Since last Wednesday, the 20th, a solo exhibition by São Paulo-based artist Erika Verzutti has been occupying one of the galleries at the Center Pompidou, in Paris, and has drawn the attention not only of visitors to the museum, but also of pedestrians passing through one of the streets. of your surroundings. The artist's first major exhibition in Europe takes place in one of the most emblematic museums of modern and contemporary art in the world and can be seen, at least in part, through one of the glass walls of her industrial architecture building.
The exhibition revolves around a main work, a large swan made of plaster and styrofoam, and also features sculptures in ceramics, bronze, papier-mâché and cement. They are mostly works with shapes inspired by nature, which refer to animals, stones, fruits and vegetables. The exhibition is curated by Christiane Macel, who had already selected the Brazilian artist to participate in the main show of the Venice Biennale in 2017. Verzutti has also exhibited at the Guggenheim in New York and at the Bienal de São Paulo.
According to a curatorial text by Pompidou, “the artist’s work, not without humor, is characterized by the sensuality of its forms, the tactility of the materials and the inclusion of unexpected details”. The text also states that relations of duality, such as “reality and fiction, natural and artificial” underlie her research.
In an interview given in Paris to the newspaper FSP, Verzutti stated: “Artistic making consists, for me, in letting new things happen, letting magic happen. Sometimes the theme is unnecessary.” And she goes on, talking about trial and error: “In the beginning, it's always about how to represent something that is already beautiful in nature. I carve, mold, paint, sometimes all three, sometimes just one. The options engender a new nature”.
In different ways, themes such as feminism and the codes of image culture and social networks also appear in the exhibition, which runs until April 15th.
