Mirages – Contemporary Art in the Islamic world
When we speak of an ancient culture such as the Islamic world, one of the biggest challenges of holding an exhibition- and which is also one of its greatest satisfactions – is updating the legacy of this culture, so as to allow visitors to see the bridge between roots and tradition and the current production of this art. With 47 works produced by 19 artists of Islamic origin – Shadi Ghadirian, Shirin Neshat, Bita Ghezelayagh (Iran), Khaled Hafez and Susan Hefuna, Wael Shawky (Egypt), Ali Talib, Hassan Massoudy (Iraq), Halil Altindere, Sener Ozmen (Turkey), Kamel Yahioui (Algeria), Laila Shawa, Malileh Afnan, Taysir Batniji (Palestine), Mounir Fatmi (Morocco), Shezad Dawood (England), Rachid Koraichi (Algeria), Ramia Obaid (Syria) and Brazilian Lucia Koch – the Mirages exhibition offers a counterpoint to the traditional view based on the contemporary questions that are posed by each one of these artists, where the cultural root can even be a starting point, but the interest is in their personal paths and arrivals. Through different artistic expressions such as painting, sculpture, installation, photography and audiovisual production, it is possible to find the recurring themes in this art, its contemporary expression, its connection of socio-political issues with cultural roots, and especially the predominance of writing and the word in the Arabic culture. The poetics of the artists that are part of the exhibition contribute to disrupt the homogenizing and reductionist views of the Islamic world, stereotyped views that the West has always had about the East, and to show through their art the critical awareness of these societies and the unique identity of their presence in the language and reality of the contemporary world. Rio de Janeiro – 18.10.2010 a 26.12.2011– Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo – 09.02 a 03.04.2011 – Instituto Tomie Ohtake Brasília – 10.05 a 08.07.2011 – Museu Nacional do Conjunto Cultural Confira [aqui] o que foi publicado. Technical Information Original Idea and General Project Direction Rodolfo de Athayde Ania Rodríguez Alonso Production Arte A Produções Project Management Jennifer McLaughlin Exhibition and Graphic Design Complexo D – Bete Esteves Fred Carvalho Lisa Akerman Stefanelli Moyses Levy Production Assistants Daniele Oliveira Lucia Ramos Luci Traça Nilda Cruz Curatorial Assistants Joaquim Pedro dos Santos Lucia Ramos Others Projects Kandinsky: Everything Starts From a Dot Wifredo Lam: The Spirit of Creation Visions on the Ludwig Collection Gustavo Acosta – Space of Silence To the sky, To the sky, To the sky,To the ground, To the ground, To the ground Favoretto: The Colors of My Corner 130 years of Khalil Gibran Watch me Move: The Animation Show Game On Richard Wright – This Other World Mirages – Contemporary Art in the Islamic world Carlos Garaicoa The Langsdorff Expedition Islam – Art and Civilization The Art of Cuba The Russian Turning
Carlos Garaicoa
Before being a fragment, I was a city. Before being a city, I was sand. But before everything else, I was the wisdom of someone else’s desire. The dissonance between the city and man, and between the reality and utopia of urban spaces, is the big question that moves Cuban Carlos Garaicoa in his creative journey. Going from one town to the next, deconstructing them and extracting their essences from them, Carlos Garaicoa expressed in his art the universal and relentless search for the ideal stage of human existence. With a total of 22 works, including installations, videos, photographs, mockups and drawings, the exhibition shows different and very paradigmatic moments of the artist’s career, from his first essays in order to understand the city of Havana up to the universalization of this vision. In addition, two works were created especially for the exhibition: “Recent news” and “How my Brazilian library feeds off fragments of a concrete reality”. For the artist, all matter is valid as support for the idea, and this appears in the plurality of media he works with: photograph, video, stone, thread, nail, glass, table, paper, wire, light, book, bullet, water and the man and his creation, the word. An aesthetically impeccable exhibition that offers, to the public, fluidity in the reading of the works and allows an immersion in the creative process of the artist, metalinguinstically incorporating the areas of the exhibition into the technological and aesthetic elements of this reflection on the space and the city. Recognized by major institutions and collectors, with significant works in museums such as Centre George Pompidou, Tate Modern and Reina Sofia, Carlos Garaicoa has already held more than 50 international exhibitions in the recent years and is one of the most important artists of the contemporary Cuban scene Rio de Janeiro 01.07 a 10.08.2008 – Caixa Cultural Brasília 03.02 a 22.03.2009 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Belo Horizonte 23.04 a 14.06.2009 – Palácio das Artes Technical Information Curatorship Ania Rodriguez Rodolfo de Athayde Others Projects Kandinsky: Everything Starts From a Dot Wifredo Lam: The Spirit of Creation Visions on the Ludwig Collection Gustavo Acosta – Space of Silence To the sky, To the sky, To the sky,To the ground, To the ground, To the ground Favoretto: The Colors of My Corner 130 years of Khalil Gibran Watch me Move: The Animation Show Game On Richard Wright – This Other World Mirages – Contemporary Art in the Islamic world Carlos Garaicoa The Langsdorff Expedition Islam – Art and Civilization The Art of Cuba The Russian Turning
The Langsdorff Expedition
In 1821, when Baron Langsdorff, Consul General of Russia in Brazil at that time, accepted the challenge to set up an expedition to the tropical areas of Brazil, he only dreamed of what he could find. Today, nearly 200 years later, people in Brazil can go on their own expedition and see the nature and Brazilian society portrayed in what has become one of the most important scientific expeditions of the nineteenth century. By mixing technological resources and the zeitgeist of that time, the Langsdorff Expedition reveals, through art, the discoveries made by the expedition in the fields of botany, zoology, cartography and anthropology. In addition to the 120 wash drawings and other types of drawings made by artists that accompanied the expedition – Rugendas, Taunay and Florence -, the exhibition brings astronomical navigation instruments used at that time, such as sextants and chronometers, and the predecessor of the camera, the camera obscura. And it also includes a resource which superimposes the famous cartographic maps of Rubtsov onto current Google Maps of the region. All this lulled with readings of excerpts from Langsdorff’s journal, thus creating an atmosphere of immersion in the trip and in time. And to complete the epic character of the exhibition, several computer terminals give the public access to the database of the expedition’s complete collection, which totals more than 1,000 watercolours and ethnographic objects that belong to public and private collections worldwide. An exhibition of Brazil’s historical and emotional archeology, which shows incredibly well preserved works, stored for nearly two centuries in Russia and which now return to Brazil due to the collective effort of Arte A Produções and the Russian government, which provided the expedition’s collection that belongs to the Naval Archive of Russia and the Royal Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. São Paulo – 23.02 a 25.04.2010 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Brasília – 11.05 a 18.07.2010 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Rio de Janeiro – 03.08 a 26.11.2010 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Confira [aqui] o que foi publicado. Technical Information Curatorship Prof. Dr. Boris N. Komissarov Ania Rodríguez Alonso Rodolfo de Athayde Curatorship Assistant Laura Cosendey Director Dra. Irina Túnkina General Coordination Rodolfo de Athayde Executive Production Ione Alves Jennifer McLaughlin Production Assistants Joaquim Pedro dos Santos Isabela Sanchez Virginia Manfrinato Others Projects Kandinsky: Everything Starts From a Dot Wifredo Lam: The Spirit of Creation Visions on the Ludwig Collection Gustavo Acosta – Space of Silence To the sky, To the sky, To the sky,To the ground, To the ground, To the ground Favoretto: The Colors of My Corner 130 years of Khalil Gibran Watch me Move: The Animation Show Game On Richard Wright – This Other World Mirages – Contemporary Art in the Islamic world Carlos Garaicoa The Langsdorff Expedition Islam – Art and Civilization The Art of Cuba The Russian Turning
Islam – Art and Civilization
In times when the so-called “Arab world” has occupied the media, minds and major contemporary events, and when the chiefly political and economic clippings are not able to express all its layers, there is nothing better than art to take the plunge and do justice to one of the oldest cultures of mankind. The exhibition entitled “Islam – Art and Civilization” brings together 302 pieces that tell the 1400-year history of the Islamic world, and it shows the greatness of its influence on the history of the world, especially the West. It brings together works and pieces of jewelry, furniture, tapestry, clothing, weapons, armor, utensils, mosaics, ceramics, glassware, miniatures, paintings, calligraphy and scientific and musical instruments. In order to portray all this wealth, the exhibition featured the collections from six of the most important museums in Syria and Iran: Damascus National Museum, Museum of Popular Traditions and the Aleppo City Museum, in Syria; and the National Museum of Iran, Reza Abbasi Museum and Museum of Carpets in Tehran. And it also has art pieces from the northern countries of Africa, part of the collections from BibliASPA (South America & Arab Countries Library and Research Center) and the collection from Africas House. With works that had never been shown in Brazil, many of which had never left their home museum, the Islam exhibition is an ethnographic journey through the filigrees and arabesques of the soul of a 1000-year-old people, its history, philosophy, science and art. A mosaic of Islamic culture in space and time, seen by over six hundred thousand people and awarded as the most visited theme exhibition in 2010. Rio de Janeiro – 11.10.2010 a 26.12.2011 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo – 17.01 a 27.03.2011 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Brasília – 25.04 a 03.07.2011 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Check [aqui]and [aqui] what was published about it. Technical Information Original Idea and General Project Direction Rodolfo de Athayde Curatorship Rodolfo de Athayde Curatorship Assistant Laura Cosendey Project Management Jennifer McLaughlin Production Assistants Joaquim Pedro dos Santos Lucia Ramos Daniele Oliveira Others Projects Kandinsky: Everything Starts From a Dot Wifredo Lam: The Spirit of Creation Visions on the Ludwig Collection Gustavo Acosta – Space of Silence To the sky, To the sky, To the sky,To the ground, To the ground, To the ground Favoretto: The Colors of My Corner 130 years of Khalil Gibran Watch me Move: The Animation Show Game On Richard Wright – This Other World Mirages – Contemporary Art in the Islamic world Carlos Garaicoa The Langsdorff Expedition Islam – Art and Civilization The Art of Cuba The Russian Turning
The Art of Cuba
By bringing to Brazil the most significant collection of Cuban art ever seen outside of the island, the exhibition entitled “Art of Cuba” presents a broad panorama of Cuban art of the twentieth century – from the emergence of the avant-garde, when Cuban art gains its own identity, passing by the aesthetic plurality that reflects the changes of the revolution in the 60’s and 70’s, to the more contemporary manifestations, whose renewal and experimentation have marked Cuban art from the 80’s until today. Comprising 122 works by 61 artists, the exhibition gives an account of this journey through a thematic approach that groups artists from different generations together, according to the common points in their arts. Names like Fidelio Ponce de León, Victor Manuel, Marcelo Pogolotti, Raúl Martínez, Sandú Darié, Luis Martínez Pedro, Humberto Castro, Arturo Cuenca, Gustavo Acosta, José Bedia, Los Carpinteros, Carlos Garaicoa, and several others still little known to the Brazilian public make up a kaleidoscope of the island. Result of a partnership between the Cultural Association Guantanamera – responsible for the dissemination of Cuban cultural production in Brazil – and the National Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba (which administers much of the artistic heritage of the country), the exhibition Art of Cuba points to a central element in the production the island – the social commitment of the artist – who shows, be it through the art of explicit militancy, through the timeless drama of individual questions, or through the dialogue with the roots of Cuban culture, that the Cuban artist is capable of leaving and returning to the island, physically and conceptually, and of looking inwards and outwards at the same time, making an art that connects the local and the universal and talks with the contemporary world and its own history. São Paulo – 30.01 a 23.04.2006 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Rio de Janeiro – 15.05 a 16.07.2006 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Brasília – 31.07 a 15.10.2006 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Curitiba – 11.10.2006 a 14.01.2007 – Museu de Oscar Niemeyer Technical Information Original Idea and General Coordination Rodolfo de Athayde Curator Ania Rodriguez Executive Production Complexo D Ione Alves Coordinator´s Assistants Mabel Meinardi Julia Favoretto Exhibition Design Complexo D Others Projects Kandinsky: Everything Starts From a Dot Wifredo Lam: The Spirit of Creation Visions on the Ludwig Collection Gustavo Acosta – Space of Silence To the sky, To the sky, To the sky,To the ground, To the ground, To the ground Favoretto: The Colors of My Corner 130 years of Khalil Gibran Watch me Move: The Animation Show Game On Richard Wright – This Other World Mirages – Contemporary Art in the Islamic world Carlos Garaicoa The Langsdorff Expedition Islam – Art and Civilization The Art of Cuba The Russian Turning
The Russian Turning
Best 2009 Exposition Award and Best 2009 International Exposition Award by Sao Paulo Association of Art Critics [ver prêmio] The Russian Turning exhibition is a revelation in many ways. It shows, in time and in art, the cultural and artistic effervescence that marked the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia and has led to important artistic movements, such as Non-Objectivism, Rayonism and especially Suprematism and Constructivism. The exhibition brings to Brazil works by essential names like Kandinsky, Chagall, Tátlin, Ródtchenko and Maliévitch, who are creators that reflect, each one with their own art, the undeniable spirit of that time, of the socio-political transformations undergone by their internal and external worlds. A rare collection, from the largest collection of Russian art in the world, which has the approach and visions of Russian scholars themselves about an art and a time that are usually mediated only by the look of Western authors. There are 123 works – including paintings, posters, sculptures and costumes -, which put Brazilian visitors face to face for the first time with this revolutionary vanguard that helped lay the foundation for modern art in the twentieth century. Brasília 07.04 a 07.06.2009 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Rio de Janeiro 23.06 a 23.08.2009 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo 15.09 a 15.11.2009 – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Check[aqui] what was published about it. Technical Information Idea and Curatorship Yevgenia Petrova Joseph Kiblitsky Ania Rodríguez Rodolfo de Athayde General Coordination Rodolfo de Athayde Executive Production Ione Alves Daniela Camargo Production Assistant Lydia Rollemberg Yasmine Sefraoui Others Projects Kandinsky: Everything Starts From a Dot Wifredo Lam: The Spirit of Creation Visions on the Ludwig Collection Gustavo Acosta – Space of Silence To the sky, To the sky, To the sky,To the ground, To the ground, To the ground Favoretto: The Colors of My Corner 130 years of Khalil Gibran Watch me Move: The Animation Show Game On Richard Wright – This Other World Mirages – Contemporary Art in the Islamic world Carlos Garaicoa The Langsdorff Expedition Islam – Art and Civilization The Art of Cuba The Russian Turning