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MASP Finalmente sob nova direção? Será? – Celso Fioravante, Mapa das Artes
Mais um editorial oportuno e necessário do sempre contundente Celso Fioravante. Peguei lá no site do Mapa das Artes.
Depois de 14 anos de corrosiva administração encabeçada pelo arquiteto Julio Neves (1994-2008), continuada pelo advogado João da Cruz Vicente de Azevedo e pela colecionadora Beatriz Pimenta Camargo, o Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) tem uma nova chance de sobrevivência.
Localizado na emblemática av. Paulista e abrigado no edifício-símbolo de São Paulo, projeto icônico de Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992), o mais importante museu da América Latina poderá retornar aos seus dias de glória caso sejam aprovadas reformas em seu conveniente estatuto, que fez da administração do museu uma “ação entre amigos” e permite o revezamento e perpetuação no poder de alguns membros de seu conselho. É inadmissível que um diretor- presidente fique no cargo 14 anos! É inadmissível que o projeto arquitetônico de Lina Bo Bardi tenha sido impunemente descaracterizado nos últimos 20 anos! É inadmissível que o MASP tenha se tornado apenas um recebedor de mostras e não produza mais nada de relevante.
O conselheiros do MASP deveriam pagar (e caro) pra serem conselheiros! O museu deveria ter representantes das administrações municipal, estadual e federal, pois recebe verba de todas elas, e também representantes de universidades, de tribunais de contas, do Ministério Público…
O primeiro passo já foi dado, com o convite ao empresário Heitor Martins (ex-presidente da Fundação Bienal entre 2009 e 2013) para que conduza este processo de transição… Sociedade e Estado precisam estar atentos para que o MASP seja bem curado e bem administrado e retorne aos ideais de seus criadores Assis Chateaubriand, Pietro Maria Bardi e Lina Bo Bardi.
O Mapa das Artes quer o MASP de volta, com seus cavaletes de concreto e vidro, seu piso de pedra Goiás, seu vão livre de 74 metros (e também sessões gratuitas da Mostra de Cinema e mais verba para os setores educativos e para a biblioteca!). O Mapa das Artes quer a credibilidade do MASP de volta como presente de aniversário para Lina.
O Mapa das Artes agradece o galerista Paulo Kassab Jr (Galeria Lume) e o fotógrafo Rodrigo Kassab pela cessão de uma imagem da série “Priva-Cidade” (2011), cujo detalhe ilustra a capa desta edição do Mapa das Artes.
Celso Fioravante
Editor
mapadasartes@uol.com.br
TOMBA-GIGANTES por Alexandra Lucas Coelho
Saiu no domingo a coluna TOMBA-GIGANTES da Alexandra Lucas Coelho no jornal O Público de LIsboa e pela segunda semana seguida ela faz menção a minha pessoa. Dessa vez cita a frase POESIA COME TUDO que faz parte do livro RUA lançado na livraria Dantes do Leblon junto com uma intervenção na vitrine a convite de Marcos Chaves e Ana Dantes. Na ocasião do lançamento do livro/intervenção RUA a banda Farofa Carioca (de Seu Jorge, Gabriel Moura e cia) se apresentou na pequena calçada em frente a livraria da Dias Ferreira. Segue a coluna Tomba-Gigantes de Alexandra. Vou ver se acho fotos RUA.
lá no Brasil, o hino nacional brada no campo e na sala, patriotas de vermelho-selecção, punho no peito, nobre povo. Estamos em Lisboa, a 90 minutos de poemas vão suceder 90 minutos do futuro de Portugal, e há quem fique de uma sessão para outra, como teriam ficado Ruy Belo, Assis Pacheco & etc de poetas. É a chama imensa ou o poema contínuo, mas eu saio antes que acabe o hino. A sala foi ficando densa de fumo, amigos foram em busca de ar, e eu vou, com outros, reunir-me a eles.
2. Caminhamos de Santos ao Cais do Sodré, comentando como a sala enchera para ouvir poemas, ficara até difícil passar entre as mesas, tanta gente de pé, quantas pessoas ao todo, 70? Nisto entramos no novo Mercado da Ribeira e 700 pessoas estão sentadas no chão, esfuziantes porque Portugal acaba de marcar um golo.
3. Novo Mercado da Ribeira: não sei se o futuro de Portugal é o futebol mas o presente é gourmet. Por exemplo, os amigos brasileiros que nos esperavam tinham chegado há uns três dias e aquela era a terceira vez que comiam ali. Eu não estava a par do acontecimento, todas aquelas bancas de chefs. Os chefs são os novos profetas, conciliam em vez de dividir multidões no espaço e não no tempo, porque a vida do estômago é instantânea e mortal, ao contrário da vida da cabeça. A Time Out é que fez o novo Mercado da Ribeira, explicou-me uma amiga portuguesa. O futuro da imprensa já é gourmet.
4. Já multidão e poesia são compatíveis mas assíncronas. Nos raros casos em que a multidão vem, o poeta foi. O que define um poeta de multidões não é ser mau, é estar morto. A multidão de um poeta acontece no tempo, por acúmulo de um mais um mais um, entregues à própria cabeça.
5. A propósito, entre a sessão de poemas e o jogo de Portugal, um velho leitor de Herberto falara-me do novo livro de Herberto, e de manhã, horas antes dos poemas, outro velho leitor de Herberto, na outra ponta de Lisboa, falara-me do horror à idolatria. Comprei o novo livro de Herberto na manhã em que saiu, trouxe-o do Porto para o Alentejo para dentro da lareira que já não é lareira, mas ainda não o tirei do celofane. Estou à espera que assente a poeira da corrida, ou como lhe chamar.
6. Há na idolatria uma pulsão sacrificial que é vitória da morte. O contrário será a insubordinação, pulsão de vida. Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen tem aquele verso, Não servirei senhor que possa morrer. O meu horror à idolatria é o horror à subserviência, aos venerados em altar da literatura: não servirei senhor que me possa matar. Idólatras são tudo o que um aumentador de cabeças como Herberto não precisa, potência insubordinada ao tempo, e ao seu derradeiro julgamento.
7. Entre os poetas da sessão pré-jogo, não havia veneráveis. Naquele arco que vai dos gregos a Adília Lopes seriam quase todos pós-Adília. Falta de solenidade não é falta de ritual, nem de sagrado, como sabe quem tenha vivido a sério um Carnaval. É só uma espécie de desassombro, de riso na cara do rei que vai nu. E enquanto os poetas rirem na cara do rei que vai nu ainda cá estamos, glóbulos brancos, glóbulos vermelhos, luta de titãs com a morte.
8. Raul Mourão, artista brasileiro que mencionei na semana passada, tem esta frase numa peça: Poesia come tudo. Índios disseram isso de outra maneira, Oswald de Andrade disse isso de outra maneira, o Brasil diz isso ao mundo embora ouça várias outras coisas em outras direcções. O que o Brasil diz não coincide com o que o Brasil ouve. Pois sim, poesia come tudo, de agriões a rilke shakes (para aludir a uma poeta “parente” de Adília Lopes, a brasileira Angélica Freitas que hoje deve ter acordado no Porto, se virem uma gaúcha de óculos vermelhos, é ela). Mas onde eu queria chegar era a isto, se a poesia come tudo é o tomba-gigantes da morte.
9. Foi na madrugada desse domingo dos poemas e do jogo de Portugal que morreu o Miguel Gaspar. Não trabalhei de perto com ele enquanto editor do Mundo, e na fase em que integrou a direcção do PÚBLICO estivemos em pólos diferentes. A imagem que guardo é bem anterior, a do compincha do jornal rival, quando passámos dias a cobrir a Bienal do Rio de Janeiro, ele para o Diário de Notícias, eu para o PÚBLICO, ele sempre mais rápido, eu sempre atrasando o fecho, escrevendo textos lado a lado e divertindo-nos o resto do tempo. Passaram exactamente 15 anos até à última vez que o Miguel me escreveu no Facebook, já eu estava aqui no Alentejo, uma mensagem compincha como um arco no tempo, por cima de toda a usura. Ele disse que estava feliz e eu sorri.
MAM SP
Esse espinho no Verão – Alexandra Lucas Coelho
Na coluna da Alexandra Lucas Coelho que saiu hoje n’O Público ela comenta nosso encontro por acaso da semana passada. Fala também do Proximo Futuro, de indiozinhso pelados, javalis africanos, Brás Cubas, as guerras dos jornalismo de hoje, aranhas e lagartos etc
segue o texto:
Esse espinho no Verão
1. Escrevo ao lado de uma aranha verde-lima. Está pendurada na ameixoeira à sombra da qual escrevo. Primeiro, de cabeça para cima, desceu a um palmo do meu ombro. Depois, de cabeça para baixo, desatou a subir como um micropolvo, toda cabeça e tentáculos. Eu e uma aranha alpinista nos 35 graus do quintal, nem uma aragem que agite a recta dela. Alguém em linha recta nesta casa.
2. Voltar a casa nos 35 graus do Alentejo: passagem entre o sol e o interior de uma bilha. Está tanto calor como há seis meses no Rio de Janeiro, com a diferença de que no Rio as paredes não são passagens secretas. É uma diferença decisiva, acho que até acima dos 40 vai ser tranquilo, com excepção do quintal, no auge da maturação acelerada. Uma semana fora e já há ameixas do tamanho de ameixas, algumas já rosadas, uma tão precoce que caiu roxa no chão. Dióspiros, só perto do Outono, mas aquilo que era um botão agora é um bolbo, verde como a aranha. E o vaso da hortelã, devastado em chás diários, explodiu numa copa.
3. Um pequeno índio, totalmente nu, nem tanga nem nada, veio pela selva em S para não pisar as couves, as alfaces, tudo aquilo que os humanos tentam comer antes dos caracóis. Era o meu vizinho Vasco, que continua com sete anos. Já não o via há uma semana, o tempo em que dormi no Porto e as ameixas incharam. Atámos juntos a rede carioca, o Vasco saltou lá para dentro e deu-me as novidades: vinha aí um porco-espinho africano. Ele tinha apresentado várias hipóteses aos pais, incluindo um lagarto espinhoso e um porco-espinho africano, e a mãe, segundo ele, escolhera o porco-espinho africano. Eu não sabia que os porcos-espinhos variavam conforme os continentes e também nunca tinha ouvido falar de um lagarto espinhoso. Parece que por baixo dos espinhos tem um sensor de água, então será possível andar pelas selvas com ele, tipo varinha de vedor, ou o Vasco já estava a falar de outro lagarto e eu confundi, mas definitivamente falou de um lagarto que encontra água. Muita sorte voltar a casa e ter um índio que multiplica a nossa cabeça, género fissão nuclear. Por baixo desse espinho no Verão haverá água, quem sabe afinal não morreremos.
4. À noite ficou aquele luarão, terão visto, hemisfério norte, hemisfério sul. O meu quintal estava um pé cá, outro lá, a minha irmã em visita sentiu-se no jardim do Cosme Velho onde morei. Trazia-me o seu índio de dois meses, um budista que olha para o mundo com pernas em flor-de-lótus, um braço atrás da cabeça. Aos dois meses tanto faz se é dia ou noite, o tempo é um nirvana. O indizionho budista dormia, acordou, comeu, dormiu, nu como um índio de tanga amarela. Primeira viagem, o Alentejo.
5. O que toca de sinos nesta terra. Uma amiga minhota a quem há tempos falei dos sinos estranhou, se ainda fosse no Minho. Pois o meu Alentejo é um lugar em que a CDU tem mais de metade dos votos mas as igrejas fazem campeonatos de sinos. Hoje, que é domingo, acordei às oito e meia da manhã com aquelas badaladas que não são horas, disparam num contínuo. Entraram pelo meu sonho, e acordei sem saber se era morto, se era fogo, se era o rei, porque ainda estávamos no século XIX. Essa parte do século XIX há-de ser porque adormeci em cima de Brás Cubas, o mais célebre defunto da literatura brasileira.
6. Ora enquanto eu convivia com Brás Cubas, aí pelas quatro e tal da manhã, um seu compatriota mas nosso contemporâneo, o artista brasileiro Raul Mourão mandou um mail a perguntar por onde andava eu. Às seis e tal mandou outro mail porque acabara naquele instante de topar com um acaso: a crónica anterior a esta, chamada O Plano e o Acaso. Enviava-me em attach um vídeo seu de 2009, chamado Plano/Acaso. Não tínhamos qualquer contacto há pelo menos um ano, se não dois, e duas horas depois de me escrever aparece-lhe um texto meu com um título paralelo a uma peça sua. Li os mails depois de acordar com os sinos, e vi o vídeo, de que nunca nem ouvira falar: uma câmara vai descendo de elevador num edifício-garagem do Centro do Rio de Janeiro, a luz está do lado direito, cada vez menos, até às trevas, mas antes há um momento em que vêm pássaros pousar no parapeito. Quando lerem isto o Raul terá inaugurado uma exposição no festival Próximo Futuro, na Gulbenkian, em Lisboa, fica de convite.
7. Outras duas coisas meio conterrâneas de Brás Cubas terão acabado de passar pela Gulbenkian quando lerem isto: Carmen Miranda pelo Real Combo Lisbonense (RCL) e Angélica Freitas por Angélica Freitas. Esta Carmen/RCL vai-se fazer à estrada, até chegar mesmo a Várzea de Ovelha, lugar de onde foi levada com meses, lá nas redondezas de Marco de Canaveses, será questão de estar atento. Quanto a Angélica, que agitou um Rilke Shake na poesia brasileira, ainda estará hoje a ler em Lisboa (Guilherme Cossoul, 19h30).
8. E a Copa? Fiz Porto-Lisboa no dia da estreia. Vi o jogo num sotão com feijoada portuguesa, a melhor de que me lembro em anos recentes. A maioria dos comensais eram portugueses, mas havia torcedores de França, Perú, Guatemala, Brasil e Croácia, a brasileira a fazer caipirinhas de tangerina com gengibre, o croata a fazer mexilhões ultrapicantes, os melhores de que me lembro, ponto. Sendo que o croata era o homem da casa mais parecido com um brasileiro (ou um paquistanês, ou um turco, alguém escuro). Também havia um indiozinho igual ao principezinho e uma banda indie de raparigas no piso de baixo. A única portuguesa torcedora pela Croácia indignava-se com o aparente facto de o Brasil ter de ganhar para a revolução não estalar na rua.
9. A propósito de revolução, eu voltara do Porto com a notícia do despedimento de mais dezenas e dezenas de jornalistas, incluindo o João Paulo Baltazar. Somos da mesma turma na faculdade, exactamente da mesma geração, aquela em que o jornalismo teve mais meios do que nunca para cobrir uma guerra, e aquela que para fazer jornalismo agora tem de estar em guerra.
10. Já não sei da aranha que sobe em linha recta, nem estou já no quintal, quente demais. Hora da sesta para bichos e índios em geral. Às 17h30 os sinos dispararam outra vez, por cima de um galo perdido nas horas. Talvez sejam os bárbaros.
Vancouver Biennale
O Plano e o Acaso – Alexandra Lucas Coelho
Eu conheci a jornalista e escritora Alexandra Lucas Coelho anos atrás no Rio de Janeiro em uma festa. Ela estava de mudança para o Rio, seria em breve a correspondente do jornal O Publico na cidade dita maravilhosa. Conversamos bastante nesse primeiro encontro sobre o Rio, seus artistas e outras muitas coisas. Dias depois ela fez uma longa entrevista no meu atelie da Rua Joaquim Silva na Lapa. A matéria saiu nO Público e eu repliquei aqui no blog. A partir daquele momento passei a acompanhar a produção de Alexandra e me tornei um grande fã da jornalista e do seu poderoso texto.
Agora estou cá em Lisboa (ela não mora mais no Rio) e ontem pensei que gostaria de encontrá-la e convidá-la para a exposição da próxima sexta etc. Pensei também em colocar um texto novo dela aqui no blog. Então mandei-lhe um email as 6 da manhã e o email voltou com uma mensagem automatica. Resolvo entrar no Publico para ver se acho algum texto dela mas acabo me perdendo entre as noticias do dia e uma quase xará Alexandra Prado Coelho. Com a cabeça confusa de sono e jetleg me deparo com uma chamada “noticias recentes; post de 00h00 intitulado O Plano e o Acaso”. PQP o que é isso? Assustado com a coincidência clico e vou cair no texto da Alexandra Lucas Coelho. Parece mentira mas não é.
O Acaso é assim > Eu procurando por ela e ela escrevendo um texto com o titulo do meu vídeo de 2009. Segue o texto dela e o meu vídeo também.
O PLANO E O ACASO por ALEXANDRA LUCAS COELHO
1. O plano era dormir no Porto três noites, de quinta a domingo. Já chovera e o céu ameaçava mais, talvez até ao fim, então botas, gabardine, biquíni. O biquíni é a esperança que ficou na caixa de Pandora, ou só a falta que a água faz. De repente, ao fim de dois meses na minha toca alentejana, vi aquilo que faltava. Lisboa é uma cidade flutuante. Em Jerusalém, o que falta em água sobra em fé, salva que o mar está perto. No Rio de Janeiro, a Lagoa estava a duas paragens de autocarro e na chuva era a Amazónia. Em compensação, no meu Alentejo sem água não há turismo. Difícil ter água e não ter turistas, equação que já nem se põe em Lisboa, cada vez mais bonita para quem vem de fora. Idem para o Porto, pelo menos chegando assim na primeira quinta-feira de Junho, em plena tomada espanhola: dava para ver todo o Primavera Sound e ir derrubar a monarquia.
2. No primeiro concerto do Primavera, bem dia claro, talvez fôssemos mais americanos que ibéricos. Rodrigo Amarante tocou o seu Cavalo tão sorridente como Johnny Guitar, se Johnny Guitar fosse do sertão. Cavalo faz-me pensar num Brasil filmado por Nicholas Ray. Lá para o fim vem, e veio, o meu verso favorito, fera dos palácios, peste dos jardins, que na boca de um carioca acaba járrdjinsshh. Era como espalhar pelo Parque da Cidade o que tenho no ouvido há semanas. O plano do Porto começara em Rodrigo Amarante, e o acaso foi ter encontrado na relva o Luca Argel, poeta da Tijuca que eu não via desde a minha casa no Rio de Janeiro, e agora mora no Porto, aliás ia lançar um livro no sábado.
3. Ainda quinta, já lua alta, Caetano Veloso e o trio eléctrico da Banda Cê soltaram o Abraçaço na encosta do palco principal, álbum de uma solidão colectiva, atravessado por um arrepio (e o lugar mais frio do Rio é o meu quarto). Caetano pós-caracóis, pós-tanga, um senhor de cabelo liso, camisa branca, mas pronto a deitar-se no chão, cantar desde que o samba é samba: Existe alguém aqui / fundo no fundo de você / de mim / que grita para quem quiser ouvir / quando canta assim: / eta / eta, eta, eta!Entrou e saiu amado, uma plateia de barbas e flores como na tropicália, só que já sabendo do que o mundo não foi capaz. Não sei se é a melhor geração de sempre, mas será a mais bonita, e com certeza a primeira em que um rapaz dorme em casa dos pais com a namorada que antes dele tinha uma namorada.
4. Sexta de manhã era o temporal, rajadas, dilúvio. Apanhei o metro, que em Lisboa seria um eléctrico, saí em São Bento, desci a Rua das Flores, agora sem carros, com cafés de degustação e gente nórdica. Agora, quer dizer, desde a última vez que desci a Rua das Flores, ou seja, há anos. Mas, sim, do lado esquerdo de quem desce mantinha-se o alfarrabista do meu plano, como um parêntesis no meio de 2014: silencioso, vazio, numa semiobscuridade em que apenas a primeira sala estava iluminada: nos fundos e escada acima, escada abaixo, luzes apagadas por contenção. Há no Porto antigo algo de lacónico que é a derradeira elegância, no limiar entre a sensatez e o mistério.
5. Os dois livros do meu plano, reservados há um mês, esperavam intactos, capa de couro carmim, estrofes que talvez ninguém tenha folheado desde 1870, tendo em conta que o autor é daqueles com que o tempo foi justo, pouco lido então, agora nada. Mas escada acima, escada abaixo, acesas as luzes à vez, havia muito acaso em pequenas pilhas atadas com cordel, autor ou tema manuscritos num cartão, sem nenhum pó.
6. Desci com uma pilha nova, uns daqui, outros dacolá, até ao balcão. O único cliente era um cavalheiro de sobretudo e gravata, cabeleira para trás como no cinema mudo, que cavaqueava com os dois anfitriões. Ora um dos acasos que eu trazia vinha de folhas soltas, o que levou um dos anfitriões a revelar-se restaurador na hora: pincel e cola branca, cartão para nova lombada, forro de papel vegetal. O cavalheiro seguia o acontecimento com o vagar de quem já fintou a morte. Quer ver uma coisa bonita?, perguntou, abrindo uma pasta de couro de onde tirou a carta de um Wellington que falava em Tomaz de Mello Breyner. Ah, o avô de Sophia?, perguntei. Médico da corte, confirmou ele, e passou a narrar a autópsia de D. Carlos depois do regicídio. Sob as mãos tinha uma pilha de livros, depreendi que de uma vasta biblioteca, porque me disse que já não comprava nada, apenas vendia quando precisava de dinheiro, e disse-o tão naturalmente como os anfitriões haviam dito que a luz apagada era por causa da crise. Estava com 85 anos, já ia a prole em não sei quantos bisnetos, só faltava algum interessado em livros.
7. Subi pela Rua dos Caldeireiros. Paredes grossas de granito, janelas de guilhotina, a Adega Vila Meã, só razões para morar no Porto. A construção é sólida, come-se bem, é mais barato. Os estrangeiros devem concordar, porque só me cruzei com estrangeiros até aos Clérigos.
8. Luca, o amigo carioca, mandara uma mensagem com as coordenadas do lançamento. Então, sábado à noite, deixei o Parque da Cidade de fitas atadas no pulso como uma presidiária e atravessei a cidade até à Rua do Rosário, onde estaria um tal Gato Vadio. Estava mesmo, e com muitos livros de Alberto Pimenta logo à entrada. Pimenta, fanzines, combate, uma parede de belas ondas vermelhas, um frasco de belas bolachas de chocolate, q.b. de mesas e sofás, ao fundo um jardim, e entre o jardim e as bolachas um rapaz de barba que por acaso entrara porque era amigo da casa, por acaso encontrara Luca que por acaso já conhecia, por acaso ficara para o lançamento, por acaso era agricultor biológico, por acaso já ouvira falar no meu amigo agricultor do Alentejo, de onde eu saíra para por acaso encontrar Luca no concerto do Rodrigo Amarante, que por acaso era o que se ouvia agora no Gato Vadio. Há um biofísico, Stefan Klein, que escreveu um livro sobre o acaso, disse-me este rapaz. De resto, falámos sobre a proximidade entre quem planta e quem come, o cheiro da terra quando não se vive num apartamento, e calámo-nos para ouvir Luca.
9. Ele sentou-se com uma guitarra eléctrica, computador à mão, um link da Net projectado na parede,olivrodereclamacoes.tumblr.com: cada filme um poema, cada poema uma canção. Então Luca cantava o que tinha escrito e na parede apareciam os filmes feitos para cada texto (uns dele, outros de uma estudante de cinema galega, que também mora no Porto). Eu nunca tinha visto um lançamento em forma de cinema cantado, concerto filmado, livro de música. Seja como for, é para circular pelos becos. Venham daí, gatos vadios.
10. Luca é ainda aquele cara de espessa barba ruiva ao centro da roda de samba acabada de nascer na cave do Café Ceuta. Num dos intervalos, contou-me que caminha no Porto como em cidade pequena, sem quase tomar transporte. Mas tem 26 anos, boa idade para derrubar a monarquia ainda que ela se chame república brasileira, quer dizer, estar lá, no olho do cavalo, no transe da rua. Passava da uma da manhã, noitada de cariocas, baianos, tantos deles músicos, uma aniversariante de samba no pé, dançarinos de forró, curiosos, pára-quedistas, tudo isso entre o palco e as mesas de snooker, que no Rio se chama sinuca. Era como um bairro extra do Rio ali por cima dos Aliados, de segunda para terça. E ainda aqui estou.
Plano Acaso from Raul Mourão on Vimeo.
Arriving Late to the Party, but Dancing on All the Clichés By HOLLAND COTTER
Our big museums were built by businessmen, and significant changes are usually about making money. In these days of international markets and a cosmopolitan tourist flow, it pays for Western Modernist strongholds to look culturally embracing. This helps explain the Guggenheim’s UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, a three-phase collecting venture that finds the museum buying and showing the kinds of work it has paid little attention to in the past.
The first of the initiative’s three exhibitions, devoted to art from South and Southeast Asia, took place last year. The third, of work from the Middle East and North Africa, comes in 2015. The middle show, “Under the Same Sun: Art From Latin America Today,” is on view now, tucked away in odd-shaped annex galleries on two levels. With 50 works, it’s fairly small — the map initiative cannot be accused of overreaching — but it has substantial material and begins to fill in a gap created since the museum stopped taking a focused interest in Latin American art in the 1960s.

And where do you enter a conversation when you’re late to the party? Almost anywhere will do, though the curator in charge of this exhibition, Pablo León de la Barra, has wisely chosen to backtrack a bit in history, to the early 1970s and a Conceptual piece from that time by the Puerto Rican-born Rafael Ferrer.
Mr. Ferrer, a New York resident for decades, and best known now as a painter, has always been a mordant critic of the art establishment’s ethnic exclusions. In 1971 he created a text piece consisting of the single word Artforhum, which is both a play on the name of a mainstream magazine and a question, “Art for whom?” Plastered across a Guggenheim ramp, the same distrusting query is as pertinent now as it was back then.
A number of Latin American artists made their way north in the 1970s and ‘80s, some escaping political dangers at home. Paulo Bruscky, harassed by the military dictatorship in Brazil for his deft, teasing interventions into everyday life, continued his light-touch art here. In New York in 1981, and in collaboration with a fellow artist, Daniel Santiago, who remained in Brazil, he placed an advertisement in The Village Voice proposing an “air art” piece that would soak clouds in the Manhattan sky with color.
A few years earlier, the exuberant Argentine artist Marta Minujín had approached the McDonald’s Corporation about bankrolling a New York project: She wanted to build a reclining model of the Statue of Liberty and grill burgers on it — using flamethrowers for heat — in Battery Park. (McDonald’s said no, with thanks.) In 1987 a proposal made to the Public Art Fund by Alfredo Jaar, from Chile, was a success. His 42-second electronic animation, “A Logo for America” — which graphically illustrates the fact that America refers to two continents, not one — appeared, billboard size, in Times Square that year and will be replayed there this August.
Another Chilean, Juan Downey (1940-93), put down permanent roots in New York but kept his sights turned southward. Over several years, he traveled to Mexico, Guatemala and Peru to videotape indigenous cultures. In 1979 he lived for seven months in the Amazon rain forest with the Yanomami people of Venezuela, filming them and encouraging them to film themselves. The resulting work, “The Circles of Fire,” is a centerpiece of the Guggenheim show.
Raimond Chaves (from Bogotá) and Gilda Mantilla (from Los Angeles) have compiled an archive of invented exotic cultures by making carbon-copy drawings of documents found in ethnological libraries in Peru. Mariana Castillo Deball — born in Mexico, living in Europe — layers and elaborates history in her sculptures, which are inspired by 19th-century casts of Mayan art, now lost, made by the British anthropologist Alfred Maudslay.
Finally, Jonathas de Andrade, in a room-size installation called “Posters for the Museum of the Northeastern Man,” parodies a specific 1970s ethnographic museum in northern Brazil. The museum sorts out a racial history of the region in terms of neat, and value-laden, strains of DNA: indigenous, African and European. The photographs of contemporary men from the region in Mr. de Andrade’s “promotional” posters simultaneously confound the idea of fixed ethnic identity and reinforce “male” as a stereotype.

‘Homeless Lamp, the Juice Sucker’
Excerpt from a video of a performance by the artist Iván Navarro and his flourescent light bulb sculpture on the streets of Chelsea.
Latin America itself has long been viewed, from the outside, through clichés, and artists are clever at shooting them down. Tropical wilderness? In a piece called “Walk,” by the Cuban artist Wilfredo Prieto, untamed nature is a single tropical plant to be trundled around in a wheelbarrow. Postcard-perfect Eden? In a travelogue-style video, Mario García Torres speculates as to why the revered Mexican landscape painter Gerardo Murillo (1875-1964), who signed his work Dr. Atl, made the area around Guadalajara look so romantically lush. Was he, perhaps, trying to lure foreign investors to the area? (The Guggenheim once considered building a Guadalajara franchise.)
Lush implies fertile, which can translate as primitive, and the Brazilian artist Erika Verzutti packs all these associations into sculptures made from cast-bronze guavas and bananas. Sort of figurative, sort of abstract, her work is like European Modernism that’s been tickled, taffy-pulled and generally messed around with, as is true of a lot of other work here.
Damián Ortega constructs crisp, classic modular sculpture entirely from tortillas. Carlos Amorales both bows to and amplifies Alexander Calder in a percussive mobile made from metal cymbals. The dozens of geometrically cut sheets of colored plastic in an installation by Amalia Pica are ostensibly a study in Modernist harmony. But, scheduled to be rearranged and reshuffled during the course of the show, they seem to be as much about randomness as about order.
Interrupted order carries political implications, and in nearly every work in this show, there’s a critical pulse beating, sometimes hard. Carlos Motta’s takeaway printed poster titled “Brief History of U.S. Interventions in Latin America Since 1946” delivers exactly what it promises and makes for brutal reading. In a video of a 2009 performance in Havana, Tania Bruguera flouts government censorship by inviting people to stand at a podium and, for one minute, say what they want. If, however, speakers exceed the minute limit, she calls on a pair of uniformed “soldiers” to yank them away from the mike.
Ms. Bruguera has a gift for combining risk and absurdity. So does Javier Téllez, in a video titled “One Flew Over the Void (Bala Perdida).” Shot on the Tijuana side of the Mexican-United States border, the film captures a staged carnival that doubles as an immigrant protest and culminates with a stuntman’s being shot from a cannon over the border wall.
Most of the cast is made up of patients from a local psychiatric hospital. Mr. Téllez’s parents were both psychiatrists; as a child in Venezuela, he visited hospitals with them. And people with mental or physical handicaps appear often in his films. Some viewers have a problem with this, and the very evident disabilities put you on the alert for exploitation. This ethical tension can make the videos hard to watch, but it’s also part of what makes them effective — moving and troubling — because it won’t let you relax.
Unrelaxed is an accurate description of the show as a whole, which, though visually low key, has lots of movement, real and potential. In an installation called “Art History Lesson No. 6,” by Luis Camnitzer, 10 self-run slide projectors flash empty rectangles of light onto the galleries’ walls, as if waiting for images to materialize. A sculpture by Iván Navarro, “Homeless Lamp, the Juice Sucker,” in the shape of a shopping cart made from white fluorescent tubing, generates a blinding glow. But it was meant to be mobile. When it was new in 2005, the artist, like a homeless Diogenes, pushed it through the streets of Chelsea, searching, mostly in vain, for public sources of electrical power.
Most restless of all is the definition of “Latin American art.” It would require a very much larger show than this one to begin to gauge its permutations. And larger, of course, is the goal. Whether Mr. de la Barra will stay on after the exhibition finishes its run is uncertain; technically, he was hired just for this project, but maybe this could change.
What shouldn’t change is the curatorial energy, however low key, that’s been set in motion. Yes, our big museums are embracing a wider world late, and for dubious reasons. But late is better than never. And in enlightened hands, wrong reasons can be made right.
Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today
Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today reconsiders the state of contemporary art in Latin America, investigating the creative responses of artists to complex, shared realities that have been influenced by colonial and modern histories, repressive governments, economic crises, and social inequality, as well as by concurrent periods of regional economic wealth, development, and progress. The exhibition presents contemporary artistic responses to the past and present that are inscribed within this highly nuanced situation, exploring the assertions of alternative futures.
Organized by Pablo León de la Barra, Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Latin America, Under the Same Sun features works by 40 artists and collaborative duos from 15 countries. The artworks are organized around five themes: “Conceptualism and its Legacies,” “Tropicologies,” “Political Activism,” “Modernism and its Failures,” and “Participation/Emancipation.”
Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today is the second of three exhibitions that form part of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative. Following its presentation in New York, the exhibition will travel to two additional international venues. The artworks in the exhibition, along with others acquired as part of the initiative, will become part of the Guggenheim’s permanent collection under the auspices of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Purchase Fund.
APERTURE_SP
Maracanã na Gentil
Tunga e Lenora de Barros @ Pioneer Works
artistas comprometidos? TALVEZ
Artistas Comprometidos? Talvez @ Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

Athi Patra Ruga, The Night of the Long Knives III, 2013 (Cortesia Athi Patra Ruga e Whatiftheworld Gallery)
Inaugura na próxima sexta as 22h a exposição Artistas Comprometidos? Talvez, na Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian em Lisboa com curadoria de Antonio Pinto Ribeiro e participação dos artistas Athi-Patra Ruga, Berna Reale, Bouchra Khalili, Bruno Boudjelal, Celestino Mondlane, Conrad Botes, Demián Flores, Eduardo Basualdo, Eva Grubinger, Fredy Alzate, Johanna Calle, João Ferro Martins, Luiz Zerbini, Miguel Jara, Paul Edmunds, Pedro Barateiro, Raul Mourão, Sandra Monterroso, Simon Gush, Solon Ribeiro, Wim Botha.
Na mesma sexta as 24h acontece o Baile na Garagem da Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Com Lyndon Barry convidando La Flama Blanca que nos últimos dois anos tem contagiado a cidade de Lisboa com sons latino-americanos.
Entrada gratuita aos domingos
Fechado às segundas-feiras
20 Jun 2014 – 7 Set 2014
Galeria de Exposições Temporárias – Edifício Sede – Piso 0 e Jardim
Entrada 4 €
How long can the art market boom last? By Georgina Adam
New York, May 13 2014: as afternoon turned into evening, limousines lined up outside Christie’s Rockefeller Plaza headquarters. Elegantly dressed visitors made their way past Marc Quinn’s eye-catching sculpture of supermodel Kate Moss twisted into a gravity-defying yoga position, their attention focused on the evening ahead. Could the art market also continue to defy gravity and climb even higher than it had already?
Six months earlier, in November 2013, Christie’s had pulverised market records with a sale of contemporary art that totalled $691.5m – the highest for any auction. It included a new high for any work of art at auction, when Las Vegas casino billionaire Elaine Wynn spent $142.4m on Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud”; and a new record for a living artist as Jeff Koons’ shiny orange “Balloon Dog” romped to $58.4m.
On May 13 the saleroom was packed. All the regulars were there: Larry Gagosian, kingpin of art dealers; members of the Mugrabi family, traders with a massive position in Warhol and Basquiat paintings; François Pinault, luxury-goods mogul, owner of Christie’s, collector, and founder of two museums in Venice. And the glitterati, too: designer Marc Jacobs; Olivier Sarkozy, half-brother of France’s former president Nicolas, snuggling up to his fiancée, the actress-turned-fashion designer Mary-Kate Olsen. And, above the main floor, in “light-boxes” or private rooms with a view of the action, were the players who wanted to see but not be seen.
A Jackson Pollock from the sale
The sale started in high gear. Lot eight – a lucky number in China – was “Poisson Volant”, a mobile by Alexander Calder swinging lazily above the room. Christie’s Hong Kong-based Asian business development director Xin Li, bidding on behalf of Asian clients, beat out Gagosian to pay $25.9m – almost twice the estimate – after a dogged battle.
The records piled up: a word painting by Christopher Wool at $23.7m, a Barnett Newman at $84m: as the sale progressed, even seasoned dealers were stunned. “Holy moly,” whispered dealer and collector Adam Lindemann to his neighbour as a Warhol White Marilyn zipped to $41m; by the end, the sale had totalled almost $745m – the highest-grossing ever.
. . .
Those of us who have worked in the art market for many years find this new world almost unrecognisable. I started reporting from Paris in the 1980s when Van Gogh and Renoir were fetching the highest auction prices, and a top art fair was the Biennale des Antiquaires, featuring Louis XV ormolu-mounted lacquer commodes and Sèvres porcelain. Impressionist paintings were must-haves, particularly during the hysterical years at the end of the decade when Japanese buyers drove the market to frenzied heights, only for it to collapse after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and the property market tanked.
Those of us who have worked in the art market since the 1980s find this new world almost unrecognisable
In the late 1980s and early 1990s contemporary art was hardly sold at auction. While there was a brief “greed is good” interlude in the 1980s – when Julian Schnabel and others enjoyed superstar status – this ended with the 1990 slump. The art world was mainly US- and EU-centric: Chinese art mainly meant Ming porcelain, Indian art Mughal miniatures. Communism or dictatorships closed off Russia, China and Latin America from trading much in art. The Gulf states were not on anyone’s art radar.
In 1995, when I moved to Japan, the country suffered the twin blows of the Kobe earthquake and a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. The country’s miracle period of economic growth was over and I watched as banks tried to offload the massive inventory of paintings bought in the “bubble” years, often selling works at a tenth or less of the prices they had previously paid.
Back in the UK in 2000, I saw the first dotcom boom collapse, sweeping away early adopters’ predictions that the internet would propel the art market upwards by finding new buyers around the world.
Then, from 2004 onwards, it all changed. The market for contemporary and modern art began to grow powerfully, barely flinching after the 2008-09 global crisis. It has continued to grow, galvanised by new players, from giant art fairs to massively rich new collectors and emerging economies, as well as changing roles for auction houses and galleries. In my new book Big Bucks – The Explosion of the Art Market in the 21st Century I look at how this happened.
Basquiat’s ‘Untitled’ (1981) went for $34.9m last month
One of the biggest changes has been the transformation of the auction houses into international “art businesses”, offering a range of services that increasingly encroach on art galleries’ traditional turf. Then there’s been a polarisation of art galleries into a few huge operations straddling the globe – and the rest. Faced by the challenge of these mega-galleries that poach their successful artists, and from auction houses that, increasingly, are selling works of art privately or through dedicated sale outlets, thesmaller galleries find it hard to survive in this climate. As some smaller galleries have closed, behemoths such as White Cube’s Bermondsey space or Hauser & Wirth’s Savile Row premises have put on big shows as well as supporting exhibitions in publicly-funded galleries.
Another change since the beginning of this century has been the explosion of contemporary and modern art fairs. There are more than 220 major ones, with new ones being announced all the time, notably one in Los Angeles in 2015. They, and the 100 or so biennales that are often also partly selling events, have expanded the market, as well as providing a seductive event-driven lifestyle.
The influence of new buyers from emerging economies, particularly from China, Russia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, has upended the traditional landscape of collecting, formerly dominated by the US and Europe. A new army of intermediaries – called “art advisers” – help collectors negotiate the art world, providing necessary “access”, which means being allowed to buy the work of the most sought-after artists. Most of us can’t walk in and buy a well-known artist’s work. The gallery will want to “place” the work in a good collection or museum, and prevent it being resold quickly for a higher price.
Then there are independent curators who have carved out a new role putting together shows for biennales, galleries and individuals. Their influence on what is good art today has to an extent replaced the artistic agenda once set by museums and art critics.
My researches also took me into the underbelly of a largely unregulated trade in art, where opacity and secrecy make it a fertile terrain for questionable deals. (Some drug barons will accept a painting rather than money; by reselling the art they pocket a “clean” sum.) And art – transportable, difficult to evaluate – is handy for tax evasion as well.
. . .
A key factor in the art market boom is the growth of global wealth. In 2013 there were a record 2,170 billionaires in the world, according to research group Wealth-X, and many have founded private museums or art spaces. Many of the new super-rich are far younger than the collectors of yesterday, and their tastes influence the high-impact immediacy of much contemporary art. The new collectors need living artists to keep the fairs, auctions, galleries and biennales afloat with new creations. In contrast, there is a shrinking inventory in other sections of the market, be it impressionist painting or Renaissance sculpture. The top works are in museums or in major collections. New buyers, however deep their pockets, would find it near-impossible to create a museum of anything except contemporary art.
The boom at the top isn’t, however, trickling down to all artists: according to Clare McAndrew, who runs research and consulting group Arts Economics, high-end dealers report that top collectors are only interested in the work of 50 to 100 artists, overwhelmingly modern and contemporary. One dealer told me that the “conformity in the global market today [is] due to the internet – everyone wants the same few things”.
While art and money have always been linked, there is now greater convergence between the worlds of art and finance. In the sale described at the beginning of this article, 40 of the 72 lots carried some sort of guarantee, with 29 financed by Christie’s and 11 by unidentified third parties. This meant that more than half of the lots were presold at a secret price – the only question was whether another buyer would put in a higher bid.
Jeff Koons’ ‘Balloon Dog’ fetched $58.4m in November
The auction houses say that by taking any risk out of the auction, they attract consignors who otherwise might hesitate to send something to auction in case it is “burnt” by not finding a buyer. The guarantors are happy to acquire the art at the price they set – or they get a cut if it sells for a higher price to someone else.
Though guarantees have been around since at least the 1950s, they have been a key element in inflating recent prices. Also driving them up has been the phenomenon of speculators “flipping” works by young artists, buying massively into a first show and then put the art into auction for sometimes high returns. The film producer Stefan Simchowitz is reported to have bought 34 paintings by the Colombian Oscar Murillo for a total of about $50,000 early in the artist’s career: the works now make up to $400,000 at auction.
. . .
Everyone wants to know whether this market is a bubble and, if so, when it will burst? This seems unlikely to happen any time soon: the sheer amount of global wealth; the massive museum-building programmes; the positioning of art as an element of the celebrity and fashion worlds, and the seductive lifestyle the art world offers are all very attractive to the super-rich.
But I like to keep in mind what the Chinese say: “Trees can’t grow as high as the sky.” All markets are cyclical; the art market has had booms and busts before, for example, during the armed conflicts of the 20th century, in the 1970s and in 1990: each time mirroring the global economy.
There are parallels between this situation and the art market in England between 1860 and 1914, “the golden age of the living painter”, according to art historian Gerald Reitlinger. It was a time of rapid economic growth thanks to the technological revolution, and new patrons of art came from these manufacturing and trading fortunes.
The sometimes scandalous lives of Pre-Raphaelite artists and their circle were well publicised; advances in printing meant that 600,000 impressions were sold of Millais’ winsome child, “Cherry Ripe”. Contemporary artists were stars: Edwin Long’s florid “The Babylonian Marriage Market” (1875) sold in 1882 for £6,615 (almost £700,000 today) – then a record for a living English painter. It was bought by Thomas Holloway, a multimillionaire from sales of ointment and medicines. The art establishment was outraged, and in Holloway’s obituary the Art Journal sniffed: “Those whose productions he acquired may possibly have to regret the inflated prices which . . . their works assumed.”
Long’s prices did collapse, along with those of many Victorian artists. The first world war and the Great Depression would end that boom.
How will today’s art stars fare in the future? Major political upheavals or financial problems inevitably have an impact on investment and the art market cannot be immune. Almost all the huge prices are, however, being made as a growing pool of ultra-rich buyers battles for a small number of brand-name works. There is a vast hinterland of good art by creators whose names will never be widely known and whose works will never achieve such heights. The overall trend of the market is upwards, historically, but not for everyone, and not always.
Marc Quinn’s “Myth Venus”, the Kate Moss statue outside the extraordinary Christie’s sale, made $1.3m at auction last month but it is impossible to predict whether the empty-eyed beauty will turn out to be a good, bad or unremarkable investment.
Georgina Adam is art market correspondent of the FT and art market editor-at-large of The Art Newspaper.
On June 20 she will speak at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, about her book ‘Big Bucks: The Explosion of the Art Market in the 21st Century’ (Lund Humphries) published later this month.
Edu Coimbra no Paço
João Maria Gusmão e Pedro Paiva
Thoughts on the Present and Future of Bushwick Open Studios by Hrag Vartanian

Skewville’s Bushwick sign on a rooftop on Flushing Avenue (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)
People’s reactions to Bushwick Open Studios (BOS) generally fall into two passionate camps: those who love the event and those who despise it. The latter group often gripes about the crowds around the Morgan Avenue subway stop, the boisterous atmosphere around that hub (the epicenter of the party area is Bogart and Grattan Streets), and the throng of artists and gawkers from outside the neighborhood eager to get in on some of the action. Yet those who enjoy BOS, myself included, know that steering clear of the two blocks radiating from Bogart and Grattan is largely necessary (unless you’re eating atMOMO’s Sushi Shack; I always avoid Roberta’s) and the real treats are in the far-flung spaces, the one-on-one conversations in off-the-beaten-path locales. It’s a rookie mistake to think “Bushwick” is only northwest of Flushing Avenue or that the focus isn’t on community building.
This year I spent agreat deal of time exploring the spokes of Broadway west of Myrtle, where a new axis of “South Bushwick Art” is starting to form. Stretching from the Flushing Avenue J/M/Z station to the Kosciuszko stop, this new cluster, on the edge of the Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods, includes long-time resident Grace Exhibition Space, some not-so-new spaces, like Airplane and Microscope galleries, and some more recent additions, like Wayfarers and even Good Work Gallery.

Left, Odetta gallery opening on Saturday; right, a work by Brent Owens on display at “South Bushwick Art” gallery Wayfarers
That new area was a discovery for me, and the studios associated with Wayfarers and Good Work were both quite good. So was the community atmosphere at the Living Gallery, where an open mic event attracted aspiring beat poets, songwriters, and others eager for a chance to shine.

One of the participants in the Living Gallery’s open mic event last Saturday
The standouts from this year’s BOS were undoubtedly the group and gallery shows, even if they aren’t the focus of the weekend’s fun. Exhibitions like Do-It-Yourself, Communal Table, and others brought together some of the neighborhood’s strongest talents for curated experiences that were better than those of previous years. While “studios” are the focus of BOS, I have a hunch that curated shows are probably its future. Bushwick Open Studios has always been a community-building effort, and the goal is inclusion; shows like Do-It-Yourself, with 11 curators and dozens of artists, demonstrates how that could look.

Visitors playing with a sculpture that was part of REAL on Rock Street
Arts in Bushwick, which runs BOS, is one of the neighborhood arts community’s real success stories. As a grassroots, volunteer-run organization, they have toiled away at creating bonds and bridges between artists, arts entities around the city, and different groups of local residents and schools in the area. AiB has created a high school fellows program, and launched a Community Team that runs a variety of programs and events to serve youth and families in Bushwick. If BOS feels unwieldy, which it long has, it’s because Bushwick is really four or five geographic communities rolled into one, and Arts in Bushwick has long attempted (with varying levels of success) to sew them all together into one big quilt.

A look inside the Newd Art Show
This year the Newd Art Show really added another dimension to the weekend, since it highlighted some of the many strong galleries in the neighborhood (Regina Rex, Theodore:Art, Sardine) and brought in a few others from surrounding areas (American Medium gallery is from neighboring Bedford-Stuyvesant, while Rawson Projects is headquartered in Greenpoint, for instance) to create a hub for the commercial face of the area’s art scene.
Newd was a well-curated experience by fair organizers, with some incredibly strong galleries and a few weaker ones. While sales from the fair may not have been phenomenal (a number of galleries told me they sold one or two works though they remained tight-lipped on prices), sales did happen, and some established collectors arrived to tour the compact fair. Newd also launched their artist’s contract experiment to provide artists with negotiated resale royalty provisions. When I asked the fair yesterday, I was told 10 contracts had already been signed on work sold.

A site-specific kinetic sculpture by Brazilian artist Raul Mourão at the Newd Art Show
The overwhelming topic of conversation throughout the weekend was the “g” word, gentrification, and the art community’s role. I myself took part in two panels on Sunday that tackled the issue, and I know there was at least one other panel on the same topic in a different Bushwick location. The conversation has reached a fevered pitch, though none of this weekend’s panels was nearly as well-attended as a similar one I moderated a few years back at Bogart Salon, which was located at 56 Bogart. While the art community may be slowly digesting the realities of change in Bushwick, Deborah Brown, artist, gallerist, nonprofit board member, and member of the Bushwick community board, explained at panels throughout the day how more anxiety is bubbling up around the issue than ever before. With artists and hipsters spread past the industrial parks into more established residential neighborhoods, and the large 977-unit Rheingold Brewery site slated for development into largely market-rate apartments, you can see why longtime residents worry that their neighborhood is quickly disappearing.

Looking east down Wyckoff Avenue
Bushwick is a big swathe of northern Brooklyn, and it seems clear that in the coming year it will fragment as gentrification intensifies in the west towards Brownsville, north into Ridgewood, and south into Bed-Stuy. Micro-neighborhoods will develop (West Bushwick? So(uth)Bu(shwick)? Bushwood?), white-collar professionals will follow, and more condos will be built. Until then BOS continues to provide a human face to a community by connecting its disparate elements as best it can. Arts in Bushwick’s accomplishment is amazing, and they should be proud.
An Art Weekend in Bushwick By Valeriya Safronova

Bushwick Open Studios, a free art tour organized by a group of local volunteers, will run from tomorrow until Sunday in the Brooklyn neighborhood that’s been lauded (and in some cases, decried) as the next coolest thing. What began as a midsize festival in 2006 with 85 studios has become an enormous, hectic jumble with more than 600 participants. For the duration of the weekend, galleries, studios, warehouses, basements, parking lots and other locales will be open to the public daily, with artists (such as Samantha French, whose work is pictured above) milling around to discuss their works. There will also be music, panel discussions and local food. Even with an online directory, an app and printed maps that can be found at one of B.O.S.’s nine hubs, it’s an overwhelming amount of art to take in, so here is a shortlist of galleries and group shows not to be missed.

NEWD Art Show
Intended to complement the experience of Bushwick Open Studios,NEWD Art Show — housed in the 1896, the building where the now-infamous “Girls” warehouse party episode was shot — will bring together nonprofits, artist-run galleries, collectives and project spaces. Its curators, Kibum Kim and Kate Bryan, are high school friends with solid art-world credentials — Kim teaches at Sotheby’s Institute and Bryan spent time at Sotheby’s and Andrea Rosen Gallery — who are seeking to lure collectors and cognoscenti to Bushwick. The work on view will be in a variety of media, from video to concrete-infused foam to aluminum. Talks will revolve around issues relevant to enterprising up-and-comers; one on Friday afternoon, featuring assistant curators from the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum and the New Museum, will focus on how to bring emerging artists into established institutions.
592 Johnson Avenue, newdartshow.com.

Interstate Projects
This established local gallery will feature the work of Justin Berry, an artist who takes photographs within video games and makes pictures out of words. Don’t forget to visit the downstairs section of the gallery, where images of the sky and the earth each cover one wall, while orchestral scores play dramatically in the background.
66 Knickerbocker Avenue, interstateprojects.com.

Art 3
As part of its inaugural exhibition and participation in B.O.S., Art 3 will showcase the works of 12 artists from around the globe. Standouts include “Picnic,” a painting by Andre von Marisse that reimagines Edouard Manet’s iconic “Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe” as a scene involving characters from the Popeye cartoons, and Julia Curylo’s “Chicks,” chicken-shaped inflatables covered with imagery that references famous female artists like Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keeffe.
109 Ingraham Street, Suite 102, art-3gallery.com.

Signal Gallery
In a neighborhood with more warehouses than trees, a gallery show highlighting work made with industrial and architectural materials makes perfect sense. This weekend (and beyond), this large, sparse space will feature the works of three artists, Andrew Laumann, Jesse Hlebo and Nicholas Gottlund, who utilize discarded film posters, burnt plywood and recycled paper pulp, respectively. Their pieces are meditations on the degeneration and purposeful destruction of systems, and the waste and byproducts that result. Of particular note are Laumann’s sculpture-paintings, which recall the spontaneity of Impressionism but are actually made of tiny scraps of paper that have been methodically applied and reapplied.
260 Johnson Avenue, ssiiggnnaall.com.
Lygia Clark, MoMA, New York – review By Ariella Budick
The Brazilian artist progressed from primly modernist abstraction to messily hippie improvisation
I entered the Museum of Modern Art’s Lygia Clark retrospective at the wrong end, which shouldn’t have mattered, because the Brazilian artist’s epiphany came when she learnt to love the infinite loop. The first piece I encountered was “Caminhando” (Walking), from 1963, in which she invited viewers to construct their own Möbius strip out of paper and glue, then keep cutting along its length until the band narrowed to nothing. This arts-and-crafts project seemed like a reasonable starting point for a life in art, but I soon realised I had begun at the climax of Clark’s career: the moment when she handed off the work of creation to the viewers themselves. A few years later she finally abandoned art-making for a kind of anarchic therapy. She settled in Rio, treating patients through a process she called “structuring of the self”, until her death in 1988.
MoMA’s show is a curiously hermetic affair, following the interior progress of an artist who is practically unknown in the US. A little context might have alleviated the sensation of wandering into an advanced seminar on a rarefied and not terribly interesting topic. Clark’s various phases, discoveries, and retreats resolve themselves not into a Möbius-like loop but a more or less linear trajectory, from prim modernism to wacked-out, body-based improvisation. An alternative story remains untold: Clark’s native country went through spasms of cultural and political turmoil during her career, but for curators Luis Pérez-Oramas and Connie Butler she might as well be a lone visionary on a deserted planet.
Lygia Pimentel Lins was born in 1920 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Married at 18 to a civil engineer named Aluízio Clark Ribeiro, in 1950 she took off for Paris to study painting, with three children in tow. By the mid-1950s she was producing standard modernist abstractions. “Composition” (c.1952) echoes Klee in its delicate colours and gridlike structure. “Discovery of the Organic Line” (1954) stars a floating red square straight out of El Lissitzky. Shades of Mondrian haunted her through the mid-1950s, forcing her shapes into strict geometries.
At that time, North American artists, disgusted by the carnage of the second world war and the bankruptcy of all ideologies, turned inward, pioneering a kind of free-form abstraction derived from surrealism. Clark reached further back, to leftist visions dreamt up in prewar Russia and Germany. She briefly found hope in the strict rationalism of mathematics and in the broken promise of modernism.
By the late 1950s though, Clark was no longer satisfied with airless geometries. She began to open up her abstractions by inserting linear breathing spaces between panels. Two floating black squares are separated by what she calls an “organic line”, an inviting white fissure in an otherwise forbiddingly pristine plane. Similar incisions appear in other works from this period, too. Some planes are divided into puzzle-like pieces that fit snugly together, leaving only the slenderest cracks. Other paintings extend into frames that are flush with the painted surface. Clark simultaneously draws our attention to the image’s edge and its boundlessness.
She kept trying different tactics to yank in the viewer. She cut and pasted papers into optical experiments, where black and white areas alternately recede and jut forward. The collages depend on the viewer’s willingness to wrestle with their shifting architecture. They’re fun, but shallow. If Clark’s career had ended in the 1950s, I doubt we’d be hearing much about her now. It was only after she enlisted the audience’s active participation that her work leapt into another dimension. She began to unfold the layers of her paintings into sculptures called “Bichos” (Critters), seriously playful objects that pried viewers from their passivity, obliging them to interact with artworks as if they were living, breathing organisms.
Clark translated the vital lines that had erupted through her paintings into hinges, while two-dimensional planes became steel and aluminum sheets that participants could manipulate and recombine, like metallic origami. MoMA has appealingly recreated a number of these for us to play with, while Clark’s originals wistfully look on from their sacred plinths. She may have wanted people to manhandle her work, but it’s far too valuable these days for such destructive high jinks.
This period culminated in “Caminhando”, which marks the beginning of the end of her involvement with art – and also of MoMA’s exhibition. “From here on I attribute an absolute importance to the immanent act carried out by the participant,” she announced at the time. “‘Caminhando’ has all the possibilities connected to action itself. It allows choice, the unpredictable, and the transformation of a virtual into a concrete event.” That “choice” presents itself as a series of limited decisions: to cut down the centre, or at the side, or gradually guide the scissors left to right? There are echoes of the way Fluxus artists toyed with the public too: Yoko Ono commanded audiences to “Light canvas or any finished painting with a cigarette at any time for any length of time”, and Ken Friedman mischievously ordered viewers of his 1963 “Fruit Sonata” to “Play baseball with a fruit.”
Clark lacked that wry humour, though. Her antics married the rhetoric of self-help to hippie spirituality. She concentrated on making “sensorial objects” such as cloth masks with distorting eye holes and snouts stuffed with herbs, or glasses equipped with adjustable mirrors – things that would, she hoped, boost awareness of our own bodies. At MoMA, a team of “facilitators” helped me navigate a table stocked with replicas of Clark’s contraptions. One demonstrated how to float a rock on a plastic bag filled with air. Another tied her hand to mine with a kind of twisted elastic bandage, extending the Möbius strip into the realm of human relationships.
Videos around the room broadcast some of the sessions Clark led among her students. In “Baba antropofágica” (Anthropophagic slobber), participants slowly disgorge saliva-laden filaments that they lay across a prone colleague, covering him in a moist, wispy web. They then proceed to massage him. “It is the first act in a ritual of phantasmatic exorcism for the emancipation of the body,” Clark explained, unhelpfully. The encounter group meets the neo-primitive ritual, giving birth, as it were, to a groovy mysticism. That shaggy ethos has not aged well and, like almost everything else in this arid show, seems almost brutally dated.
‘Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art’, to August 24, moma.org
NEWD ART SHOW
NEWD Art Show is a new art fair that will bring together artist collectives, project spaces, non-profits and galleries to promote emerging art initiatives and foster a conversation on how best to support young artists—by organizing talks on artist-centric issues, offering negotiated resale rights as an option for sales, and showcasing Artist Pension Trust.
Exhibitors
American Medium, a Bedford-Stuyvesant gallery
LAW OFFICE, since 1998
Marina T. Schindler, an independent curator
Rawson Projects, a Greenpoint gallery
Regina Rex, a Bushwick artist collective
Residency Unlimited, a Carroll Gardens non-profit
Sardine, a Bushwick gallery
Signal, a Bushwick gallery
Theodore:Art, a Bushwick gallery
Artists
Conor Backman / John Dante Bianchi / Marc Breslin / Andres Carranza / Holly Coulis / Robert Davis / Vincent Dermody / Hayden Dunham / Alex Eagleton / Allen Glatter / Dave Hardy / EJ Hauser / Sophie Hirsch / Lukas Hofer / Sheree Hovsepian / M+L (Marie Karlberg & Lena Henke) / Scooter Laforge / Raul Mourão / Brenna Murphy / Bill Mutter / Jon Rafman / Bennet Schlesinger / Leah Tacha / Stewart Uoo / Jonathan VanDyke / Pedro Velez / JD Walsh
* Artist Pension Trust will be exhibiting a new presentation of sixteen video works by an international roster of member artists titled “We’ve All Got Issues: Video Art from the APT Collection.”
Talks Program
Friday May 30
2pm: Emerging Artists in the $1 Billion Contemporary Art Market: A Panel
Moderator: Andrew M. Goldstein, Editor-in-Chief of Artspace
Josh Baer, Publisher of Baer Faxt
Rob Davis, artist
Lowell Pettit, Co-Director of Pettit Art Partners
4pm: Exhibiting Emerging Artists in the Era of Blockbuster Shows: A Panel
Moderator: Jens Hoffmann, Deputy Director, The Jewish Museum
Rujeko Hockley, Assistant Curator, Brooklyn Museum
Thomas J. Lax, Assistant Curator, The Studio Museum
Margot Norton, Assistant Curator, New Museum
Saturday May 31
2pm: Presentation of Level Rights’s Negotiated Resale Rights Platform
Franklin Boyd, Founder of Level Rights
Sunday June 1
2pm: Sustaining Art Communities in the Face of Gentrification: A Panel
Moderator: Hrag Vartanian, Editor-in-Chief of Hyperallergic
Deborah Brown, Founder of Storefront 10 Eyck
William Powhida, artist
Private Preview
The NEWD Art Show is adopting a split-cost model; thus the private preview will serve as a fundraiser to defray the costs of participation in support of emerging art initiatives. The event will feature a performance by Kalup Linzy and a DJ set by Paskal Daze. Dinner and drinks will be provided by Roberta’s. Tickets are available online at newdartshow.com.
Location
The fair will be held at the 1896—a NEWD sponsor—located at 592 Johnson Avenue, Brooklyn (near the Jefferson stop on the L). That same weekend, the neighborhood will also host the eighth edition of Bushwick Open Studios, set to feature over 600 artist studios and exhibitions.
Carlito Carvalhosa Possibility Matters @ Sonabend
A two room installation by Carlito Carvalhosa.
In these rooms, the floor is lined with rows of glowing flourescent tubes and the space is interrupted and criss-crossed from floor to ceiling by dozens of large wooden shafts, disrupting the usual flow of movement through the gallery rooms and thus altering perception of the interior. The heavy poles, the kind usually used to support telephone lines, puncture the walls and descend from the ceiling to rest upon transparent drinking glasses, creating a flow of light and gravity. For Carvalhosa, material is not a barrier to the enactment of an idea, the material is the fulfillment of the idea.
Carvalhosa’s work is an ongoing exploration of the reconfiguration of architectural spaces, often via unexpected juxtapositions of interior/exterior objects and everyday materials.
CARVALHOSA CLARK @ MoMA
Caio Reisewitz @ International Center of Photography
Lygia Clark para ver e sentir Por Eduardo Graça | Para o Valor
Mostra no MoMA é a maior jamais dedicada a um dos nomes centrais do neoconcretismo brasileiro
A redescoberta de Lygia Clark (1920-1988) pelo mercado, que ganhava destaque cada vez maior nos últimos anos, se consumou no ano passado, quando a tela “Superfície Modulada nº 4” foi arrematada por R$ 5,3 milhões na Bolsa de Arte de São Paulo, tornando-se a obra de arte mais cara de um artista brasileiro negociada em leilão. A expectativa, a partir desta semana, é a de o poder de atração da artista mineira chegar ao grande público americano. Quase 300 obras representando a trajetória de Lygia, de forma mais ou menos cronológica, estarão à mostra na maior exposição jamais dedicada a um dos nomes centrais do neoconcretismo brasileiro. “Lygia Clark: O Abandono da Arte, 1948-1988”, inaugurada neste sábado no Museu de Arte Moderna de Nova York (MoMA), reúne pinturas, desenhos, esculturas e “objetos relacionais” e ocupa, até o fim de agosto, metade do sexto andar e toda uma galeria no quarto andar da prestigiosa instituição de Manhattan.
Quando os curadores começaram a pensar na curadoria, levaram em conta que o grande público no Hemisfério Norte ainda desconhece o trabalho da Lygia. “E os especialistas, em geral, pensam – e isso quero ressaltar – que a conhecem com alguma propriedade. O que queríamos de fato mostrar era a produção de uma artista interessada em refletir sobre a transição do pensamento moderno para a arte contemporânea, de forma singularíssima, a partir da chamada periferia do planeta”, diz, em ótimo português, o curador de Arte Latino-Americana do MoMA e responsável pela curadoria da mais recente edição da Bienal Internacional de Arte de São Paulo, Luis Pérez-Oramas, um “venezuelano com alma de brasileiro”, como costuma se apresentar aos interlocutores sul-americanos cuja língua materna não é o castelhano.
Por essa razão, a divisão da mostra é em temas específicos e ela foi pensada com a certeza de que seria “assumidamente grandiosa, a ser percorrida com calma, voltada para a integração do visitante com a obra plástica e, especialmente, por meio de seu aspecto sensorial, bem ao gosto de Lygia”.
“O Abandono da Arte” é fruto da sensibilidade e da dedicação física e intelectual de Pérez-Oramas e da principal curadora do Museu Hammer de Los Angeles, Connie Butler, sua parceira na cerzidura da exposição. Não menos importante foi a participação, em cada etapa da construção do evento, que inclui ainda uma série de filmes experimentais a ser apresentados na Cinemateca do MoMA, da família da artista.
Coube aos herdeiros de Lygia, que morreu em 1988 aos 67 anos, iniciarem, nas últimas décadas, um processo minucioso de catalogação de toda sua produção, fundamental para a revalorização no mercado de obras como a notória série “Bicho”, símbolo do processo de transformação da criação plástica em experiência de fato corpórea, atrelada à vida real, na definição do poeta e crítico Ferreira Gullar.
Um dos destaques da exposição, não por acaso, é a instalação de 8 metros “A Casa É o Corpo: Penetração, Ovulação, Germinação, Expulsão”, exposta inicialmente no Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM) do Rio no emblemático ano de 1968 e posteriormente apresentada na Bienal de Veneza. Percorra o simulacro de útero criado pela artista, deixe-se ser transportado para a escuridão, a asfixia, a claustrofobia do labirinto de Lygia, até a liberação do renascimento ao fim de um percurso em nada previsível, e a primeira reação é inevitável: a obra de arte criada há 47 primaveras é, no museu povoado por visitantes oriundos de todos os cantos do planeta, ainda uma experiência visceral, de tirar o fôlego do público.
Mostra deve ser percorrida com calma, voltada para a integração do visitante com a obra plástica e por meio de seu aspecto sensorial, recomenda curador do MoMA
“Um de nossos principais desafios foi o de criar uma exposição em que, em muitas galerias, os visitantes não poderiam, por motivos óbvios, tocar nas telas. Mas em outras, no entanto, eles eram, ao contrário, aconselhados, instigados, convidados a se integrar ao resultado do fazer artístico, a mexer, a entrar, a se jogar”, diz Connie Butler, uma das maiores divulgadoras da arte moderna e contemporânea brasileiras nos Estados Unidos. “Nesse sentido, essa é uma experiência única para nós e para o próprio MoMA aparentemente paradoxal, mas com uma lógica muito clara, paralela ao processo de experimentação da própria artista e de sua transformação no relacionamento com a arte.”
Além das experiências sensoriais participativas, em horários específicos os espectadores poderão participar até mesmo de simulações das práticas terapeutas incorporadas por Lygia em sua arte. Toda a terceira e última parte da exposição no sexto andar é dedicada a obras cujos objetos – sacos plásticos, pesadas luvas, pedras, máscaras, vários tipos de tecidos – são manipulados por monitores especialmente treinados para reinterpretar a relação entre a psicanálise e a arte, tema caro à artista desde a época em que viveu em Paris até o fim de sua vida.
O visitante é convidado a se deitar em um tatame, instalado no piso central da galeria, de onde pode interagir com os objetos criados por Lygia. O batismo da exposição – e a noção do “abandono da arte” – é espelhado de forma mais nítida em seu momento derradeiro, mas a costura do trajeto proposto pelos curadores se dá com base justamente na ideia de que Lygia Clark investigou de forma originalíssima o tratamento terapêutico por meio da arte. Em seu primeiro artigo sobre a mostra, o jornal “The New York Times” intitulou a descrição elogiosa de Ken Johnson assim: “Veja. Sinta. Toque. Cure-se”.
A aparente ênfase no anticonvencional ao se debruçar na obra de Lygia se dá, curiosamente, no momento em que o MoMA se vê em meio a uma de suas mais explícitas encruzilhadas. Presente na pré-abertura de “O Abandono da Arte”, Glenn D. Lowry, diretor do museu há duas décadas, enfrenta saraivada de críticas por causa do que parte da comunidade artística local detecta ser concessão demasiada ao gosto do grande público, uma fixação pela “espetacularização” das mostras e busca desenfreada por mais espaço físico. A instituição está em via de começar sua segunda expansão na era Lowry – à custa do vizinho prédio do Museu de Arte Folclórica, demolido no mês passado – para aumentar ainda mais o impressionante número de quase três milhões de visitantes/ano do MoMA.
No “New York Times”, Randy Kennedy escreveu que “muitos especialistas temem que a criação de uma ‘art bay’ na rua 53, com uma ala permanente cruzando o que antes era o espaço entre os dois prédios, agora a ser usada como palco de ‘eventos espontâneos’, com entrada franca no primeiro andar, incluindo uma nova área dedicada exclusivamente para performances, empurrará o museu em velocidade ainda maior para a necessidade de agradar a um gosto mais popular, à custa da seriedade e do distanciamento crítico da cultura pop que garantiram sua reputação”.
Não chega a surpreender, portanto, o fato de a maioria dos repórteres americanos questionar seguidamente os curadores e Lowry, na abertura para a imprensa da exposição dedicada à artista brasileira, sobre os reais resultados terapêuticos da experiência artística de Lygia Clark e suas conexões com as tradições freudianas ou lacanianas. Ou a reação imediata dos curadores em corrigir os que insistiam em nomear os “objetos relacionais” de Lygia de “instalações”.
“O Abandono da Arte”, no entanto, é estruturado de modo nítido em três grandes temas, quase totalmente independentes uns dos outros: primeiro, as experiências da artista com a abstração, desde o aprendizado com o paisagista Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) nos anos 40; mais tarde, o período do neoconcretismo brasileiro, cujos outros dois nomes mais reconhecidos pelos americanos são os de Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980) e Lygia Pape (1907-2004); e, por fim, o “abandono da arte”, anunciado a partir de 1966, abrangendo as duas últimas décadas de produção da artista.
Na entrada da exposição, os primeiros trabalhos de Lygia, pinturas e desenhos criados entre 1948 a 1959, são marcados pela busca de uma abstração tridimensional e a negação da superfície plana, com o que os curadores perceberam ser tentativas explícitas de diálogo com precursores da geometria abstrata moderna, como Paul Klee (1879-1940), Fernand Léger (1881-1955), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953), Max Bill (1908-1944) e Georges Vantongerloo (1886-1965). Entre os destaques, as “Superfícies Moduladas” e os “Planos em Superfícies Moduladas”.
Na sala dedicada ao “neoconcretismo” aparecem os trabalhos formais derradeiros da artista, com a maravilha imaginativa dos “Bichos” e a série “Trepantes”. Por fim, no “Abandono da Arte”, os “objetos sensoriais” – “Caminhando”, “Pedra e Ar”, “Respire Comigo”, “Diálogo de Mãos”, “Máscaras Sensoriais”, “Óculos”, “Diálogo de Óculos”, “Estruturas Vivas”, “Rede de Elásticos” – traduzem tanto a crise pessoal de Lygia quanto seu questionamento sobre a utilidade prática do fazer artístico. Algumas das criações mais radicais do período serão ativadas apenas em ocasiões especiais durante a semana, com o monitoramento de funcionários treinados pelo MoMA e o encorajamento de engajar do visitante, incluindo “Canibalismo”, “Viagem”, “Túnel”, “Baba Antropofágica” e “Estruturação do Self”.
Todos os passos da mostra são acompanhados pela cineasta e cenógrafa Daniela Thomas, que prepara um documentário produzido por Connie Lopes em parceria com Vanessa Clark, cuja linha narrativa será dada tanto pelas entrevistas com nomes fundamentais para o entendimento da arte brasileira contemporânea como pelas cartas e textos deixados pela própria Lygia.
“Ela foi uma das maiores influências em minha carreira e minha geração. Filmei toda a preparação para a exposição, acompanhei o trabalho dos curadores, terei no filme a voz de Paulo Herkenhoff e Gullar. A expectativa dos curadores, da família e a minha é a de que essa exposição e o registro audiovisual dela escancarem para o grande público do eixo do Atlântico Norte o que nós já sabemos: o tamanho, a dimensão, a grandiosidade da obra de Lygia Clark”, diz Daniela.
ALL THE BEST ARTISTS ARE MY FRIENDS (Part I)
EXHIBITION DESIGN BY RICHARD MEIER
CURATED BY RAY SMITH
FEATURING WORKS BY:
Rita Ackermann, Lili Almog, Doug Argue, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Jay Batlle, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Phong Bui, Saint Clair Cemin, Francesco Clemente, Sante D’Orazio, Jamie Diamond, Aleksandar Duravcevic, Rhys Gaetano, Ron Gorchov, Benjamin Keating, James English Leary, Eugene Lemay, Lluís Lleó, Emanuele Lo Cascio, Christopher H. Martin, Raul Mourão, Antonio Murado, John Newsom, Ran Ortner, Yigal Ozeri, G.T. Pellizzi, Javier Rodriguez Plácido, Nathlie Provosty, Matt Reilly (Japanther), Shelter Serra, Ray Smith, Maxwell Snow, Swoon, Daniel Turner, Meyer Vaisman, Angel Vergara, and Andy Warhol.
For more information, please visit: www.manaexposition.com
Geraldo de Barros: Purity of Form @ Tierney Gardarin Gallery
Geraldo de Barros: Purity of Form
May 6 – June 21, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, May 9, 6-8pm
Tierney Gardarin Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of works by Geraldo de Barros (1923-1998). This historic exhibition, the first solo presentation of the artist’s work in New York, features a diverse group of works that span de Barros’ extraordinary career. Geraldo de Barros: Purity of Form, explores a practice that, across decades, movements, and media, demonstrated a dogged commitment to artistic experimentation and abstraction. Geraldo de Barros: Purity of Form opens on Tuesday, May 6th and will be on view through Saturday, June 21st, 2014. The opening reception will be on Friday, May 9th from 6pm until 8pm.
Geraldo de Barros is a seminal figure in Brazilian art whose multi-faceted oeuvre, much like that of his contemporary Lygia Clark, is remarkable in its depth and scope. An early leader of Brazil’s Concrete movement, his practice engaged with painting, photography, sculpture and industrial design. De Barros first rose to prominence as a painter and founding member of Grupo XV in the 1940s, and soon after gained notoriety as an innovative and experimental photographer. He explored minimal form in photography through manipulating negatives, superimposing, scratching and painting on them, to create arresting abstractions he called Fotoformas. This technique of distillation and precision was later carried into sculpture, painting, and eventually industrial design. Geraldo de Barros: Purity of Form includes key pieces from de Barros’ practice, presenting the life work of a figure who is widely considered to be one of the most influential Brazilian artists of his generation.
Geraldo de Barros: Purity of Form will feature exceptional examples of the various aspects of de Barros’ practice. For example, brightly contrasted Formica paintings will be included, installed alongside the fantastic early Fotoformas. Also included are the later Sobras—a series of intricate photo collages created in the last two years of his life when, debilitated by illness, he returned to earlier photographs and original negatives. The unity and consistency of the works across decades and disparate media underscore the consistent theme of de Barros’ practice: purity of form.
Geraldo de Barros has been the subject of major solo exhibitions worldwide, most recently at The Photographer’s Gallery in London and the SESC Vila Mariana in Sao Paulo. His work is included in the permanent collections of internationally renowned institutions a such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland; Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, FL; Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Tate Modern in London, UK; among many others. A major monograph about his life and work, entitled geraldo de barros: isso, was published in 2013 by SESC Editions.
For press inquiries, please contact Maria Kucinski or for more information, please contact Denis Gardarin at 212.594.0550.
For any inquiries, please contact Denis Gardarin at denis@tierneygardarin.com or 212.594.0550.
Above: Geraldo de Barros, Fotoforma São Paulo, from the “Fotoforma” series, 1949/2013.
Silver gelatin print on fiber paper. 15.88 x 11.88 inches (40.3 x 30.2 cm). Edition of 15.
546 West 29th Street
New York, NY 10001
arnaldo antunes en la feria del libro
Brazil’s new generation: names to watch By Francesca Bellini Joseph
Renata Lucas
Born: Ribeirão Preto, 1971
Format: Installation and sculpture
Well-known works: “Falha”, 2003; “Venice Suitcase”, 2009; “Kunst-Werke”, 2010
Why she is important: Lucas produces few pieces – no more than 10 per year. Her primary market is very scarce but as the works are all unique they find buyers almost immediately. She has exhibited at the most reputable international events and institutions – Venice Biennale, Sao Paulo Bienal, Documenta and Tate Modern. Great works to have – if you can find one.
Cinthia Marcelle
Born: Belo Horizonte, 1974
Format: Performance, film, photography and installation
Well-known work: “Sobre este mesmo mundo”, 2009, right
Why she is important: She stages a situation and then allows it to evolve organically. Her international exposure is growing, with exhibitions at the Istanbul Biennal, Tate Modern and the Sharjah Biennial 11. She was one of the first contemporary artists to be awarded the Future Generation Prize.
Marcius Galan
Born: Indianapolis, 1974
Format: Installation, sculpture, drawing
Well-known works: “Diagonal Section”, 2008; “Three sections”, 2008; Isolantes, 2011
Why he is important: Galan is a dynamic artist who is constantly producing works and is in huge demand among collectors. Last year he exhibited at the São Paulo Bienal and had a solo exhibition at the White Cube gallery in London. This is an artist who is going through a phase of professional expansion and prolific production.
Jonathas de Andrade
Born: Maceió, 1982
Format: Installation
Well-known works: “Tropical Hangover”, 2009; “Education for Adults”, 2010; “Yesterday Today”, 2011 Why he is important De Andrade has exhibited at the Bienal in São Paulo, La Bienal 2013 at El Museo del Barrio in New York and London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. Not all collectors can own one of his pieces: his gallery gives preference to museums and collectors with a long track record. So if you want an Andrade, you’d better start building a relationship with his dealers first.
André Komatsu
Born: São Paulo, 1978
Format: Performance, installation, drawing, sculpture
Well-known work: “Como se comporta o que se consome, como se consome o que se comporta”, 2009, below
Why he is important: His work explores ideas of urbanism, architecture and boundaries. He reuses materials found in urban spaces and is prolific, producing up to 50 pieces a year. Half his market is in Brazil and the other half is distributed across the UK, US and Latin America. His profile is set to increase, with growing interest from institutions such as Tate Modern.
Francesca Bellini Joseph is director of art consultancy Portafolia. She is specialist in growth art markets and a consultant professor at Sotheby´s Institue Online. She is co-author of Kingston Smith Latin American art market report 2013 co-produced by Portafolia and ArtTactic.