper class – to subvert relations of power or violence that may arise between them , combining life history and social history. Themes such as masculinity and whiteness, but also affection, care and responsibility, are addressed on these occasions and result in paintings, prints, drawings, photographs and installations created collaboratively.

In these moments, she talks to these men and invites them to reflect: when did you realize you were white? And when did you discover you were cisgender, heterosexual? “Questions to which the artist is not looking for a definitive answer, but rather to provoke a position within the racial debate, on gender and sexuality”, says curator Isabella Rjeille.

Lia D Castro's conversations with these men are permeated by references to important black intellectuals such as Frantz Fanon, Toni Morrison, Conceição Evaristo and bell hooks. Phrases taken from these authors' books, read by the artist in the company of her collaborators, are inserted into the canvases and mix with gestures, scenes, colors and characters. Lia D Castro's work becomes a place of encounter, clash and friction, in which actions, images and imaginaries are debated, reviewed and transformed. The artist frequently inserts references to other works she has created, including them in another context and, consequently, attributing new meanings and interpretations to these images.

“Starting from Frantz Fanon's view that racism is a repetition, I propose to combat it with the repetition of images. As the image builds culture and memory, by placing one work within another, I seek to create new aesthetic references”, comments the artist.

PAINTINGS AND ARTISTIC METHODOLOGY

Lia D Castro's production is organized into series, the largest of which is Axs Nossxs Filhxs, present in this exhibition. Developed in Lia D Castro's living room and studio, a place of meeting and exchange, commercial, intellectual and emotional, the series presents a creative process marked by collective choices, from the color palette to the signature of the works. Repetition is a central characteristic: through this resource it is possible to recognize gestures, characters and situations, as well as other works by the artist that appear represented on the screens, accumulating meanings. The use of “x” in the series title refers to the diversity of family formations and emotional bonds beyond blood kinship or the monogamous heterosexual family. The use of “x” is also used to cover different genders.

Lia D Castro also portrays herself in paintings from this series. While the men are naked, she is dressed. Her body is covered with tape glued to the canvas forming a long white dress, contrary to the historical tradition of Western painting, in which the vast majority of nudes are female.

The artist also subverts by painting these characters in moments of pause, rest, leisure, reading and contemplation. “The political character of Lia D Castro’s work questions the social imaginary that links violence and subalternity to non-hegemonic bodies in Western art”, says co-curator Glaucea Helena de Britto.

Lia D Castro: everywhere and nowhere is part of MASP's annual program dedicated to Stories of LGBTQIA+ diversity. This year the program also includes exhibitions by Gran Fury, Francis Bacon, Mário de Andrade, MASP Renner, Catherine Opie, Leonilson, Serigrafistas Queer and the large collective Stories of LGBTQIA+ diversity.

Exhibition | Lia D Castro: everywhere and nowhere
From July 5th to November 17th
Free Tuesdays and first Thursday of the month free; Tuesdays, from 10am to 20pm (entrance until 19pm); Wednesday to Sunday, from 10am to 18pm (entrance until 17pm)

Luisa Strina announces the exhibition Mira Schendel: Transparencies. The artist (1919-1988) was a pioneering figure in Latin American art, worked with Strina in the 1980s, and exhibited at the gallery in 1981 and 1983.

Organized by Olivier Renaud-Clement in collaboration with the Schendel family and Hauser & Wirth, the exhibition brings together a wide selection of Schendel Monotypes, produced between 1963 and 1965, as well as a series of sculptural objects in acrylic from the late 1960s and 1970s. .Transparências is accompanied by an unpublished essay by the Chief Curator of the Museo del Barrio in New York, Rodrigo Moura.

“Transparency is at the center of this exhibition by Luisa Strina, where Mira Schendel held two exhibitions during her lifetime in the 1980s. Almost a quarter of the 21st century has passed, it is inescapable to ask what place is reserved for her work in Brazil and in today's world, when identity issues seem to have assumed a role that many consider preponderant in the cultural arena. Schendel resurfaces here as a beacon to illuminate the individual and irreducible character that lies at the heart of any great artist's work – and transparency presents us with a powerful image for this statement. Who can deny that her identity has informed her work – a European immigrant woman? That the experience of loss and diaspora is behind her drive for transcendence? That language is always about to collapse in her work, as only happens to those for whom language is never a guarantee? That her singular understanding of the modern project always pushes him to a kind of edge of the precipice, because she sees in it the sexist limitations of her original hegemonic aspirations?”, analyzes Moura.

The more than fifty Monotypes presented provide a panorama of Schendel's experimental and innovative approach. Each piece reveals his meticulous exploration of texture, shape and translucency, in a subtle play of light and shadow.

These works were extremely experimental at the time of their creation. This process involves applying talcum powder to one side of Japanese tissue paper, which is placed on a previously oiled glass plate. Schendel “drawn” with various instruments, including his fingers, applying pressure to the unoiled side.

The process created an organic line that almost looked like part of the paper and allowed Schendel to respond gesturally and calligraphically to the material. These graphic marks, letters and stains resulted in extraordinarily beautiful and poetic drawings on both sides of the paper, which are displayed in the gallery on backlit shelves, which preserve their transparency.

In Schendel's following works, transparency presents itself as the catalyst for the viewer's experience with the body and vision. The artist began using acrylic which, suspended in the air, allows the image and the plane to unfold in two: to see through and for a “circular reading in which the text is the immobile center, and the reader is mobile”, as stated the artist.

These formulations gave rise to Graphic Objects (1967-1973), in which sheets of paper are superimposed to create squares where the game of full and empty amplifies the graphic sign between silence and noise through repetition and changes in scale. Suspended by nylon thread, the works from the Transformable series are composed of small strips of transparent material articulated to evoke the sensation of mutability and play. They spin in the air, casting ever-changing shadows and reflections.

Also included in the exhibition are works from the Discos series, from the early 1970s, when Schendel began creating sculptural objects using acrylic and Letraset. Synthesizing the formal experimentation of the Monotypes, this body of work continued to embrace spiritual ideas about the “other side” of transparency, a place where other worlds and other forms of materiality existed.

The round discs are made from overlapping sheets of acrylic. They involve swirls of letters and symbols in Letraset, legible but untranslatable compositions. Here language is seen as a kind of cosmic dust, formless and infinite. “Mira Schendel is fundamental to the current artistic debate. Although rooted in experience, her work refutes reductive readings of identity, but also increasingly shows itself to be refractory to a strictu sensu formal interpretation. Perhaps, under the lens of transparency, this is its most striking feature”, concludes Rodrigo Moura.

Service
Exhibition | Mira Schendel: Transparencies
From August 01st to September 21st
Monday to Friday, 10am to 19pm, and Saturday, 10am to 17pm

The Department of Culture, through the Tijuana Cultural Center, invites the international artistic community to participate in the Tijuana Triennial 2 International Pictorial with works or projects that explore other poetics, new issues and derivations that enable the construction of different aesthetic paradigms from a pictorial perspective.

General curation
The general curator is Leonor Amarante, Brazilian critic, editor and journalist. Co-Curator of the 2nd and 3rd editions of the Mercosul Biennial, in Porto Alegre (1999/2001), with Fábio Magalhães. General curator with Tício Escobar of the 5th Curitiba International Biennial, (2009). General curator of the 1st End of the World Biennial, Ushuaia, Argentina (2007). Responsible for the Brazilian part in the 3rd and 4th editions of the Clay Biennial, Venezuela (1997/1999). Juror for the selection of works at the Cuenca Biennial, Ecuador (2009). Curator of the Galeria Cilindro exhibition, at the 10th Havana Biennial (2009). Selection judge for the Bienal de las Fronteras, Taumalipas, Mexico (2014). Selection judge for the Arteamericas Miami Fair, editions (2010) – (2011). Today he is a member of the magazine's Editorial Committee arte!brasileiros.

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Exhibition | Tijuana Triennial: 2. International Pictorial
From August 2nd to February 28th
Tuesday to Sunday, from 10pm to 19pm

Starting in August, the OPEN returns to São Paulo in its third edition, bigger and more ambitious than previous editions. After its inaugural edition in the only remaining private residence of the legendary architect Oscar Niemeyer in São Paulo, and a second edition in a house designed by Villanova Artigas, a seminal figure of the Escola Paulista de Arquitetura, this year's exceptional art and design exhibition will occupy, for For the first time, two distinct spaces – and it will be an ode to the artistic and architectural legacy of two extraordinary Asian-Brazilian women and their notable brutalist houses from the 1970s.

More than residences, they are spaces where the creativity, spirit and memory of these two women are perpetuated for future generations: one of them, designed by Brazilian architect Ruy Ohtake for his mother, Tomie Ohtake, a renowned artist of Japanese origin, born in Kyoto ; and the other, a family residence project by Chu Ming Silveira, born in Shanghai, China. The latter, a visionary architect and designer, created one of the great symbols of Brazilian urban furniture, the pay phone.

The houses will serve as a backdrop for art and design exhibitions, carefully selected by the trio of curators Filipe Assis, Kiki Mazzucchelli and Claudia Moreira Salles in response to the architectural environment; elements such as exposed concrete and organic lines will be seamlessly integrated to enhance the overall artistic experience. “We are excited to reveal the remarkable stories of these extraordinary women and their profound impact on Brazilian art, architecture and design. The exhibition not only celebrates their artistic and architectural contributions, but also their immigrant perspectives that shaped the Brazilian modernist movement,” explains Filipe Assis, art entrepreneur and founder of ABERTO in 2022. A pioneering exhibition platform, ABERTO celebrates and promotes the meeting of architecture, art and design in never-before-seen public and private spaces, and brings together the main cultural institutions, collections, foundations and galleries, to create an attractive panorama of works by the most prominent names in Brazil and the world.

The art curation will foreground a captivating array of Brazilian and international modern and contemporary art through collaborations with renowned galleries such as Fortes D'Aloia & Gabriel, Mendes Wood DM, Luisa Strina and Nara Roesler, as well as global galleries Lisson and Pace. While the design curation, by Claudia Moreira Salles, will focus on new pieces of furniture designed by the Ohtake and Chu families specially edited for the event by Galeria ETEL, under the direction of Lissa Carmona.

“These homes offer an unexpected intimacy, inspired by oriental designs with low ceilings that enhance engagement with art, promoting contemplation and interaction. Our curatorship carefully uses architectural elements – openings, angles and natural light – to place works of art, transforming each house into a canvas that combines form and function for an immersive experience beyond typical exhibition standards”, explains curator Claudia Moreira Salles.

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Exhibition | Open3 | Tomie Ohtake and Chu Ming Silveira
From August 11th to September 15th

Chu Ming Silveira's residence
Address: Rua República Dominicana, 327 – Real Parque, São Paulo
Visiting hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 18pm – last entry 17pm

Tomie Ohtake's Atelier House
Address: Rua Antonio de Macedo Soares, 1,800 – Campo Belo, São Paulo
Visiting hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 18pm – last entry 17pm

It is with great enthusiasm that the Carmo Johnson Projects Gallery presents the artist's first solo exhibition Naine Terena, “The beginning of everything”, opening on 17/08, Saturday, in its space located in the Alto de Pinheiros neighborhood, in São Paulo.

“The beginning of everything” has a sensitive curatorial essay written by Luciara Ribeiro, educator, researcher and curator, who mentions: “Naine Terena has worked with enormous contributions to the areas of curating, art criticism, education and public cultural management- educational. The Véxoa exhibition, we know, curated by Terena, exhibited in 2020, at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, became a landmark in the history of the institution and national arts, being recognized as one of the main recent exhibitions of contemporary indigenous productions. Unlike the place occupied in Véxoa, in the exhibition The beginning of everything, for the first time, the exhibition room will not be designed by Naine Terena to house works by other artists, but rather her artistic productions. Here, she brings us closer to a facet that is still little known, that of an artist.”

The exhibition allows us to learn a little about the beginning of Naine's artistic production, which began in the 1990s, based on crafts and performing arts. With these references, the artist prints both in the expography installation distributions of the works, inspired by encounters in the theater scene, and in the production of textile works, thus composing the following groups: The others; I am a tree; Brave new world and Before the world didn't exist.

Naine Terena makes a series of “Masks” (2024), using elements of the weaving technique and recoding them, to create textile works that materialize the 'others' - everything that inhabits this same time-space but is not identified or goes unnoticed by others. human eyes. Based on weaving processes common among Terena populations. Its braiding, different from that usually present in Terena textile manuality, does not seek the rigidity of the planned, the perfection, the framing and the calculated, on the contrary, it aims to highlight the notion of the imperfect, incomplete, insufficient, unfinished. There are loose lines, sinuous cuts, jumping points, where the remains of objects she found during the making process, discards thrown on the ground, rubbish are incorporated, signs of the disregard that current society has shown towards the health of the earth. In “Vovó” (2024), she deepens the contact between time cycles, between talking about now and listening to those who came before. With the wisdom imparted by the present time and the time of the elderly, the artist-researcher creates a grandmother crisscrossed with ribbons, making the danced gesture of her fingers the firmament for the presence of an exuberant grandmother, with enormous tentacles that elevate her at the same time. time to place it on the ground.

The series “I am a tree” is an experiment to produce a materiality of thoughts that connect humanity to everything that inhabits the animal, vegetable and cosmological world. Naine Terena often remembers that: It was late afternoon, in 2020, when I sat at the back of my house and took a photo of one of my plants. I started playing with it using countless filters, until in one of them I saw a small smile that gave me the thought: I am a tree! [Naine Terena]

The set 'Brave new world', or 'a necessary boot', is created from a set of seven cans of tuna, which contains images made from artificial intelligence, how technology recognizes 'wealth', poverty in Brazil , live well. The images seem to dialogue with real-life facts, such as 'tokenism', environmental racism, private leisure facilities, the impoverishment of a good portion of the population, reflecting whether it is time for a necessary boot.

Finally, the set of videos, “Before the world did not exist” makes an allusion to the many indigenous stories and cosmologies, using the name of the literary work written by Umusi Pãrõkumu and Tõrãmu Kehíri, indigenous people of the Amazon region, to address the creation of the world from an indigenous perspective and its relationships with the present and future. The images of coconut shells bring constellations, important to indigenous peoples, climate actions, colors and shapes that represent the world before and the world now. The world before this world, which our old trunks taught us to live in balance, and the world today, where relationships seem to have been broken for a large part of the population.

In “The beginning of everything”, the exhibition, we are faced with the possibility of thinking, seeing and reviewing our individual and collective existences, the knowledge acquired and preserved, the relationships and landscapes that surround us, the various paradoxes that we are unable to respond to and the mysteries of a world in motion. Placing reason, Cartesian thinking, rationality at a point of dialogue with cosmologies, with knowledge and counter-narratives, in the service of reflecting on what is happening now? What will it be like the day after tomorrow, tomorrow? Where is the beginning of it all?

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Exhibition | The beginning of everything
From the 17th of August to the 5th of October
Tuesday to Friday, 11am to 17pm, Saturdays by appointment

The work of Gisela Colón explores the interconnections between ecofeminism, colonial histories, and the universal forces of nature. His artistic practice seeks to transform the personal into the universal, following an elliptical trajectory that begins with the beginning of time, the first primordial light that created life on Earth. Colón traverses the violence of human existence, processing experiences of oppression against humans, animals and nature, cathartically returning to the natural world in search of answers, using a language of transformative regeneration.

Colón uses her art to address the painful realities of gun violence, feminicide, and collective violence that she witnessed during her youth in Puerto Rico. In her works, she channels these traumatic experiences, transforming them into metaphors for renewal and resilience. Observing and learning from the processes of healing and regeneration, Colón developed an aesthetic that incorporates the vitality and strength of natural elements, as exemplified in his monolithic sculptures that symbolize the transformation of ballistics into metamorphic mountains, Holistic Ballistics.

The artist appropriates high-tech materials, often associated with military functions, transforming them into vehicles of light, life and transcendence. This transmutation of materials intended for oppression into objects that channel positive energy subverts their original connotations. With this critical approach, the viewer is challenged to reconsider the relationship between technology and the transformative capacity of art.

Plasma, the fourth state of matter, reflects its concept of creation under extreme pressure, emerging as incandescent light. His sculptures capture and refract light, creating a structural color that recalls the natural colors found in scarab beetles, abalone shells and prehistoric shellfish. These elements emphasize the connection between Colón's art and the primordial history of life on Earth, highlighting the transformation of solar energy into chemical energy as the initial spark of life.

Colón reminds us that all answers come from the natural world. Earth's energy and the laws of physics offer a guide on how to repair humanity's broken ways and return to a balanced symbiosis of coexistence on Earth. His art acts as a manifesto for the post-Anthropocene, inviting us to reconnect with our universal origins and embrace a future of regeneration with nature.

Marcello Dantas

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Exhibition | The fourth state of matter
From the 21th of August to the 19th of October
Monday to Friday, 11am to 19pm | Saturday, from 11am to 15pm

On the centenary of the birth of Paulo Vanzolini (1924 – 2013), Brazilian composer responsible for classics such as Ronda e Come back on top, Sesc São Paulo presents an immersion into the artist's life, revealing not only his musical side, but also the trajectory of the internationally renowned zoologist. The exhibition 100 years of Paulo Vanzolini, the bohemian scientist takes place at Sesc Ipiranga from August 28, 2024, and continues until March 16, 2025. Created by the scientist's children, art director and filmmaker Toni Vanzolini and psychologist Maria Eugênia Vanzolini, the exhibition is curated by Daniela Thomas, renowned set designer, filmmaker and theater director.

"The symbolic date of the centenary of Paulo Emilio Vanzolini, our father, motivated us to think of an exhibition that would show a little of the plurality of this Brazilian who listened, translated, researched, wrote, sang and thought of a good, diverse and inclusive Brazil. Who always valued knowledge and art, making both his greatest legacy. The universe of this interested and interesting character, 'bohemian scientist', as Antonio Candido defined him, is what we want to show in this exhibition”, anticipates Toni Vanzolini.

Without losing sight of the bohemian and artistic side of the honoree, the exhibition revisits the scientific expeditions and contributions to science undertaken as a herpetologist, specializing in the study of reptiles and amphibians. Sesc Ipiranga as a space for the exhibition has a special symbolism: its proximity to the Zoology Museum of the University of São Paulo (MZUSP), where Paulo Vanzolini worked for five decades – three of those as director.

"Some figures are unavoidable in the history of a city or a country. Some are even unavoidable on the planet. This is the case of our honoree in this exhibition, Paulo Vanzolini, who would have turned 100 years old this year and who spent most of his life here at Sesc Ipiranga, directing the USP Zoology Museum, his home. Or one of his houses, since he felt perfectly integrated into the landscape on a walk in the forest, in his laboratory or in the bar, among musicians or among the greatest intellectuals of his time”, highlights Daniela Thomas. “A unique man, with a supernatural intelligence, an inventiveness that produced unforgettable verses such as 'recognize the fall and don't be discouraged, get up, shake off the dust, turn around' and revolutionary theories in zoology, and an almost authoritarian determination, characteristics that made him this achieving power that we celebrate now".

In partnership with the USP Zoology Museum, the exhibition displays to the public 51 preserved specimens of animal species identified and cataloged by Vanzolini. These specimens, loaned by the Museum to Sesc, are highlighted in a room that recreates a zoology laboratory.

Five thematic rooms reveal Vanzolini's multifaceted trajectory, covering more than half a century of research. The exhibition highlights his celebrated Amazonian expeditions and the connections between art and science that he fostered. Documents, photographs and videos offer a glimpse behind the scenes of the remarkable discoveries of the “bohemian scientist”, a nickname affectionately given by Antonio Cândido, sociologist and literary critic, in the album's booklet. Reckoning by Paulo Vanzolini (2002). This compilation presents 52 compositions by the scientist, performed by renowned artists such as Chico Buarque, Paulinho da Viola and Martinho da Vila.

Along the exhibition route, illustrations by Alice Tassara guide visitors through Vanzolini's trajectory, in a biographical chronology that highlights aspects of his academic training and his circle of friends with intellectuals, artists and icons of Brazilian popular music. 

What to find at the exhibition 100 years of Paulo Vanzolini, the bohemian scientist

Check out details about the spaces that make up the exhibition spread across Sesc Ipiranga below.

Laboratory Room

The space is a reproduction of a laboratory that portrays the zoologist's daily life, highlighting the stages of the systematization processes. Instruments such as microscopes are displayed on the work table, as well as a panel that elucidates aspects of Refuge Theory. The room also brings together species on loan from the USP Zoology Museum, presented on a panel with rotating cubes that identify and contextualize each one of them. Illustrations by Gabriela Dássio complement the environment, enriching the visual experience of visitors.

Amazon Expedition Room

An immersive sound and visual installation designed to simulate a walk through the Amazon rainforest, enriched by illustrations by Danilo Zamboni, which capture the richness of the biome's biodiversity. The experience seeks to measure the grandeur of the Amazon fauna and flora. On the walls of the environment, visitors will find a variety of detailed information about the region's biodiversity, worrying data about deforestation and a reflection on the crucial importance of the Amazon for the planet's balance.

Room on board the Garbe

The space invites the public to dive into Vanzolini's universe of multiple interests and adventures, intertwining science, art and culture.

Here, the public can embark on one of Vanzolini's trips to the Amazon rainforest aboard the Garbe boat – part of the Permanent Expedition to the Amazon (EPA), a project led by the scientist for two decades. In 1975, this expedition crossed the Madeira River, from Manaus to Porto Velho. Among the Garbe's crew was José Cláudio da Silva from Pernambuco, introduced to Vanzolini by his friend Arnaldo Pedroso d'Horta, an artist and journalist who also accompanied him on expeditions to the Amazon. Over the course of two months of travel, José Claudio portrayed on one hundred canvases the diversity of Amazonian fauna and flora, as well as the vastness of the rivers and the daily lives of riverside communities.

Reproductions of these works, which were compiled in the book José Claudio da Silva: 100 canvases, 60 days & a travel diary – Amazonas, 1975 (Impresso Oficial, 2009) and today are part of the collections of Palácio dos Bandeirantes, headquarters of the state government of São Paulo, are displayed in the room. The environment also features an extensive panel with a map of the Madeira River, showing where each of these works was created and offering the public an immersive experience, which allows them to “relive” the expedition.

Bohemian Room

Accustomed to nightlife, Vanzolini developed as a composer at bar tables and samba circles, creating a peculiar method of writing music. Despite not mastering any instrument, he conceived the structure of most of his more than 70 songs, with the support of friends Adauto Santos and Luiz Carlos Paraná, guitarists and partners at the historic bar Jogral, to shape his melodies and lyrics with harmony and rhythm. In addition to these collaborations, Vanzolini left his mark on music by working with big names such as Waldir Azevedo, Elton Medeiros, Toquinho, Paulinho Nogueira and Eduardo Gudin.

This bohemian characteristic is revered in a room that reproduces the atmosphere of nightlife. Exhibition elements include personalized labels with the names of his most famous compositions, which can be heard by visitors. The scenography of the room, which has a counter, shelves and bar tables, also highlights the names of its great collaborators on tiles. Photographic enlargements of the city of São Paulo, captured by Thomaz Farkas, among others, complete the environment, providing a visual and sound immersion in Vanzolini's musical history.

Overland expeditions

The researcher found inspiration in the scientific expeditions of the 19th century for his own field trips throughout Brazil, where he explored the fauna and flora of the different national biomes. For him, these natural environments were his true workplace. The trips were carried out aboard a Kombi, covering different territories. As he did not drive, his daughter Mariana often took over, or Francisca do Val, known as Chica, who, in addition to being a zoologist, was an illustrator and documented daily journeys. To reveal the behind-the-scenes of these expeditions, a scenographic Kombi will be assembled at the access to Sesc Ipiranga close to Parque Independência and the Ipiranga Museum. This installation brings together photographs and diaries, providing visitors with an immersion in Vanzolini's journeys and discoveries.

Paulo Room by Paulo

Due to his intense immersion in culture and his countless experiences, resulting from his travels throughout Brazil, Vanzolini accumulated a collection of stories and was an excellent storyteller. In this room, which brings together video testimonials, emblematic phrases and excerpts from interviews documented over decades, the public can get closer to Vanzolini, exploring his personal and intellectual legacy in an engaging way. 

From Butantan to the world: about Paulo Vanzolini

Paulo Emílio Vanzolini was born in São Paulo on April 25, 1924. At the age of 10, on a trip to the Butantan Institute, enchanted by the snakes and lizards, he decided that he would dedicate his life to the study of reptiles and amphibians, in the specialty of herpetology. After graduating in Medicine from the University of São Paulo (USP) in 1947, he completed a doctorate in Zoology at Harvard University, in the United States, between 1949 and 1951.

Back in Brazil, he applied his innovative visions at the USP Zoology Museum, organizing sets of preserved animals for research using techniques learned at Harvard, making the São Paulo museum's collection one of the most important in and outside Brazil and increasing the catalog of Herpetology at the institution from 1.200 to more than 220 thousand copies. Reflecting his essential contribution, 15 animal species were named in his honor, such as the lizard Vanzosaura savanicola and the serpent Lygophis vanzolini.

In addition to his role as manager, he was also a postgraduate professor at USP and co-founder of the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (FAPESP). Vanzolini also achieved international recognition when he formulated the Refuge Theory, a hypothesis to explain Amazonian biodiversity developed during his various scientific expeditions and based on studies carried out with the Brazilian geomorphologist Aziz Ab'Saber, and together with the American herpetologist Ernest Williams.

For more than 20 years, during the 1960s and 1970s, the scientist commanded the Permanent Expedition to the Amazon – EPA, carried out aboard the boat Garbe and financed by FAPESP. In these endeavors, Vanzolini established collaborations that resulted in significant contributions not only to science, but also to the visual arts. One example is his partnership with the painter José Claudio da Silva, with whom he shared one of these expeditions in 1975.

The proximity to visual artists stimulated intriguing collaborations. As an example, the zoologist wrote texts for Gerda Brentani's books and invited Aldemir Martins to illustrate his Cape Times, a brief account of his time in the Army in the second half of the 1940s, a time when, at the age of 21, he composed his classic Ronda.

Released on the Fermata label in 1967, Vanzolini's debut album, Eleven Sambas and One Capoeira, had the cover signed by Luís d'Horta. Luís' father, Arnaldo Pedroso d'Horta was not only the trigger for the creation of music Capoeira do Arnaldo, how he was inspired by Vanzolini's work to produce the series of engravings Animal Skeletons. These connections highlight how Vanzolini lived a life deeply intertwined with arts and culture. His interests and curiosity extended beyond his immediate field, encompassing diverse forms of expression.

Paulo Vanzolini passed away in 2013, three days after turning 89 years old.

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Exhibition | 100 years of Paulo Vanzolini, the bohemian scientist
From August 29, 2024 to March 16, 2025
Tuesday to Friday, from 9am to 21:30pm. Saturdays, from 10am to 20pm. Sundays and holidays, from 10am to 18:30pm

A Casa SP–Arte will host its first international exhibition. The space will be occupied by the Kurimanzutto gallery, with offices in Mexico City and New York. The exhibition Checkmate(s), the first by the Colombian artist Oscar Murillo in Brazil, a project by Mark Godfrey, brings together works that dialogue with fundamental names in Brazilian art, such as Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica and Cildo Meireles.

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Exhibition | Checkmate(s)
From August 31th to September 20th
Tuesday to Friday, from 10am to 17pm, and Saturday, from 11am to 17pm

Developed in collaboration with Maison Gacha, in Paris, and with the Fondation Jean-Félicien Gacha, Cameroon, the exhibition presents 129 textile pieces that seek to stimulate new perceptions about Africa in the Brazilian public, based on a diverse view of a continent populated by knowledge, traditions and artistic contributions.

This is the first time that such an important set of works has been shown to the Brazilian public, who are still very accustomed to associating African textiles with colorful prints produced in industry.

At the exhibition, visitors can come into contact with works that result from a set of ancestral artisanal knowledge, pieces whose production process can take weeks, even months.

The exhibition was born from research into ancestral textile technologies and the transmission of traditional African knowledge. Curators Renato Menezes and Danilo Lovisi visited different regions of Cameroon to engage in dialogue with local leaders and authorities, institutions and artisans. The objects on display, most of which come from the collection of the Franco-Cameroonian institution, are made from a variety of materials and have multiple functions, and provide insight into the rites and cosmogonies of various African peoples.

CORES

In the first room, “Animal Geometry”, visitors are greeted by an exceptional set of more than twenty elephant masks of different sizes, all embroidered with multicolored glass beads.

The second section, “The Blue Plant”, displays a variety of fabrics dyed with indigo using different techniques. The third section, “The Technology of Language”, presents a dialogue between the Kenté and the Ewe, a real fabric used by the Ashanti and the Ewe.

The fourth section, “The Bead Route”, presents a set of textile pieces and sculptures that have in common their use as a support for the creation of symbols with multicolored glass beads.

In the next room, the “Opacity and transparency” section seeks to create a dialogue between a set called “Kassai velvets”, pieces produced by the Shoowa, a people belonging to the province of Kassai, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Melhfa silk veils, produced in Mauritania.

In the sixth section, “The dance of shapes”, fabrics installed in the center of the room give a sense of choreography to the various fabrics produced by the Kuba. The seventh section, “Paints of the earth”, concludes the tour by presenting a set of Bògólan fabrics, produced in Mali with a mixture of mud and herbs.

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Exhibition | Between the head and the earth: traditional African textile art
From August 31st to February 02nd
Wednesday to Monday, from 10am to 18pm, extended Thursdays from 10am to 20pm (free entry from 18pm)

Anita Schwartz Art Gallery invites you to the exhibition “My place”, with 21 recent and previously unpublished paintings by Raphael Baron (1986, Nova Iguaçu), which will occupy the two exhibition floors of the art space in Gávea. The exhibition is curated by Jean Carlos Azuos, assistant curator at MAR. The exhibition, the artist’s first at Anita Schwartz, presents his new research, with the inclusion of landscape in his work. “It has the intimate landscape, of the home, and of the surroundings, in an affirmation of belonging and enjoyment of life”, says Rafael Baron. The paintings, in oil or acrylic on canvas – and often both materials – come in various formats: from large ones, measuring 3,5 meters wide, to medium ones, around 1 meter, and there are also four gouaches, measuring 40 cm x 30 centimeters. The painting “House with a pool” (2024) has two pairs of flip-flops applied to it.

The artist has been exhibiting in the United States for the past three years – the solo shows “Pose”, at the Albertz Benda gallery in New York, and “Rafael Baron: Portraits”, at the same gallery in Los Angeles, both in 2022; and the previous year “Wishyouwerehere”, at The Cabin, in Los Angeles; and the group shows “Rollwith It”, at the Scott Miller Projects gallery in Birmingham, Alabama, and “Fragmented Bodies III”, at the Albertz Benda gallery in New York, also in 2021 – and, with commissioned works, in the group shows “Crônicas Cariocas” and “Funk”, at the Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR).

In “Meu lugar”, Rafael Baron delves into the universe of Nova Iguaçu, Baixada Fluminense, where he was born and works, where he explores scenarios in rural landscapes – “sometimes alone, sometimes with characters” – as in the paintings “Primavera” (2023), “Casa de Campo” (2023), “Marapicu” (2024), “Tinguá” (2024), “Serra do Vulcão” (2024), “Casa de Vó” (2024), “Coffee, tobacco and newspaper” (2024) and “Father and son in the park” (2024).

“The structuring function of the family, love, affection, moments of relaxation in one’s own home” are intimate scenarios that Rafael Baron shows in the exhibition. “It is an invitation to this idyllic place”, he states. “Life is not only confrontation, conflict”. The scenes of home, peace and joy are present in the works “Family Reunion” (2024), “Mother’s Day” (2024), “Late Afternoon” (2023), “Maurício” (2024), “House with a Pool” (2024), “First Year” (2024), “Love and Affection” (2024), “Home” (2024), “André, Henrique and Leopoldo” (2024), “Mother” (2024), “Recanto” (2024) and “Cosme and Lourdes” (2024).

Jean Carlos Azuos emphasizes that “home, affection, love, and locality are very fundamental words for Baron.” “He brings a very particular territory of his own, of the biography he has been constructing. In his paintings, he shows us the dimension of how he deals with his family on trips, in the pool house, in portraits, and in the rites of passage that we have in our lives, family celebrations, Mother’s Day…”, says the curator.

“On another level,” he continues, “the work moves towards bucolic landscapes.” “Baron makes us access these spaces and instigates us to know: what are these places? It is a work that invites us to our understanding, to confide in each other, to exchange. It stirs up our fabulation a little. The painting ‘Serra do Vulcano’: where is it? Is it Nova Iguaçu, from Rafael Baron’s perspective? But it could be so many other places, from familiar locations in other perspectives, other geographies.” Azuos also observes that this understanding of Nova Iguaçu extends to Gávea, and “the works dialogue with this transit between these spaces.” “It also has this address: it starts from these places and settles in the gallery and is open to these and other interpretations and readings.”

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Exhibition | My place
From September 04th to October 26th
Monday to Friday, from 10am to 19pm, and Saturdays from 12am to 18pm

Celebrating the gallery's name change, the Maneco Müller | Mul.ti.plo, in Leblon, opens a solo show with the most recent production of Luiz Zerbini, which has just presented a major retrospective exhibition at CCBB Rio, attracting over 70 visitors. The exhibition “Pedra, metal e madeira” (Stone, metal and wood) brings together around 20 recent works by the artist, including metal engravings, lithographs and monotypes, most of which are new. The critical text is written by Fred Coelho. The exhibition, which runs until November 1st, includes the launch of a large, hand-printed book, to be presented at ArtRio. The opening will be on September 4th (Wednesday), at 18 pm, with free admission. The change in the gallery’s name symbolizes the partnership between Maneco Müller and Stella Ramos at Mul.ti.plo, since 2018.

Throughout his almost 50 years of production, Luiz Zerbini's poetry stands out for its voluptuous and disconcerting landscape, combining vegetation, urban environments, fables, memory and allegories. The artist's recent production in monotype and metal engraving is the result of his encounter with Estúdio Baren, created by the Rio de Janeiro-based publisher and printer João Sánchez. For almost a decade, Zerbini and João have been researching different ways of printing monotypes, mixing techniques and materials, papers, matrices and pigments. More recently, Rio de Janeiro-based artist Gpeto also began collaborating with Estúdio Baren, joining the monotype production of João Sánchez and Luiz Zerbini.

The highlight of the gallery show are the previously unseen metal engravings in which Zerbini explores one of the most traditional artisanal printing techniques in the world. For about five years, Zerbini has been experimenting in this field thanks to his close relationship with Estúdio Baren. Maneco Müller | Mul.ti.plo emerged as a natural venue for the exhibition of this production due to the gallery's partnership with Estúdio Baren and the long-standing friendship with both Luiz Zerbini and João Sánchez.

The exhibition features five works in etching and aquatint on cotton paper in black and white, with a limited edition of 30 copies, in the format of 78 x 53 cm. “At a moment of enormous success in his career, Zerbini is expanding into another area, with the possibility of escaping the permanent demand of painting. In his metal engravings, he is able to rethink the images on his canvases, offering them new dynamics, new layers, new possibilities. This leads to another path of debate about his work. The opportunity to challenge himself, to take risks, to experiment, brings incredible freshness and strength to his new works”, explains Fred Coelho.

Zerbini’s drawings, made with drypoint and burin on the surface of the metal, are revealed on paper with an incredible subtlety of tones and strength of form. “Here, the printing time is different. The metal process is laborious, slow, complex. It demands a lot of dedication. It is something from a world that no longer exists. I always wanted to dedicate myself to this, but I never had the chance. Now with João Sánchez we have found this path”, reveals Zerbini.

The 12 monotypes are unique, measuring 107 x 80 cm, printed on cotton paper. Apart from the works presented at the MASP exhibition in 2022, including four originals used to illustrate the edition of the book “Macunaíma, o herói do Brasil” by Mário de Andrade (Editora Ubu, 2017), and another about the Canudos War, the collection of monotypes assembled is unprecedented. More than just representations of vegetation, in Zerbini’s monotypes, the inked plants and objects themselves are placed in the press, printing and giving relief with their texture to the paper. “When I discovered the possibility of using leaves as a matrix, I was very interested. From then on, we started experimenting with other materials. We did a huge amount of research,” says the artist about the partnership with Estúdio Baren.

The exhibition at Maneco Müller | Mul.ti.plo also includes the launch of a large-format artist's book at ArtRio, featuring exclusive works by Zerbini. Measuring 77 x 98 cm (closed), hand-printed, the edition has only 11 copies and will be on sale at the gallery's stand during the Rio art fair, from September 25 to 29. The book “Monstera Deliciosa Pândanus Coccothrianax Crinita Útilis Cabeluda Mucuna” was designed by João Sánchez, with editorial collaboration from Ana Luiza Fonseca. It was printed at Estúdio Baren, by João Sánchez, Juliette Boulben, and Luiza Stavale, between 2018 and 2019.

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Exhibition | Stone, metal and wood
From September 04th to November 01th
Monday to Friday, from 10am to 18:30pm, Saturdays, by appointment

O São Paulo Resistance Memorial, museum of the Secretariat of Culture, Economy and Creative Industry of the State of São Paulo, presents on September 7, 2024, at 11 am, the opening of two concomitant exhibitions: A Visionary Vertigo – Brazil: Never Again e Argentine memory for the world: the ESMA Clandestine Center.

The Argentine exhibition is a touring exhibition held by the ESMA Memorial Site Museum – Former Clandestine Center for Detention, Torture and Extermination, in Buenos Aires and explores the history of the building, since its occupation by the Armed Forces during the last Argentine dictatorship (1976–1983 ) until its recognition as UNESCO Intangible Heritage in 2023. Human rights violations committed against women during the period are also revisited based on the testimonies of survivors.

In parallel, curated by researcher and professor Diego Matos, the exhibition Uma Vertigem Visionária – Brasil: Nunca Mais is dedicated to the memory of the project of the same name, responsible for the most extensive research ever carried out by civil society on torture in Brazil during the Civil Dictatorship- Military (1964–1985).

With the two exhibitions, the Memorial explores the last Brazilian and Argentine dictatorships by presenting different processes of struggle and resistance carried out in both Latin American countries. Based on oral history, it places both exhibitions in dialogue to build a collective memory about periods of repression.

The opening will be attended by Mayki Gorosito, technical director of the ESMA Sítio de Memória Museum, and curator Diego Matos.

A Visionary Vertigo – Brazil: Never Again

In 400m², the exhibition rescues the memory of the Brazil: Never Again project, undertaken between 1979 and 1985. The initiative was responsible for systematizing and producing copies, clandestinely, of more than 1 million pages contained in 707 cases of the Superior Military Court (STM ), revealing the extent of political repression in Brazil during the period.

The history of the project and its developments is presented alongside testimonies from lawyers, journalists and human rights defenders involved in the project, whose names were kept anonymous for years: Paulo Vannuchi, Anivaldo Padilha, Ricardo Kotscho, Frei Betto, Carlos Lichtsztejn, Leda Corazza, Petrônio Pereira de Souza and Luiz Eduardo Greenhalgh.

The archive of 707 court cases exposes the testimonies of political prisoners about the state apparatus's actions of repression, surveillance, persecution and torture. Copies of this content, which for years were kept safely in preserved collections in Switzerland and the USA, were repatriated and returned to Brazil in 2011, where they are currently under the protection of the Edgard Leuenroth Archive/Unicamp, in Campinas.

The project had support from the World Council of Churches and the Archdiocese of São Paulo, with the participation of Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns (1921–2016), archbishop of São Paulo, and Rev. James Wright (1927-1999), from the Presbyterian Mission of São Paulo. Central Brazil.

In addition to the archives of the Brazil: Never Again project, the exhibition presents works from the Alípio Freire Collection, under the protection of the Memorial da Resistência, created by former political prisoners such as Artur Scavone, Ângela Rocha, Rita Sipahi, Manoel Cyrillo, Sérgio Ferro, Sérgio Sister and Alípio Freire himself, during his stay in São Paulo prisons during the Dictatorship.

The exhibition also includes works of art by artists such as Carmela Gross, Regina Silveira, Artur Barrio, Antonio Manuel, Rubens Gerchman, Claudio Tozzi and Carlos Zílio, from the Pinacoteca de São Paulo Collection, and external works by Rivane Neuenschwander, Claudio Tozzi, Carlos Zilio. Rafael Pagatini will present a work commissioned for the exhibition, occupying a 100m² mural in the museum's external area.

The exhibition also sheds light on the present time, offering evidence of the importance of this debate today in perpetuating the State's permanent violence against its minorities and vulnerable populations.

Argentine memory for the world: the ESMA Clandestine Center

The place of memory, former headquarters of the Escola Superior de Mecânica da Armada (ESMA), was the largest clandestine center of the last Argentine civil-military dictatorship (1976–1983), where around 5 thousand people were detained or disappeared, including political activists , students and artists.

With two main axes divided into 210m², the exhibition presents the history of the building along with testimonies with different stories of struggle, taking a look at the past and connecting it to the present time and the demands for justice, truth and reparation.

The Patrimonio do Nunca Mais section contains an institutional video about ESMA and six panels with texts and images that discuss the history of the building. Being women at ESMA addresses the specific violence that women suffered during their kidnappings and detentions, such as motherhood during prison, solidarity among prisoners and the paths adopted for the victims' physical and psychological recovery.

The exhibition space also includes an occupation with documentary photographs from the Memoria Abierta collection, an alliance of Argentine human rights organizations that promotes memory about rights violations in the recent past, resistance actions and struggles for truth and justice, to reflect on the present and strengthen democracy. In order to present the visual memory of the period to the Brazilian public, the occupation brings records by photographers Daniel García, Eduardo Longoni and two images without defined authorship.

In addition to reinforcing the importance of oral history, the exhibition seeks to value the preservation and museumization of places with difficult memories – in close dialogue with the temporary exhibition dedicated to the Brazil: Never Again project.

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Exhibitions | A Visionary Vertigo – Brazil: Never Again e Argentine memory for the world: the ESMA Clandestine Center
From September 7th to July 25th, 2025
Tuesday to Sunday from 09am to 20pm, last entry at 19:30pm

A Nara RoeslerRio de Janeiro is pleased to present Mothers, an exhibition that brings together works by Not Vital (Sent, Switzerland, 1948) and Richard Long (Bristol, United Kingdom, 1945). The exhibition, which opens to the public on September 10, celebrates the gallery's tenth anniversary in Rio de Janeiro and will feature previously unseen works by both artists, including site-specific works by Richard Long created especially for the occasion.

Despite their distinct artistic and personal trajectories, Long and Vital share a friendship and a bond that transcends the field of art. The title chosen by the artists for the exhibition is a tribute to both of their mothers. Richard Long's mother, Frances, originally from Bristol, England, was born in Rio de Janeiro. Long, in turn, established a relationship of admiration and affection with Maria, Not Vital's mother. When Maria turned one hundred in 2016, Long dedicated to her a new edition of his famous series, begun in 1971, entitled A Hundred Mile Walk – in which he walked the distance between Stonehenge and the source of the Thames.

Born in Sent, Switzerland, Not Vital became familiar with a landscape marked by snow and shades of gray, a color palette that strongly influenced his work, since, in his words, “when it wasn’t snowing, everything was gray.” Although he also produces installations and paintings, it can be said that the most expressive part of his work consists of sculptures, a language to which he has dedicated himself since the beginning of his career and in which he uses materials such as bronze, plaster, marble, among others. In many of these works, the artist explores the link between organic and inorganic, human and animal, real and fantastic, in totemic, hybrid and mysterious structures.

Not Vital is also known for having expanded sculpture into architecture with his Scarchs, a term created by the artist himself, which derives from the combination of the words “sculpture” and “architecture” in English, to define works built around the world with local materials. The artist travels the world creating works and interventions, having already been to places such as China, Niger, the Philippines and, more recently, Brazil, where he has a studio in the Santa Teresa neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.

Richard Long, in turn, is one of the most celebrated contemporary sculptors, having been the only artist to be a finalist for the Turner Prize four times (and winner of the 1989 edition). Having begun his career in the 1960s, the artist describes his work as being a “response to the environments” he walks through. In general, Long promotes some kind of alteration in these landscapes, almost always with the materials that compose them, such as rocks, mud and snow. In some cases, the main element becomes the artist's walk through the area, with photographs, maps and texts serving as a record of this action.

As his works often take place in isolated and remote areas, such as the Sahara Desert or lands in Iceland, and since most of these sculptural actions are ephemeral, the process of executing his gestures on the land, as well as the photographic record of these, bring his production closer to performance, a practice that made Long one of the pioneers of Land Art.

As two artists who think about sculpture from a contemporary perspective, it is possible to establish interesting parallels between their poetics. In addition to the nomadic spirit they have in common and which somehow marks the work of both artists, one can also highlight the ephemerality, present in both Long's work and in some of Vital's Scarchs. There is also the establishment of a relationship between the works and the environment and landscape in which they are inserted and, in the case of Not Vital, there are also the relationships established with the local population.

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Exhibition | Mothers
From September 10th to October 26th
Monday to Friday from 10:19 to 11:15, Saturday from XNUMX:XNUMX to XNUMX:XNUMX

We are pleased to present Cutting, solo exhibition by the Paraguayan artist Claudia Casarino in Sao Paulo. Curated by Keyna Eleison, the exhibition marks her return to the city after almost ten years. The artist, who participated in the 54th Venice Biennale at the Latin American Pavilion (IILA) in 2011, presents an overview of her work, with previously unseen works and key pieces from her repertoire. Casarino produces installations and objects with clothing and fabrics, in order to articulate the mechanisms of disappearance and revelation of the female body in physical and social space. The voids in her works resonate with the stories and images of women affected by structural systems of violence and serve to denaturalize these oppressive devices.

In her recent research, the artist's work has begun to focus on minimal gestures that often go unnoticed, such as the absence of pockets in women's clothing – something premeditated and promoted by the patriarchal system that prevented the autonomy of feminized bodies. Through paths like this, the artist approaches a poetics of the memory of fabric and clothing.

Among his latest solo exhibitions are La faena de habitar un contour, Centro Cultural de la Ciudad Manzana de la Ribera, Asunción, Paraguay (2024); From the Umbral – With this mouth, in this world, Fundación Migliorisi, Asunción, Paraguay (2023); So small that [allí] fit the world, María Casado, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2023) and What keeps us alive is far away, MuVIM –Museo Valenciano de la Ilustración y la Modernidad, Valencia, Spain (2020)

His works are found in important public collections, such as The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom; The Spencer Museum, Kansas City, USA; Casa de América and Museo Wifredo Lam de La Habana, Havana, Cuba; Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands and Museo del Barro, Asunción, Paraguay, among others.

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Exhibition | Cutting
From September 14th to November 16th
Tuesday to Friday 10am to 19pm, Saturday 10am to 18pm

Em Trail, the new exhibition of Iran do Espírito Santo na Forts D'Aloia & Gabriel In São Paulo, the artist presents an unprecedented series in which he represents vinyl records in watercolor. Each work was designed by the artist according to specific songs and albums, which gave rise to a kind of autobiographical soundtrack, featuring compositions from the Brazilian repertoire, from MPB to classical music and rock.

No two records have the same “fingerprint,” each with its own specific configuration of grooves and track widths. Like the experience of listening to a record, Iran’s watercolors, although executed with surgical precision on a full scale, still contain clicks, hisses, and some ambient noise, as the manual nature of the work inevitably leads to the appearance of small accidents on the surface. This is a loss of image resolution that accentuates the physical process behind the composition. The main structure of meaning in these 12 watercolors, as in all of Iran’s work, lies beyond the immediately visible and is rooted in the intellectual process articulated by him as an artist and by us as viewers.

In the field of biographical significance of this new body of work, the traces that music leaves in memory find a figurative translation in the reflective glow on the representations of records, which the artist constructs by allowing the white of the paper to appear behind thinner layers of paint. These shining paths establish a circuit of rotation, sectioning the circular records like the hands of a clock. 12 paintings of 12 records and 12 tracks on each, like 12 hours of the day or the 12 months of the year. These watercolors, like an ear that is always attentive, superimpose the singularity of perception on the plurality of experience.

Since the 1980s, Espírito Santo has been concerned with technical reproducibility and its visual syntax. In the past, he has resorted to the representation of other mass-produced objects – such as hinges, nuts, bolts, light bulbs – to underline diagrammatic and industrial dimensions. With this series of soundtracks, Iran now adds autobiographical overtones to his ongoing investigation of form.

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Exhibition | Trail
From September 14th to October 12th
Tuesday to Friday 10am to 19pm, Saturday 10am to 18pm

With the aim of promoting and democratizing Brazilian art, the project Contemporary Vivara returns in 2024, in its fourth edition with Banca Galeria, this time under the creativity of renowned artist Flávia Junqueira. In her first open-air exhibition, the artist – known for her works that mix the real and the fictional – creates an immersive path with eight works that evoke the magic of old circuses and the nostalgia of a romantic childhood, which will be available for visitation from September 14th at Ibirapuera Park.

Balloons, mirrors and reflective platforms, iconic elements of the work of Flavia Junqueira, create a cohesive and harmonious spatial narrative and play with scales and colors, transporting the viewer to an imaginary universe where the past and the present meet. “The Banca Galeria is made up of some installations that bring elements that people know from my work in photography, such as balloons, for example; colors, lots of color; the scales of the objects, we also play a lot with these scales. I also bring a nostalgia from my childhood, from a childhood in the 90s that perhaps children don’t even know today,” comments the artist.

Sponsored by Vivara, the largest jewelry chain in Latin America, and made possible by the Federal Law for Cultural Incentives, Contemporâneas Vivara focuses on female artists and uses public spaces in a creative and inclusive way to disseminate art and connection through unique and inspiring experiences. “For years, art and jewelry have been responsible for telling stories and creating memories through their lines, design and avant-garde perspective. That is why we are very happy to promote this truly democratic project, which elevates the imagination of those who visit it and invites them on a journey, while also shedding light on the poetics of Brazilian artists,” emphasizes Leonardo Bichara, Marketing and Retail Director at Vivara.

The traveling project created by Tête-à-tête has already visited several Brazilian cities, occupying building facades, public parks and bike paths with works by several female artists. “We are celebrating the fourth edition of the project with new features: For the first time, a set of eight three-dimensional works by Flávia Junqueira will be displayed outdoors and in São Paulo’s most iconic park, Ibira. In this way, we invite the public to a state of presence so typical of children, to connect with their dreams and memories,” says Stefania Dzwigalska, partner at the production company Tête-à-Tête.

About Vivara

Founded in 1962 as a family-owned store, Vivara has been the largest jewelry chain in Latin America for over 60 years. With an integrated business model, the company designs, creates, produces, markets and distributes its products throughout the country, through a network of over 400 stores spread across all regions of Brazil and a multichannel platform that serves over 2.900 municipalities.

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Exhibition | Contemporary Vivara
From September 14th to November 14th
From 17pm to 23pm, with monitoring from 10am to 20pm

The dreamlike universe of artistic production Flavia Junqueira occupies the exhibition space of Fiesp Cultural Center, starting on September 18th, with the exhibition entitled “Ecstasy”, a neologism that mixes the feeling of ecstasy with the delirium of fantasy.

The exhibition presents developments of the artist's research, including scenography, photography, sculpture and lighting. Curated by Bianca Coutinho Dias, the public will access a selection of works spanning the last five years of her production and which will be exhibited together for the first time.

Focused on creating visual narratives that connect childhood, time and memory, Flávia Junqueira makes Extasia a large immersive installation, with an atmosphere of magic and enchantment. “I am continually looking for ways to connect the public with their own emotional experiences, using art as a tool to explore this complex desire”, says the artist.

The exhibition features nine staged photographs, always with the presence of latex balloons, produced inside and outside the country, in indoor and outdoor environments, such as parks, theaters, libraries, palace rooms and iconic monuments.

This is the case of the Henrique Lage Park, the Municipal Theater of Niterói and the Royal Portuguese Reading Room, all in Rio de Janeiro; the Ouro Preto Theater, in Minas Gerais; and an amusement park in the city of Amparo, São Paulo. Spanish buildings such as the Fernan Nuñez Palace, the Santoña Palace, the Liceu Opera Barcelona and the Linares Palace are also on display.

In this sensorial immersion proposed in the exhibition, the elements present in the photographs – amusement park lights, theater curtains, carousel horses and the latex balloons themselves – materialize in the space, gaining real size and intensifying the nostalgic feeling of childhood in visitors. It is as if they were inside the work at the same time as they observe it. “The public will not only be spectators of the art, but will also be in the middle of it, feeling what is in the photo beyond the photographic image”, he explains.

The artist's inventiveness is also revealed in the Magic Carnival series, an installation consisting of a set of miniature carousel horses. Placed in separate domes on a rotating table, the work references this toy found in parks.

Extasia also features two audiovisual works. One is a making-of, about the process of creating staged photographs, conceived in an analog way and using theatrical scenography techniques. The other is a video art, which projects a carousel created by the artist in an installation in Piracicaba (SP).

The executive manager of culture at SESI-SP, Débora Viana, highlights the importance of exhibitions such as Extasia being part of SESI-SP’s programming: “We reiterate our institution’s commitment to offering a cultural and artistic environment, providing the public with quality projects, access to works and the creative process of artists from diverse backgrounds, and encouraging reflection and experimentation. At SESI-SP, we consider it crucial to educate new art lovers, promoting the dissemination and access to culture free of charge. For this reason, we design and execute projects in a wide range of areas, inviting the public to dive headfirst into the universe of knowledge and artistic expression.”

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Exhibition | Extasia
From September 18 to January 26, 2025
Tuesday to Sunday, from 10pm to 20pm

Marcela Canterbury bring to the Gentle Carioca the reassembly of the installation of paintings presented at the exhibition The South American Dream, in 2023, the artist’s first solo exhibition in the United States. In this work, Cantuária brings together narratives of activists and environmentalists from South America who remained faithful to their dreams through resistance and fighting for their countries and lands, including figures such as Chico Mendes, Dorothy Stang, Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva, Túpac Amaru, among others. While her research highlights the injustices experienced by these historical figures, the paintings point to the beauty of the struggle told in these stories of ideals and battles, sharing with viewers the richness of South America’s natural resources that many want to protect.

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Exhibition | The South American Dream
From September 21nd to October 26th
Tuesday to Friday, from 12pm to 18pm, Saturday, from 12pm to 16pm (with prior appointment, except on opening days)

Rodrigo Torres presents its new installation, A Safe Place, composed of eight new sculptures, which will occupy the first floor of building 11 of the Rio headquarters. Created based on his interest in leftover construction materials and natural elements found in the Tijuca Forest, the works on display are the result of a long journey of experimentation with various techniques, such as painting and collage, and even ceramics.

The title of the work comes from “the place of memory that speaks of the feeling of protection from childhood, that place to which one can return,” explains the artist. Using ornaments and refinement in the compositions, Torres subverts the genre of contemplative still life, moving the viewer through questions about the perception of reality – as exemplified by the various overlapping layers that appear to be covered in cardboard, but are, in fact, pieces made of clay.

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Exhibition | A Safe Place
From September 21nd to October 26th
Tuesday to Friday, from 12pm to 18pm, Saturday, from 12pm to 16pm (with prior appointment, except on opening days)

Prominent artist in the contemporary art scene in Rio de Janeiro, Miguel Afa presents his first solo show at Gentle Carioca, bringing together a set of 10 new paintings, as well as a site-specific installation that will occupy the area of ​​the gallery known as the pool. The text introducing the exhibition is written by rapper and composer Emicida.

The result of the artist’s recent production, the exhibition brings together reflections on territory and memory. Born in Complexo do Alemão, Afa transposes his view of the transformations of this place and the bodies that inhabit it into his paintings. The figurative images, plucked from memory through childhood memories, are integrated into the various layers of meaning arranged in the pictorial field of the works. Memories such as “the earth leaving the backyard to make way for concrete, the fruit trees being cut down, the racialized bodies being read as marginalized,” as the artist says, are also connected to experiences of fraternal coexistence. The title of the exhibition is a reference to the feeling of “care and affective order” arising from this place of memory, which the artist imbued himself with to produce the works in the exhibition.

A very present element in the artist's research into territory, the kite appears in many of his works, acting as a guiding thread in this new exhibition. The representation of this childhood object of desire is sometimes as a geometric element, sometimes as a playful resource, or simply as a toy in his compositions. One of the main paintings in the exhibition, inspired by A Portrait of the Artist by British artist David Hockney, shows a pool of kites with the Serra da Misericórdia from the early 20th century as the backdrop – a group of green mountains surrounding the Penha Church, where the Complexo do Alemão was later established. As an expanded field of this painting, a site-specific installation will group hundreds of kites in the gallery's pool space, expanding the artist's dreamlike imagery beyond the painting.

The meticulous study of color and the choice of a palette that is not very saturated bring significance and meaning to the poetic, visual and thematic repertoire of Miguel Afa’s work. These characteristics are reminiscent of other references in the history of art, such as some works by the Italian Giorgio Morandi and the French Edouard Villard, considered by Afa to be those that managed to show the interior through the nuance of color, which reached the “color of the inside of the house”. In the work of the artist from Rio de Janeiro, in addition to being a tool for investigating painting, color proposes a deep racial reflection through the approach to the work. “When seen from afar, the color, almost metaphysical, does not communicate what my painting is conveying, which is configured as an analogy to the racialized body”, explains Afa. “The first look at this body involves the preconceived idea that leads the thought to a marginal place, full of racial and social issues. Only when you get closer to the painting do you realize the complexity of the existence of this body. When I think about the color of my painting, I think of a body proposing a color and inviting the viewer to take one or two steps forward, in order to really understand what they are seeing”, concludes the artist.

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Exhibition | Come Inside
From September 21st to January 25th
Tuesday to Friday, from 12pm to 18pm, Saturday, from 12pm to 16pm (with prior appointment, except on opening days)