Roger Ballen's surrealism in Fortaleza

O Sesc Vila Mariana receives the unprecedented exhibition MAM Garden at Sesc, a co-production of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo and Sesc São Paulo. The exhibition is curated by Cauê Alves and Gabriela Gotoda and re-enacts elements of the MAM Sculpture Garden at the entrance to Sesc Vila Mariana. In it, the public will be able to appreciate works from the MAM collection, including iconic sculptures by Alfredo Ceschiatti, Amilcar de Castro and Emanoel Araújo, and works that explore social criticism, such as works by Regina Silveira, Luiz 83 and Marepe.

For MAM president Elizabeth Machado, the partnership with Sesc reinforces the museum’s commitment to expanding access to art: “The MAM collection is a living heritage, and this exhibition at Sesc Vila Mariana allows an even wider audience to come into contact with fundamental works of our history, promoting encounter and reflection on Brazilian art. Sesc is a long-standing partner of MAM, and this collaboration reaffirms our joint mission to expand access to culture.”

The artists participating in the exhibition are Alfredo Ceschiatti, Amílcar de Castro, Bruno Giorgi, Eliane Prolik, Emanoel Araujo, Felicia Leirner, Haroldo Barroso, Hisao Ohara, Ivens Machado, Luiz83, Marepe, Mari Yoshimoto, Márcia Pastore, Mario Agostinelli, Nicolas Vlavianos, Regina Silveira, Roberto Moriconi, Rubens Mano and Ottone Zorlino.

The selection of works includes pieces that have already been part of the MAM Garden, as well as works from the museum's collection that discuss themes such as nature, the city and materiality. The installation at Sesc Vila Mariana recreates the dynamics of the Sculpture Garden, using scenographic elements that evoke the winding topography of Ibirapuera Park designed by the office of the iconic landscape architect Burle Marx, stimulating new interactions between body, space and art.

Opened in 1993, the MAM Sculpture Garden is an initiative that revived the museum’s collection in its own free space with a large circulation of people. “By proposing a kind of reenactment of the MAM Garden in the External Square of Sesc Vila Mariana, we sought to develop the idea that, just like the garden space in Ibirapuera Park, the Sesc space functions as a center for urban encounters,” says Cauê Alves. “The exhibition includes works from the MAM collection that relate, in different ways, to nature, the body, the city, materiality, and to languages ​​that express some of the inescapable tensions in society,” adds the curator.

The proposal for the MAM Garden exhibition at Sesc Vila Mariana is to stimulate this relationship between bodies, works and space, transforming the unit's External Square into a territory for circulation, experimentation and discovery. Without intending to emulate the park's landscaping, the project's scenography recreates the curves and volumes that mark the original garden, proposing a spatial rhythm between the sculptures. For Gabriela Gotoda, curator of the exhibition alongside Cauê Alves: “If the most original and authentic principle of modern art is that it is close to life, a museum that is dedicated to collecting it and updating it in its present time must continually strive to offer its audiences possibilities of enjoyment that do not distance them from their realities, but rather meet them.”

Educational MAM

During the exhibition period, the public will be able to participate free of charge in educational activities promoted by MAM Educativo, which develops programs and projects in dialogue with its audiences, through accessible and free programming that seeks to equalize opportunities and reduce physical, sensory, intellectual, social or mental health barriers.

Inspired by the experiments carried out in the museum's Sculpture Garden in Ibirapuera Park, part of MAM Educativo's May activities will be adapted to the Sesc Vila Mariana space, proposing different forms of interaction between bodies, works and the exhibition environment. Aimed at audiences of all ages and profiles, the activities will seek to stimulate new ways of looking at, inhabiting and reflecting on urban space through art.

The activities will be divided into programs. “Contacts with art” promotes the cultural education of teachers, educators, researchers and university students, encouraging their role as multipliers of different artistic expressions and pedagogical approaches based on diverse creative processes. “MAM Family” promotes the encounter of the museum’s artistic universe with childhood cultures, through storytelling, games, artistic workshops, guided tours followed by poetry experiences, among other activities. “MAM Sunday” includes activities that invite the public to experience different artistic languages ​​based on thematic axes that encompass dance, music, popular culture, street culture, debates and plastic arts workshops.

There is also the “Visiting Program”, which caters to all types of audiences and encourages access to art and culture through the exercise of critical thinking. The program includes guided tours, poetic experiences and a relationship program with partner schools. Guided tours with MAM Educativo are conversations in which critical reflection is encouraged through art and poetic experiences, which bring the museum’s public closer to artistic experiences and processes. Groups can schedule visits to the MAM Garden exhibition at Sesc by email at educativo@mam.org.br.

The program also includes activities that are part of the National Museum Week – an initiative of the Brazilian Institute of Museums (Ibram) in celebration of International Museum Day (May 18) and which, in 2025, will take place from May 12 to 18 under the theme “The Future of Museums in Rapidly Transforming Communities” – and the World Play Week – an action promoted by the Alliance for Childhood that invites society to value play and the importance of childhood and which, in 2025, will have the theme “Protecting the Enchantment of Childhood” and will take place from May 24 to June 1.

Service
Exhibition | MAM Garden at Sesc
From the 14th of May to the 31rd of August
Tuesday to Friday, from 7am to 21:30pm, Saturdays, from 10am to 20:30pm, and Sundays and holidays, from 10am to 18pm

A barn on fire. A dream-memory. A foggy atmosphere. Silence and time suspended. The scene is captured in a slow, elongated shot in which the camera gradually approaches. A sequence shot of the character silently crossing the field and coming across the barn completely engulfed in flames, being consumed by the fire. The sound of the cracks in the wood dissolving into flames and the gray smoke enveloping the place and she, waiting, motionless in the face of the inevitable collapse, revering that which is greater than her smallness. The scene, taken from Andrei Tarkovsky's “The Mirror”, reflects his filmic trajectory of visual meditation. Faced with time, transformation and the fragility of life, the flames condense and what remains is the perception of contemplation, of the collision of the internal mental dimension with the external.

Cloudy Reflection It is the in-between, which oscillates between the visible and the hidden, in translucent layers that are completed with each attentive look, the reflective relationship on the veil and the murky capacity. Faced with João Trevisan's material set we are called to wait for the stretching of time, just like the character we do not run to put out the fire, we feel an irrupting calm that evokes a contemplative presence, of the body before the matter, Trevisan sculpts time and hypnotizes like Tarkovsky.

Trevisan operates in the extension of perception, acting in partnership with the material, forges and ambushes his technique and oils his own language. There is a compositional reflection of his work, the image that dissipates and envelops the gaze, that travels through the clarity, the light presents itself as a score, in which each painting emits a vibration. The exhibition allows us to access five series of his production, some still unpublished – Concomitant, Landscapes, Luminous Unit, Monochrome and Intervals. They are compositional acts of a great motif, as in an opera, when they refer to the same universe, in dialogue of pairs and cohesive with the complete piece. The series are intimately interconnected, in 2018 he painted the first Monocrome, the same year he painted the first Interval, this demonstrates the unfolding of his process. It derives from a non-linear and ramified mode, in which there is no center or hierarchy, but paradoxically, everything is central, the dense blocks of color are united by the texture, extending from one another.

In a contemporary world where everything is disposable, instantaneous and compressed, time becomes elongated and to embrace the luminosity of painting is to expand the sensitive. João Trevisan invites us to inhabit the space of silence and contemplation by consolidating painting in the expanded time.

The titles bring us obvious information with curious touches, sometimes more direct, sometimes more playful. In the verses of the works there are some delightful surprises, traces left by the artist, which bring us closer to his presence, as in Intervals, in the mornings, I miss you.

The color gradations vary in thickness, demonstrating greater or lesser opacity, in which deeper layers shine through and interfere with each other. We note the artist's technical skill, in which the colors, even when always used in the same way, are always different, whether the blacks complement or interfere with the covering colors, whether they appear or dissolve, and indicate a co-participation between the oil paint and the velvet created by encaustic.

It uniquely introduces small challenges to the eye, certain intentional irregularities, as in Concomitantes. Subtle shifts, such as a small margin at the beginning of a paragraph, demonstrate a rationality in thinking about the work in a calculated way, but not only that, there is something intuitive in the relationship between the colors, the production process is methodical, from the depth of the frame to the finalization. This game of perception is only created in contact with the witness, who, by noticing slips in the forms, highlights the artist's purposeful strength in his rhythmic chromatic waves.

The canvas is full-bodied, starting with crossed layers of plaster, diluted to the point of thickening, adding body to the process, and then continuing with the addition of ten to twelve layers of black. It overflows the texture and articulates the body of the painting based on the habit of repetition. When dry, it glazes the surface, a diaphanous covering with black, in which the colors subtly become invisible, and with subsequent cleaning, the pictorial body rises to equilibrium. It removes the excess, deposits light, deposits pigment, sculpts the body of the painting by modeling its relationship with the light. It elaborates a process of waxing the painting, in which the grooves are gradually filled with black, making it possible to perceive the residual luminosity coming from the white base, revealing the process of retraction of the pigment with drying, when its particles thicken and come closer together, partially revealing the background.

There is a desire derived from sculpture, from a poetic cycle that emerges from paper, returns to sculptures and erupts in paintings. The lines are handled in the three-dimensional as well as the two-dimensional, his pictorial production rises as a form in the sculptural field. He models fibers of paint, causing a luminous illusion through volume, there is a certain enigmatic aspect of trying to decipher where the color comes from and where the chromatic spark goes. He engenders a repetitive method that borders on Buddhist meditation, repeating the process, repeating the form, repeating the preparation and the layers. The relationship with painting is corporeal, in which the artist's gesture is prolonged and what we see is the murky reflection of Trevisan's outpouring.

The artist is permeated by life outside the studio, and his work is guided by urban contamination. The country's capital, Brasília, is not only his home, but also the place where his painting lives. When dry, the city's landscape reveals an earthy red, the cerrado in its true form, the birthplace of the Pequi and Baru grapes. At times, he sees a less arid air, a more organic and nutritious moment – ​​Trevisan is permeated by these manifestations, he allows himself to be infiltrated.

Perception is in the sensorial field, its practice is completed in the activation of the observer's gaze, which ceases to be external and becomes a constituent part of the projection of colors, the quintessential encounter between the material body and the sensitive body. We are invited to approach and move away from the works, so that Trevisan provides a visual experience of immersion in his universe, an emotional way of being before his contour. The pictorial creation is an attentive conversation between the material and the poetic making; the application of color is as relevant as its choice. The coincidence of opacity with brightness and the encounter of encaustic with the volume of oil reveal how painting preserves traces of the instrument and of the gestural performance with the material; the artist is undoubtedly connected to the whims and aspirations of the material.

A rhythmic pulse in the forms that repeat themselves in the material construction, in the displacements and spaces, in the power of the presence of colors over others. Trevisan's poetics is a flame that spreads through the barn, not as destruction but as a process of dissemination. It becomes coal, soot and the smoke that spreads the environment, dissipates into mist in a subtle way. The trail of fog is a power, what is seen and felt is gradually veiled and transmuted, covering the landscape, interrupting perception and calling for a pause. The surrender of time and the wait for the revelation of what is fleeting to the eye is how we experience Turvo reflexo.

The veiling in the surface’s weave is the mist branching out through the exhibition space, a rhythmic connection that emanates from all the works; the locus of the painting is always revisited, articulated in many other possibilities, which cyclically return and complement each other. As we embark on his poetic practice, we notice nuances, subtleties in the painting’s production that are gradually consolidated in the eyes of those who encounter his geometrical landscapes, and in Turvo Reflexo, we are absorbed in João Trevisan’s luminous and contemplative occupation.

Service
Exhibition | Cloudy Reflection
From May 15th to July 19th
Monday to Friday, 10 am to 19 pm, Saturday, 10 am to 15 pm

The grid only exists when created, it is an organizational structure, composed of horizontal and vertical lines that draw a division system in space, so it is not found organically in the environment. Andre Azevedo combines the desire to challenge it with the investigation of botanical images, operating in a torsion field of traditional writing and visual code.

in the show Writing-mirage we come across a unique universe, presented for the first time in this depth, which navigates in chromatic nuances, in which blue, red, green and black penetrate the fabric and transform into figuration. We live under the dominion of codes that overlap the experience of the world and distance us from direct reality, and it is in this coded world in which Escrita-Miragem operates. André Azevedo is an organizer of signs, a semiologist in action, his poetics investigates the plastic possibilities of typing, a balance between the hardness of the machine and the lyrical nature of floral figurative representation.

The work Datilográfica 9 engenders an abstraction and promotes the opening to new universes. Standing in front of this piece is like when decades and decades ago we tuned into radio stations. A piece of furniture/means of communication, the radio allows us to feel the sound waves of the stations that transmit electromagnetic signals at certain frequencies, which we tune into until we find a frequency within the circuit. Datilográfica 9 is the tuning of the exhibition, inviting us to enter this frequency and appreciate a poetic apprehension of the coded world.

Azevedo tunes the smallest particle that is a letter, part of the word image and decomposes it, recomposes it, remakes it, reconstructs it, and transforms it into an image. The works on cotton fabric have no frame, the sides stretched on a wooden frame are tied to the making of the typewriter, in some works there are small clues that the image is forged by characters. The revealing of layers becomes evident with the carbon papers, where it is possible to see each letter that crossed the surface and became light, turned into a visual score.

Regarding the choice of projected images, the illustrations revisit life and the natural elements of the earth and were appropriated from the book “Natural History: Life of Animals, Plants and the Earth – Botany”, which came from illustrated encyclopedic collections, popular in the 19th and 20th centuries, in a pre-digital life. The work mimics the grammar of the machine and, at the same time, poetically corrupts it, opening cracks in the system of signification. The flowers, branches, and twigs materialize in the Is Ms As Gs Es and Ms in a rhythmic dialogue between machine-like rigidity and ephemeral organicity.

The relationship with painting became closer. Azevedo operates with textiles using pictorial thought and expands the possibilities of translating images by returning to the analogical. In works that replicate figures, at first glance they are identical, but on closer inspection, small discrepancies in color emerge, drawings that are outlined in a different way, making the repeated works absolutely unique in their formation.

It uses software that pixelates the image and translates it into code to create an image. The technology already exists in the field of printing, but it is in the image translation that Azevedo re-signifies it. Using carbon and gesture, he adds individuality to the piece by subverting technical reproducibility through the unpredictable. The writing escapes control and the aura insists on appearing. Azevedo appropriates the mechanical nature of the device, leaving the writing to the machine, instructing the channels to distribute ink in the form of graphic signs, covering the surface and then covering it up so that something is presented in an image-like manner, producing a contrast between the color of the ink and the surface.

Writing is the science of the enjoyment of language, the possibility of a dialectic of desire, of an unpredictability of enjoyment. For Roland Barthes, the written text always provides proof of desire: it is writing itself. What Azevedo proposes is to overflow writing; his practice conceives through writing a space for poetic enjoyment and new forms of image perception.

The pictorial approach is both material and mental. The artist relies on ideas such as Vilém Flusser, in which culture is an attempt to deceive nature through technology and machinations. The numerical rules invented by humans, in the abstract, are capable of describing, explaining and even predicting sensory experience. The codes are so powerful that we use them to construct alternative versions of so-called reality, parallel worlds, and multiple experiences of the here and now. In this understanding, every artifact is produced through the action of shaping matter following an intention; manufacturing corresponds to the strict meaning of the term in + formation, shaping something – in Azevedo's poetry, of translating letters into images.

The device becomes not just a mechanical device, but a complex entity, a compass between technology, culture and humanity. Technological intervention/interaction organizes and transforms reality and art, modulating new ways of experiencing things. When typing, Azevedo organizes graphic signs and draws them, bringing action and thought into complete cohesion.

The typewriter acts as a mediator between nature and culture, creating another layer of complexity in the relationship between artist and viewer. This device also influences communication, creating new forms of expression and interpretation. In this sense, technology is not only a means of transmitting information, it is also a system that shapes meaning and message. Azevedo's poetic practice, in addition to guiding thoughts, acts directly in the encounter with the other, and it is only when a written work encounters the other that it achieves its intention, a kind of creative act.

By investigating various plastic possibilities of typing on textile support, he generates images from typography, in which each digit leaves its mark on the surface, with stains of different intensities. In this logic of operation, André finds a possible destination for writing in the process of transforming typography into texture and writing into image. He reconfigures typing in visual form, adding material body to the fleeting.

Escrita-Miragem is an attempt to capture what dissolves, the movement of approaching and moving away to decipher the drawing that passes through the carbon and is pigmented on the canvas, creating a symbolic surface. This is how the artist recovers a possible destiny for writing, hybrid, technical and sensitive, in which the code provokes and projects a future for writing based on visuality. This future is undisciplined and, above all, dynamic. André Azevedo decodes a future from the past.

Mariane Beline and Luana Rosiello

Service
Exhibition | Writing-mirage
From May 27th to July 26th
Monday to Friday, 10 am to 19 pm, Saturday, 10 am to 15 pm

Born Lucia, but baptized Suane by the shaman of the Fulni-ô indigenous village, in the interior of Pernambuco, the artist had intense contact with the traditions of the community of the village of Águas Belas and other villages, until arriving in Recife and Olinda. From her experiences, she was inspired by memories, legends told, songs and prayers heard to transform everything into art. Part of this production will be in the exhibition curated by Ivo Mesquita, and brings together works of the contemporary phase from Suanê from May at the Station Gallery, in Sao Paulo.

The exhibition brings together a representative set of works from the last stage of the career of the artist from Pernambuco (1922-2020), who lived in São Paulo since 1940, where she developed, in a discreet but long and intense way, a consistent artistic production, typical of her time. These were her last 20 years of activity.

“The emergence of this surprising production by a professional known as a figurative tempera painter reveals her capacity for transformation, abandoning the traditional canons of her practice to launch herself into an open field of formal experimentation, where the works are born from abstract thinking, a desire for form based on materials, lines and colors, in procedures of appropriation, assembly, collage, sewing, embroidery, construction, tying, and makeshift work,” highlights curator Ivo Mesquita.

In his wall text, the curator praises the end of Suanê's production, with paintings as manually constructed objects, in a fresh and vigorous work, in the manipulation of canvas, wood, fabrics, ropes, strings, beads, metals, wire, cardboard, strands of hair, among others, in a frankly libertarian movement. For her, it was a vital experience after almost a decade without working.

It was with the encouragement of her husband, Nelson Nóbrega – a painter, designer, engraver and teacher – that she created a unique style to anchor her multifaceted artistic trajectory, incorporating elements of various aesthetic propositions, at different stages of her career. And it is no coincidence that the family's artistic streak is recognized in the fact that Suanê is the great-aunt of the also Pernambuco native. Tongue (Antonio José de Barros Carvalho e Mello Mourão), visual artist born in Palmares-PE, in 1952.

Lucia Suanê Carvalho Nóbrega (1922-2020) participated in the 1st International Biennial of São Paulo, in 1951, is at international salons from cities like Paris, Tokyo and Santiago. He was also featured in the 20th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art in 1989. In 2024, Suanê had his first major retrospective shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC-USP).

Despite participating in several national and international events with a major impact on the artistic world, Suanê did not achieve the same projection in Brazil, even though she was integrated into contemporary debates.

The artist's work and trajectory also encourage reflection on the limits of art history between the 19th and 20th centuries, as highlighted by the curator of the exhibition held at MAC-USP in 2024, Tálisson Melo.

Using various ways to combine the world of things with a cosmic dimension of life, the artist produced intermittent work from the mid-1940s to 2020, with short breaks in production. And throughout this journey, she adopted various ways to combine the world of things with a cosmic dimension of life.

At first, there was a phase of alternating between the representation of religious scenes, still lifes and portraits. At the end of the 1980s, paintings that suggest visions of the sky and the universe appeared.

Between 2006 and 2019, the artist began to cut out and open empty areas in the support of her pieces. Fabrics, ropes, wood, plastic and metal sheets were incorporated into the production processes.

With the representation of Galeria Estação, Suanê will revisit the last phase of his production, from the 2000s onwards, which marks the mix of materials incorporated into the works and expanding the vocabulary to an unlimited level, which alludes to the cosmos and integrates elements that propose new readings based on shapes, colors, textures and shine.

Service
Exhibitions | The Last Step
From May 21th to July 05th
Monday to Friday from 10am to 19pm and Saturdays from 10am to 17pm

Monologue is the name given to a speech made by only one person or character, without interaction with other participants and in an uninterrupted manner, with the aim of expressing their thoughts and feelings silently or out loud. Both to themselves, to the audience, to others. I believe that this is how the artist, the creator acts. A soliloquy, in their corner, in their Kant, thinking, reflecting and executing their work. It is no coincidence that the origin of the word comes from theater and its etymology, from Greek, means “solitary”, “alone”. The stage of the writer, perhaps one of the most solitary professions, is the blank sheet of paper, the paper and finally the reader; the stage of the visual artist is both the support of their production in the most varied materials, as well as the audience that observes their work in the “white cube” of the gallery, in the institutional space or in the public.
 
"inner monologue” is a curation that embraces visual arts and literature in a conversation, in a dialogue crossed by fictions and frictions. And it brings together around 45 works by 18 artists to celebrate the centenary of “Mrs. Dalloway”, one of the most important books in 20th century literature, written by Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), a pioneering author in the field of feminist criticism, and whose work focuses on the daily experiences of women in the patriarchal society that persists to this day, challenging the norms established in the historical-social context in which she lived. One of her most important books is the axis, the gravitational center around which the works of artists from eight states in Brazil, and of a late Lebanese artist who settled in the country, orbit. They are drawings, sculptures, photographs, installations, objects, paintings and videos that, in some way, seek to establish this journey into the particular infinite not only of the writer honored, but also, and mainly, of each of the artists present here.

Service
Exhibition | inner monologue
From May 22nd to June 21st
Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 19pm, Saturday, 10am to 18pm

We are pleased to announce SPECTRUM, individual exhibition of Siwaju in Building 11 of A Gentil Carioca, in Rio de Janeiro. The artist's sculptural practice investigates the relationships between time and diverse ecologies. Based on the reuse of steel pieces — donated, collected and recycled during frequent visits to recycling centers — her works establish a direct link with Brazilian three-dimensional thought. Her sculptures articulate matter and Cosmos, visible and invisible energies, object and surroundings, sculptural body and space, organizing themselves in a spiral temporality, in a constant flow of expansion and retrospection, which activates Afro-diasporic knowledge.

“Interconnected ‘families of works’ unfold throughout the space, each with its own grammar and gestures, but all intersected by the desire to create zones of interference where past and future, beauty and liberation coexist in creative tension. Like a 21st-century blacksmith, Siwaju does not shape steel, but negotiates with its specters: the welds are born as seams between times, the polished surfaces return disobedient reflections, the whispers of matter, suggests the artist, lead us to escape from industrial logic.” — points out the curator Nathalia Grilo, author of the exhibition's presentation text, which is on display until August 9, 2025.

Service
Exhibition | Spectrum
From May 24th to August 09th
Monday to Friday, from 12 am to 18 pm
Saturday, from 12pm to 16pm (with prior appointment)

Gentil Carioca is pleased to announce The sea has always been, solo exhibition by the artist Mariana Rocha in building 17 of A Gentil Carioca Rio de Janeiro. Inspired by the vastness of the sea and the mysteries of microscopic life, Rocha delves into a universe where the boundaries between science, myth and art dissolve. The exhibition brings together previously unseen paintings that move between figuration and abstraction, evoking organic forms such as roots, eyelashes, arms and membranes — elements that unfold as symbols of the origin and continuity of life.

In the words of the art historian and curator Renato Menezes, who wrote the text introducing the exhibition, “Mariana Rocha cheats on scale and, thus, painting itself seems to become, for the artist, a means of re-equating the essential minimums of life. Particle and whole, cell and organism, drop and ocean renegotiate their orders of magnitude right before our eyes. It is no coincidence that her research focuses on the sea: it was there, in this immense and profound vastness, that the simplest forms of life began to appear. But, as always, the minimum is also the maximum: baroque, dramatic, mysterious and vibrant, her painting metabolizes the world, to see, from its most intimate, obscure part, what is most superficial that it can reveal.”

Service
Exhibition | The sea has always been
From May 24th to August 09th
Monday to Friday, from 12 am to 18 pm
Saturday, from 12pm to 16pm (with prior appointment)

Inspired by the work of Dorothea Tanning, shows a new stage in the exhibition space Attachments , another step in the gallery owner's avant-garde trajectory Marilia Razuk, in operation for over three decades

A Marilia Razuk Gallery, inaugurates a program of projects for its space located at number 62 on Rua Jerônimo da Veiga, which will now be called Anexo Galeria Marilia Razuk. To mark this new phase, Razuk hosts the exhibition “Dining room”, with the proposal of exhibiting works in a context that refers to the environment that gives it its name.

Referring to the work Hôtel du Pavot, Room 202 (1970-1973), by American artist and poet linked to Surrealism Dorothea Tanning, art consultant Cristina Tolovi and curator Luana Fortes conceived the exhibition by approaching the veiled aspects of domestic spaces. They present works by artists and designers, not clinging to separations between these two spheres of creation. As Tolovi explains: “The proposal is an exhibition in which different languages ​​dialogue, through a blurring of boundaries between design and visual arts.”

Luana Fortes highlights: “The exhibition is born from the work of artisans-artists-creators-designers that form a set of different languages ​​and forms of expression, seeking to destabilize what is understood as a work of art and object, preserving tensions within the artistic system itself and also within relationships outside it.”

Unlike what comes to mind when you hear the words “Dining Room”, the exhibition aims, like Tanning’s work, to present this “ambivalence, this ‘discomfort’ generated by the separation between what is alive and what seems immobile”, in the words of Luana, who continues: “Thus, the exhibition brings together artists from different trajectories and forms of expression to compose an environment that refers to a space prepared for encounter, but also traversed by tensions and gestures of control.”

Gallerist Marilia Razuk agrees and adds: “With this exhibition, we seek to open doors to new ideas, formats and curatorial narratives. We want to bring a fresh perspective, without the vices that are normally acquired over the years, as well as welcome experimental practices and innovative perspectives.”

Fernanda Pompermayer's work is among the highlights of the exhibition. 'Cosmic Ads', a new work by the artist from Curitiba, presents unusual forms through the transformation and combination of different materials, including glazed ceramics, glass, resin, gold and mother-of-pearl. Another important name in the exhibition is the visual artist Daniel Jorge, who exhibits works such as 'Ancestral'. His research focuses on the sense of belonging and new images of identity by working with materials that are fundamental to the Afro-diasporic imagination, such as soapstone.

The painting “No Return to Paradise” marks Giulia Bianchi’s presence in “Dining Room”. The artist has been developing strategies that allow us to investigate new possibilities of perception that go beyond the obvious, altering the visual scale, whether due to the lines and textures implicit in her paintings or due to the synesthesia they provoke. Ana Dias Batista, in turn, brings to the exhibition works such as “The Egg and the Shell”. Ana Dias Batista’s artistic practice often involves the appropriation of everyday objects, rearranging them in a way that questions their original functions and provokes new interpretations.

Service
Exhibition | Dining room
From May 27th to July 26th
Monday to Friday from 10:19 to 11:15, Saturday from XNUMX:XNUMX to XNUMX:XNUMX

Porto Alegre breathes art with its most important festival. 14th Mercosur Biennial occupies spaces and streets and gains new airs, images and textures in the Historic Center with the inauguration of the exhibition “Poetics of the Thread – Our Plots” this Saturday, May 24, from 14 pm to 16:30 pm at Galeria Duque. The exhibition is part of the Project “Doors to Art” of the Biennale, which also occupies Rua Duque de Caxias in front of the gallery with the installation “Art Connects”. The curation is by Daisy Viola and the exhibition will remain in the space until July 12th. Free entry.

The Duque Gallery also offers an immersion into the works of great Brazilian masters with one of the most complete collections in the state. In the “Poetics of Here” exhibition, it is possible to see works by names such as Iberê Camargo, Carlos Scliar, Carlos Vergara, Di Cavalcanti, Leopoldo Gotuzzo, Danúbio Gonçalves, Cândido Portinari, Siron Franco, Burle Marx, Anita Malfatti, Ruth Schneider, Maria Lídia Magliani, Frans Krajcberg, Alice Soares, Márcia Marostega, Nelson Jungbluth, Tarsila do Amaral, Gelson Radaelli, Antonio Bandeira, Oscar Crusius, Fernando Baril, Glênio Bianchetti, Glauco Rodrigues, João Luiz Roth, Ione Saldanha, among others.

The exhibition “Poéticas do Fio – Tramas Nossas” presents works by four artists who use yarn and/or fabric as a support or means of expression for their work: Daisy Viola, Fernando da Luz, Fernando Lima and Rosane Morais. “The use of yarn and fabric in artistic creation engages with social and cultural issues through the choice of materials and techniques, such as sewing, embroidery, crochet or knitting, which are part of the life stories of many of us, of memories, especially female ones, of our grandmothers and mothers. Thus, the use of traditional craft techniques ends up being a meeting point between tradition and contemporaneity”, explains curator Daisy Viola.

Those who pass by Rua Duque de Caxias will have another type of contact with art, but one that also involves threads and weaves. It is the installation “Arte Conecta”, produced by artists Roberto Freitas, Adriana Leiria and Ronaldo Mohr. The work took two months to be assembled and displays 50 meters of recycled material, including items such as upholstery and PET, in an artistic manifestation that connects to Galeria Duque on the other side of the street and that proves that art is democratic and can be present in the most diverse spaces.

Service
Exhibition | Poetics From Here
From May 24th to July 12th
Monday to Friday, 10:18 am to 10:17 pm, Saturdays, XNUMX:XNUMX am to XNUMX:XNUMX pm

A Nara Roesler Sao Paulo is pleased to invite you to the opening of the exhibition “Blue blood”, with new and previously unseen works by Marcos Chaves. The works are the result of research that began in 2013, in which the artist printed photographs he took of various fabrics from the Eva Klabin Collection on carpets, as part of the 17th Breathing Project at the Eva Klabin Foundation in Rio de Janeiro. In the large, double-height room on the left side of the Nara Roesler gallery, Marcos Chaves will create an immersive environment with low lighting, focusing on the carpets hanging on the walls, all produced in 2025. The dimensions of the works vary from 200 x 266 cm to 150 x 112,5 cm. Covering the entire floor will be a 5,90 m x 8,39 m carpet, a large-scale version of a 2013 photograph, made of velvet from the Eva Klabin Collection. The carpets on the walls, in shades of red, reproduce photographs taken by the artist of the carpeted floors of historical European sites, such as the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, built in Rome in the 16th century; the staircase leading to the only extant throne of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), at the Château de Fontainebleau in France, the residence of the French kings, and dating from the early 12th century; and the Opéra Garnier, designed during the reign of Napoleon III (1808-1873), the XNUMXth palace to house the Paris Opera, founded by Louis XIV.

“I really like the idea of ​​gradient, the color that fades, and its French meaning of degraded, something worn out, decadent. With use over time, you can see the various layers in these European rugs, where the weave stands out and forms a grid. You can also see marks of the weight on the floor where the rug is placed, forming bas-reliefs. This idea of ​​something worn out and the geometry that emerges are what I like about this work, which ends up being almost a tribute to painting, as if I were painting with the photograph and the pile of the rug,” says Marcos Chaves. Some works create a “reverse” perspective, such as the one that shows the steps to Napoleon’s throne, which will be on the gallery’s façade, in the window.

“OUR LOVE WILL GROW VASTER THAN EMPIRES”

In the first room of the exhibition, Marcos Chaves will show three objects, also in red. The first is “Our Love Will Grow Vaster Than Empires” (2025), a verse by the English poet Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) inscribed on a piece of velvet and stuck to the wall with a Swiss Army knife. The work is derived from a 1991 work, “MessAge,” made with a knife and plastic. The other two works are “readymade,” from 1992 – the “Jaws” bag, discovered by Marcos Chaves at a flea market, and “Untitled,” a pair of high-heeled shoes found on the street in an area frequented by transvestites.

The critical text is by Ginevra Bria, a curator with twenty years of experience, dedicated to examining modern and contemporary art in Brazil. She is an assistant professor at Unicamp, where she is finishing her dissertation begun six years ago for her PhD in Art History at Rice University in Houston, USA – “The Noncolor of Indigeneity. In the Art History of Scientific Racism in Brazil, 1865-1935”. In her text about the Marcos Chaves exhibition at Nara Roesler São Paulo she emphasizes: “In total admiration for the practice of painting, which Chaves never approached or formalized, 'Sangue Azul' interweaves photographs, installations and sculptures”. “However, as an exhibition axis, photography borrows the titles of the works from the contradictions of supremacy of the nobility, politics and historical unions of reason for being (citing spaces of power such as Fontainebleau, Pamphilij and Garnier). GinevraBria also highlights that “in this project, between the slow erasure of vertical and horizontal dimensions, each represented or enlarged element is hypostatized in a temporal movement, while the noble dynamics of the reds are timeless. And ennobled”.

Service
Exhibition | Blue blood
From June 07th to August 16st
Monday to Friday from 10:19 to 11:15, Saturday from XNUMX:XNUMX to XNUMX:XNUMX

The center MariAntonia from USP opens, on June 7th, from 11 am, the exhibition The silence of tradition: contemporary paintings, organized by Rodrigo Ships, a reference in art history criticism and teaching in Brazil. The exhibition presents works by twelve emerging visual artists, participants in a study group led by Naves since April 2024. Visiting hours are from Tuesday to Sunday, and on holidays, from 10 am to 18 pm, with free admission.

With weekly meetings focused on the history of art, the group is mostly made up of artists with a background linked to the course Painting: practice and reflection, taught by Paulo Pasta, one of the central names in contemporary Brazilian painting.

Conceived by Naves, the exhibition focuses on the reflection on the importance of art history in artistic formation and on the different ways in which each artist deals with the legacy of art and the challenges of contemporary times.

The artists participating in the exhibition are Beatrice Arraes, Beatriz Buendia, Bruno Neves, Daniel Tagliari, Guilherme Gallé, Helen Scheunemann, Jesus José, Joji Ikeda, Lucas Rubly, Luiz83, Miguel Mori and Rafael Kamada. The production also has the collaboration of Beatriz Almeida and Gabriel San Martin, researchers who are also part of the study group.

The exhibition's program includes conversations with important names in Brazilian contemporary art and criticism, such as Paulo Pasta, Lorenzo Mammì, Taisa Palhares, Antonio Gonçalves Filho, Rodrigo Naves, Alberto Tassinari and Bruno Dunley, as well as guided tours with the artists and educational workshops. The full program will be available on the Maria Antonia website.

The organizer
Rodrigo Naves is a critic, art historian and professor, with a PhD in Aesthetics from the School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH) at USP. He has published essays and articles in several Brazilian and international magazines, newspapers and catalogues, analyzing the works of modern and contemporary artists. He has been an editor for several media outlets and has published several books. For over 20 years, he has taught a free course on art history.

the artists
Beatrice Arraes, Beatriz Buendia, Bruno Neves, Daniel Tagliari, Guilherme Gallé, Helen Scheunemann, Jesus Jose, Joji Ikeda, Lucas Rubly, Luiz83, Miguel Mori and Rafael Kamada

Service
Exhibitions | The silence of tradition: contemporary paintings
From June 7th to September 28th
Tuesday to Sunday, and holidays, from 10am to 18pm

Curated by Daniela Labra, sample Democratic Spring brings together a set of photographs and videos of actions carried out between 2017 and 2025 in several cities around the world, reaffirming the relevance and consistency of Galindo's work in the contemporary performance art scene.

As part of the program, the artist will also perform an unprecedented performance at Praça da Harmonia, in the city center, on June 3, Tuesday, starting at 10 am. The action, which bears the name of the exhibition, proposes a reflection on the persistent and alarming rates of violence against women — even in contexts considered democratic and institutionally stable.

Born in 1974 in Guatemala City, where she lives and works, Regina José Galindo’s work is deeply influenced by the structural violence of Latin American society, focusing on themes such as human rights, feminicide, colonial heritage and social inequalities. In 2005, she received the Golden Lion at the 51st Venice Biennale for her performance “¿Quién puede borrar las huellas?”, in which she walked barefoot through the streets of the Guatemalan capital leaving footprints of blood, in protest against impunity and the violent political past of her country. Since then, she has participated in major international exhibitions, such as the Venice, São Paulo, Havana, Sharjah and Istanbul Biennales, in addition to having presented her work at institutions such as MoMA (New York), Tate Modern (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris) and Guggenheim (New York).

With an artistic language that uses the body as a political instrument, Galindo creates impactful actions that challenge the boundaries between art, denunciation and activism. Her work has been fundamental to the contemporary debate on gender, violence and the mechanisms of power in Latin American societies.

His works are part of important institutional collections around the world, including: Tate London (UK), Foundation Centre Pompidou (France), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (USA), La Gaia Collection (USA), Princeton University (USA), Rivoli Museum (Italy), Daros Foundation (USA), MEIAC (Spain), Miami Art Museum (USA), Ubs, Cisneros Fontanals (USA), Fondazione Teseco (Italy), Fondazione Galleria Civica (Italy), MMKA (Hungary), Consejería de Murcia (Spain) and Art Foundation Mallorca (Spain).

“Democratic Spring” is part of the special calendar of actions and exhibition projects that celebrate Portas Vilaseca’s 15th anniversary in 2025.

Service
Exhibition | Democratic Spring
From June 07th to July 26th
Tuesday to Friday, 11am to 19pm, Saturday, 11am to 17pm

Curated by Daniela Labra, sample Democratic Spring brings together a set of photographs and videos of actions carried out between 2017 and 2025 in several cities around the world, reaffirming the relevance and consistency of Galindo's work in the contemporary performance art scene.

As part of the program, the artist will also perform an unprecedented performance at Praça da Harmonia, in the city center, on June 3, Tuesday, starting at 10 am. The action, which bears the name of the exhibition, proposes a reflection on the persistent and alarming rates of violence against women — even in contexts considered democratic and institutionally stable.

Born in 1974 in Guatemala City, where she lives and works, Regina José Galindo’s work is deeply influenced by the structural violence of Latin American society, focusing on themes such as human rights, feminicide, colonial heritage and social inequalities. In 2005, she received the Golden Lion at the 51st Venice Biennale for her performance “¿Quién puede borrar las huellas?”, in which she walked barefoot through the streets of the Guatemalan capital leaving footprints of blood, in protest against impunity and the violent political past of her country. Since then, she has participated in major international exhibitions, such as the Venice, São Paulo, Havana, Sharjah and Istanbul Biennales, in addition to having presented her work at institutions such as MoMA (New York), Tate Modern (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris) and Guggenheim (New York).

With an artistic language that uses the body as a political instrument, Galindo creates impactful actions that challenge the boundaries between art, denunciation and activism. Her work has been fundamental to the contemporary debate on gender, violence and the mechanisms of power in Latin American societies.

His works are part of important institutional collections around the world, including: Tate London (UK), Foundation Centre Pompidou (France), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (USA), La Gaia Collection (USA), Princeton University (USA), Rivoli Museum (Italy), Daros Foundation (USA), MEIAC (Spain), Miami Art Museum (USA), Ubs, Cisneros Fontanals (USA), Fondazione Teseco (Italy), Fondazione Galleria Civica (Italy), MMKA (Hungary), Consejería de Murcia (Spain) and Art Foundation Mallorca (Spain).

“Democratic Spring” is part of the special calendar of actions and exhibition projects that celebrate Portas Vilaseca’s 15th anniversary in 2025.

Service
Exhibition | EARTH
From May 24th to July 26th
Monday to Friday, 10am to 19pm, Saturday, 11am to 15pm