2023

Arjan Martins

“Um oceano para lavar as mãos”
Sesc Quitandinha Cultural Center, Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro
April 15 to September 15, 2023

About the show:

Curators Marcelo Campos and Filipe Graciano have gathered approximately 40 works by artists Aline Motta, Arjan Martins, Ayrson Heráclito, Azizi Cipriano, Cipriano, Juliana dos Santos, Lidia Lisbôa, Moisés Patrício, Nádia Taquary, Rosana Paulino, Thiago Costa and Tiago Sant’ana, which will occupy a monumental space of 3,350 square meters.

“An ocean to wash your hands”, title taken from a verse of the song “Meia-noite” (1985), by Chico Buarque and Edu Lobo, proposes a review of the history of Brazil, thought by curators and black artists. The show also seeks to reflect on the city of Petrópolis, known as “imperial”, and which has a strong black memory.

Marcelo Campos says that in classes, bibliographies and various actions, there are “important historical reviews in Brazil, with the inclusion of black authors”. While in the 1990s African Americans were already “going straight to the wound”, he notes, in Brazil the initiatives were isolated. The public policies of the last 20 years, however, with quotas for black students, “in which UERJ was a pioneer”, and the penetration of universities in the interior of the country, such as Cariri and Recôncavo Baiano, have enabled blacks to gain access to various areas of knowledge. “This pressure forced academia and art spaces to change”.

He says he began to observe “the way black artists deal with the period of the navigations”. “This trauma, this tragedy of our society, displayed in the documentations in a normalized way, with illustrations of shackles, chains. Together with the artists, we thought about how to deal with it,” he says. “How art deals with the imaginary of the trauma of slavery, of the diaspora”. He mentions the research carried out by the English sociologist Paul Gilroy, a scholar of the black diaspora, and author of the book “Atlântico negro” (1993), a theme present in the works, and recalls that the artist Rosana Paulino, in a set of works from 2016, called “Atlântico vermelho”, in allusion to Gilroy, evoking the violence of slavery and its consequences until today.

Of the twelve invited artists, six were commissioned to create works especially for the exhibition: Azizi Cypriano, Juliana dos Santos, Moisés Patrício, Pedro Cipriano, Thiago Costa and Tiago Sant’ana.

Dos doze artistas convidados, seis foram comissionados para criarem trabalhos especialmente para a exposição: Azizi Cypriano, Juliana dos Santos, Moisés Patrício, Pedro Cipriano, Thiago Costa e Tiago Sant’ana.

Filipe Graciano, architect and urban planner, creator of the Museum of Black Memory, in Petrópolis, and coordinator of Promotion of Racial Equality of the Municipality, says that the expography will emphasize the idea of encounters contained in the multiple meanings that the word ocean brings. “The monumentality of the space of the Sesc Quitandinha Cultural Center meets the monumentality of black existence in Brazil”, he observes. Graciano points out the importance of the black curatorial look, with black artists, to tell “another story, other than the only one in Brazil”. “The potentiality of the hands, of washing history”. “The exhibition is almost an act of historical reparation,” he says, noting that the educational work will contribute to “rethinking the memory of the city”.

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2022

Jaime Lauriano

“The Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil”
Visual Arts Center, Austin, Texas
September 22, 2022 to March 10, 2023

The Visual Arts Center at the University of Texas at Austin presents Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil. The show brings together the work of 10 artists from Brazil who reflect on the persistent histories of power structures in Brazil

Organized by Adele Nelson, assistant professor of art history at the University of Texas at Austin, MacKenzie Stevens, director of the Center for Visual Arts, and María Emilia Fernández, assistant curator, Social Fabric features artists who see art as a platform for critical engagement with historical, political, and cultural configurations of place, contributing to both local and global conversations about the democratic conjuncture, refusing to maintain neutrality, and illuminating histories of state-sanctioned oppression and ongoing inequality. Artists participating in Social Fabric offer different approaches to activism, forging paths towards justice and healing.

The exhibition encompasses a wide range of media, including installation, painting, performance, photography, sculpture and video, and features more than 60 artworks, many of them newly commissioned. The exhibition can be visited until March 10, 2023. It will then be exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC USP), Brazil.

Artists: Aline Motta, Antonio Obá, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Denilson Baniwa, Guerreiro do Divino Amor, Jaime Lauriano, Lais Myrrha, Maré de Matos, Rosana Paulino, Sallisa Rosa

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