By Giuliano de Miranda
Twenty-six years after the retrospective dedicated to her work by the Espírito Santo Art Museum Dionísio Del Santo (MAES), Nice Avanza returns to this space in an exhibition that aims to go beyond the celebration of her career. On display until August 2nd, Nice Contemporânea brings together works by the artist from Espírito Santo alongside new productions by ten artists, selected through a public call for proposals, who engage with Nice's work. The proposal intends to revisit her artistic creation, mobilize the institutional collection, and reintroduce debates about memory, representation, territory, religiosity, and the ways in which certain narratives are constructed within the history of art. The exhibition stems from a question: how to look today at a body of work that for decades was presented to the public through categories such as "naïve," "primitivist," or "cocoa painter"? This question runs throughout the project and helps to understand why Nice's return to the museum takes place under such different conditions from those that marked her retrospective in 2000.
Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Nice Avanza built a rare career for an artist from a state historically distant from the major centers of artistic recognition in the country. Her work circulated nationally and achieved international recognition; her name is considered one of the main references in the visual arts of Espírito Santo.
The images produced by Nice helped to construct a visual imaginary linked to the interior of Espírito Santo. Cocoa plantations, rural workers, community festivals, religious processions, popular markets, and scenes of daily life became recurring features of her painting. Over time, this association became so strong that the artist was frequently identified as the "cocoa painter." But the very strength of this recognition produced a contradictory effect. While it brought the public closer to her work, it reduced the multiplicity of issues present in her production. Her canvases speak of agricultural work, but also of belonging, religiosity, community relations, memory, territory, and cultural identity.
According to Nicolas Soares, director of MAES and curator of the exhibition, “his initial concerns regarding Nice's work arose back in 2019, during his time at the Homero Massena Gallery. He was struck by the persistence of certain interpretations of the artist and the predominance of analyses focused on formal or biographical aspects. Upon arriving at the museum and initiating a broader process of reviewing the collection, these questions took on new dimensions. The idea became to understand not only Nice's trajectory, but also the ways in which she has been presented over the last few decades.”
One of the central points of the exhibition is the discussion of the terms historically associated with the artist. By revisiting news reports, documents, and audiovisual records, the team repeatedly encountered definitions such as "naïve," "primitivist," and "exotic." For Nicolas, these expressions are used to categorize self-taught, racialized artists and productions developed outside the country's main cultural centers. The exhibition also aims to understand and broaden the ways of interpreting Nice's work.
The retrospective held by MAES in 2000 was organized shortly after the artist's death and had a commemorative character. According to Nicolas, the current exhibition arises from a different perspective; instead of celebrating a consolidated career, it seeks to re-examine her work in critical circulation and stimulate new interpretations. This difference helps to understand why the exhibition was not built solely around Nice's paintings. The project seeks to create new dialogues with her work and bring it closer to contemporary debates.
It was in this context that the "Dialogue with the Collection" call for proposals emerged. Launched in 2025, the program used Nice's work as a reference for the production of new works. The selected artists were Amanda Chabudé, Dejair Paulo da Silva, Fayra Moreira, Fernando Augusto, Fredone Fone, Ione Reis, Luciano Feijão, Meuri Ribeiro, Paulo Fernandes, and Renato Ren. The curator further states that "the objective was never to produce formal reinterpretations of the artist. The intention was to understand where her work points and how issues present in her paintings continue to mobilize contemporary artists." Territory, memory, ancestry, religiosity, agricultural work, identity, and belonging appear as points of contact between the different productions.
The presence of the artist Fayra Moreira, a Black trans woman, represents an important aspect of the new collection created from the exhibition. The curator considers it more important to understand how Nice's own work has provoked new shifts within the institution than to establish symbolic landmarks. The incorporation of the works produced for the exhibition broadens the diversity of the collection and inaugurates a new stage in the museum's acquisitions policy.
The call for proposals created a specific funding line for mediation and audience development activities. As the museum manager observes, “education was not conceived as a complementary activity, but as a structuring part of the proposal. The exhibition seeks to articulate research, training, and public access, understanding that the circulation of knowledge is an essential part of museum work.”
“In recent years, various academic research projects have incorporated Nice Avanza's work into undergraduate, master's, and doctoral theses. The exhibition may expand this movement and stimulate new approaches to the artist. The expectation is that future investigations will go beyond purely formal readings and broaden the debate on culture, territory, race, religiosity, work, and memory present in her production.” Throughout the interview, Nicolas avoids presenting the exhibition as a definitive answer about Nice Avanza. “The exhibition does not seek to close discussions or establish a single interpretation of the artist. Its objective is to create conditions for new readings to continue emerging.”
