São Paulo – Sampa to Its Friends – Has a Dynamic Art Scene, from the Graffitied Streets to the Palaces of Culture
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The SAMPA beat São Paulo – Sampa to its friends – has a dynamic art scene, from the graffitied streets to the palaces of culture. Paul Richardson rounds up the galleries to visit and the artists to look out for Photographs by Carol Sachs Choque Cultural Left, Alex Katz, Ulla in With its all-over black-and-white patterned livery, Black Hat, 2010, at Choque Cultural doesn’t look like your standard Luciana Brito. Below, Yuri modern art gallery. And Baixo Ribeiro and Mariana Oliveira and Julia Brito Martins don’t have much in common with their with, from left: Rochelle counterparts in upmarket Jardins. Their discourse Costi, Acervo, from the defiantly pits ‘urban’ against the bourgeois rt has been one of the great series Vende-se Tudo, constructs of ‘conventional’ contemporary art. beneficiaries of Brazil’s decade-long economic 2004 – 6; Delson Uchôa, ‘Culture Shock’ avoids certain aspects of the boom. The statistics are remarkable: a recent report Soleira, 2004 – 7; Thomaz traditional gallery, although Ribeiro does go to suggested that two-thirds of the country’s galleries Farkas, Presidente art fairs now that the stock of Brazilian street art opened their doors in the past 15 years, and that Juscelino Kubitschek no has begun to rise. The art sold here is affordable almost three-quarters of international collectors dia da inauguração de (Daniel Melim, the most expensive artist, prices own work by Brazilian artists or intend to do so. Brasília, 21 de abril, 1960, his biggest pieces at just US$12,000), making it Artistic creation has always been important and Populares sobre an attractive proposition for novice collectors. in Brazil, says Fernanda Feitosa, director of São cobertura do pálacio do In the gallery’s sizeable talent pool are Tec, Jaca, Paulo’s annual art fair, SP-Arte. In the 1960s, Congresso Nacional no dia Rafael Silveira and stencil artist Matias Pinto. movements such as neo-concretism established a da inauguração de Brasília, ‘I choose guys who are really good painters,’ says specifically Brazilian current within 20th-century 1960; Regina Silveira, Ribeiro blithely. Rua Medeiros de Albuquerque 250, art, and the past two decades have witnessed an Quimera, 2003 – 11 Vila Madalena. www.choquecultural.com.br exceptional flowering of talent. Art is now being made here in every possible format and medium, and photography, installations, performance art and video have moved out of the avant-garde into the mainstream. The same might be said of Brazil’s dynamic street-art movement, which is finally gaining admittance to the circuits of ‘conventional’ contemporary art. And most of this is happening in São Paulo, a sprawling city of 20 million people that is intractable in some respects but pulsing with febrile energy – a New York City for the new century. Most of Brazil’s influential collectors are based here, among them Credit Suisse CEO José Olympio da Veiga Pereira and his wife Andrea, Regina Pinho de Almeida, Cleusa Garfinkel, Eduardo and Camilla Barella – and Feitosa, who has amassed a sizeable stash of contemporary Brazilian art with her husband Heitor Martins. Martins is a former president of the Bienal de São Paulo, which was founded in 1951 and is therefore the oldest such event in the world after Venice. Luciana Brito Sampa, to call the city by its nickname, is well Above, from left, Rafael Luciana Brito is one of a select group of São provided for in public institutions specialising in Carneiro, Untitled, 2015, Paulo galleries that possess genuine gravitas as contemporary art: there’s the Pinacoteca do Estado, and Leandro Erlich, well as international prestige. It works closely the Contemporary Art Museum (MAC), the Museum Rowing Boat (captive not only with the estate of Lygia Clark (1920–88), of Modern Art (MAM), the Itaú Cultural centre, and reflections), 2013, both co-founder of the neo-concretist movement, the prestigious São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP). at Luciana Brito Galeria. but also with the representatives of her fellow Galleries, however, dominate the scene, and a Opening pages, from concretists, Waldemar Cordeiro and Geraldo de tour is a fast track to the excitements of contemporary left: the courtyard at Barros. The reigning queen of contemporary Brazilian art. The São Paulo Art Map (www. Mendes Wood DM; detail artists, Marina Abramović, is also represented by mapadasartes.com.br), available from the tourist of Eduardo Coimbra, Luciana Brito, and it was here that she showed her office, locates the galleries and introduces their Natural Light, 2015, video Art Must Be Beautiful/Artist Must Be Beautiful, exhibitions. The pink dots are clustered around two at Galeria Nara Roesler as part of the 2015 São Paulo Art Fair. Currently main areas: well-to-do Jardins, and bohemian Vila somewhat out on a limb in Vila Olimpia, the gallery Madalena (with brief incursions into Higienópolis, is opening a new space in the Jardins art hub, set Itaim Bibi and Barra Funda). The concentration of in a marvellous modernist house designed by galleries in these two neighbourhoods means that Rino Levi (1901–65), with landscaping by the great total immersion in the simmering waters of São Roberto Burle Marx. Rua Gomes de Carvalho 842, Paulo’s art scene is possible during even a short stay. Vila Olimpia. www.lucianabritogaleria.com.br [ 102 ] [ 103 ] São Paulo cityscape with Pacaembu Stadium, seen from a rooftop next to Galeria Vermelho 10 of Brazil’s best artists Miguel Rio Branco Cildo Meireles (b. 1948) Saint Clair Cemin (b. 1951) Tunga (b. 1952) Beatriz Milhazes (b. 1960) Vik Muniz (b. 1961) Ernesto Neto (b. 1964) Adriana Varejão (b. 1964) Berna Reale (b. 1965) Osgemeos (b. 1974) (b. 1946) Leading conceptual and Virtuoso sculptor working Prolific ‘total artist’ whose Paints colourful abstracts Muniz works mainly with Modern classic artist whose Highly regarded painter, Reale uses performance Identical-twin graffiti artists Though best known for performance artist, in steel, marble, concrete densely allusive, poetic with superimposed recycled and recovered large-scale installations sculptor and photographer, and installation – and famous for their huge mural powerful photography, politically engaged, whose and bronze; associated works feature sculpture, geometric forms; influenced materials. Waste Land is uncannily evoke sensory fascinated by Brazil’s sometimes her own body – paintings of hip-hop culture his work also incorporates richly suggestive pieces with the New York art scene painting, photography, by Delaunay, Kandinsky a moving film of his work experiences, including colonial history and to reflect on contemporary and Brazilian folklore painting, assemblage often invite physical of the 1980s video and music, often all and Brazilian modernism with trash collectors at those of a sexual nature the relationship between social reality and installations interaction with the viewer at the same time founder Oswald de Andrade a Rio landfill site spirit and flesh [ 104 ] [ 105 ] Raquel Arnaud This grande dame gallerist has devoted her 40-year career to a particular strand of modern Brazilian art: essentially neo-concretist, kinetic and op art as practised by both 20th-century masters and their 21st-century sucessors. Dealing with 28 artists, some no longer alive, allows her to keep her focus relatively narrow. She represents just a handful of younger artists, among them Carla Chaim and Carlos Nunes. Having previously occupied various premises, she has finally alighted in Vila Madalena, in a purpose-built 2011 building by Felippe Crescenti that is a masterpiece of rational and elegant design. The gallery is a shrine to the kind of art Arnaud cares about – namely the geometrically inspired, futuristic work of Waltercio Caldas, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jesus Rafael Soto and Amilcar de Castro. Rua Fidalga 125, Vila Madalena. www.raquelarnaud.com Left, Raquel Arnaud Below, Galeria Raquel at her gallery with detail Arnaud, showing of Carlos Cruz-Diez, Sérvulo Esmeraldo, Physichromie 1877, 2013 Discos, 1978 – 2015 Vermelho Nara Roesler Higienópolis is an upper-middle-class area noted Nara Roesler operates on a level that few for its cult modernist buildings. Vermelho (‘Red’) can match. Her gallery space, formed from opened here in 2002 when Brazil was just getting two adjoining houses in the Jardins district, into its stride, with a newly flourishing economy is bigger than many public museums. The and an optimistic national mood. The gallery, ground floor houses temporary exhibitions; renovated by Pritzker prizewinner Paulo Mendes upstairs, Roesler has gathered a ‘greatest da Rocha with José Armenio de Brito, forms an hits’ selection of her artists’ work. In the urban oasis among the newly built housing blocks. absence of a permanent, visitable collection Vermelho was born as a photography gallery of contemporary Brazilian art in São Paulo, then swivelled its focus onto young Latin American this is a good place to get your bearings. art. Its roster of artists features a Mexican, a Roesler’s list of artists runs from historic Portuguese and three Argentinians; the rest are pioneers such as Hélio Oiticica and Tomie Brazilian. The biggest name is probably André Ohtake through established names like Berna Komatsu, who represented Brazil at the Venice Reale, Cao Guimarães and Paulo Bruscky to Biennale last year. But Vermelho’s main focus is a new generation of Brazilian creators: Bruno the new generation. At its 2006 show, This is Dunley, Rodolpho Parigi and Virginia de Not a Love Song, 25 young local artists reflected Medeiros. But her biggest star is Vik Muniz, Above, from left, on the ‘social, philosophical and political ruin of currently Brazil’s top artist and a celebrity Sergio Sister, Fio Terra, today’ with installations combining burned-out to rival David Hockney. His hilarious vision 2015, and Lucia Koch, windows, shanty-town references and a bathroom of Venice is in the upstairs gallery, part of his Showcase – Acrylic/ overgrown with vegetation.