REVIEWS cultural group to which it belongs. The bridge between the two groups ect in each of the regions, “discovered” through the aleatory nature of and the Brazilian and US flags, each on its respective side of the bridge, each gesture, and established a cartographic journey, drawn and also also suggest an encounter or even a cultural combat that underscores sculpted, product of a traveling gaze that roams freely. the notion of play suggested by the installation’s layout. An unavoidable presence in the exhibition, the piece titled Cubo The process developed by Nelson Leirner involves key issues in con- (Cube, 2017), an onyx and iron sculpture that consisted of two large, temporary art, such as the hierarchization of good and bad taste, the slanted, and highly polished stone cubes, light in color and with very relationships concerning authorship, the criteria behind the validation of evident white veining, which rested on the floor over iron bars. Central works of art, the participation of viewers, the utilization of non-traditional in the exhibition project, the creation of this three-dimensional piece materials, in addition to the use of a wide range of elements associated with intensified the experience of visitors. mass culture and mass consumption. The selection of the Octógono space Placed on the gallery floor and immediately attracting the attention for the mounting of the installation establishes connections between the of viewers, the two objects were reminders of the central key of the aforementioned aspects, which was decisive for the curatorship. Showing exhibition, the roll of the dice as an important strategy conceived by the installation in a large and central space of the museum offers the op- Felix to sensitize the gaze towards the geographical coordinates of portunity of a critical reading in connection with the other exhibitions at the Cythera and Santa Rosa. museum; it allows for deep reflection on the work by Leirner contextualized Felix purposefully once again resorted to Mallarmé’s poem here to through the collection of the Pinacoteca in São Paulo. launch his own hypothetical what-ifs over the surface of a world map O anjo exterminador is a work already inscribed in the history of printed on paper; substantiation and active body that has accompanied . It dialogues with the collection of the Pinacoteca, even Felix’s visual research for over two decades as the operational basis for with another work by Leirner titled O porco (The Pork, 1967), presented the location of his perplexities. during the exhibition titled Brazilian Vanguard of the 1960s: Collection A two-dimensional composition created with a ballpoint pen on a of Roger Wright, shown on the first floor of the museum. world map that included vegetal elements, bronze and linen, the work titled Mapa para Citera y Santa Rosa (Map for Cythera and Santa Rosa, HÉLCIO MAGALHÃES 2016) translated the record of two situations, two rolls of the dice that, by rejecting the numeric value that usually appear on every side, created unexpected, and meaningful, geographical coordinates. Nelson Felix The coordinates found, both for the Greek island of Cythera and for Galeria Millan Santa Rosa, the capital of the Argentinean Pampa, merged into the expe- The thought-provoking creative process of Brazilian artist Nelson riences of the ethnologist and artist in his journey towards the unknown. Felix (, 1954) was more present than ever in the exhibition Another prominent work in the exhibition is the creation titled Mapa titled Variations for Cythera and Santa Rosa presented at the Galeria Sta. Rosa (Santa Rosa Map, 2016) from the two-dimensional series. Millan, in São Paulo. Signs made with a ballpoint pen on a map of the Argentinean province Displayed in two exhibition spaces—the gallery and its annexed Santa Rosa, pointed to the movements of the artist through the Latin space—the exhibition consisted of seven sculptures and eighteen draw- American space. Like a sort of recognition of the territory, Felix reaf- ings in aesthetic dialogue that proposed a series of initiatives by Felix firmed the dimensions of the vast Patagonian region. for the creation of an environment conducive to research processes, Also worth mentioning from the group of works is the piece titled something similar to an incomplete travel guide. Pista para dos lugares y pista para dos lugares (Track for Two Places During the walk through the exhibition and by getting closer to the pieces—which formed a poetic method of notions recurrent in the artistic Nelson Felix. Mapa Santa Rosa (Santa Rosa Map), 2016. Ballpoint pen, 3 19 15 production by Felix that began in the late 1980s—visitors were exposed vegetable elements, gold leaf. 22 ⁄64 x 25 ⁄32 x 3 ⁄16 in. (56 x 65 x 10 cm). once again to the visual explorations of a restless mind. Photography: Gabi Carrera. Un coup de des jamais n’abolira le hazard (A Roll of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance), a poem by French poet and critic Stéphane Mallarmé that was seminal for the substantiation of aesthetic experimentations that solidified decades of research—and fundamental for the structuring of Felix’s visual thought—also inspired the decision to initiate a process that finds no univocal answers and that led to the discovery of two places: the Greek island of Cythera, and Santa Rosa, a city in the Argentinean Pampa, as result of another understanding of the notion of place. In this manner, we learn that the mention of Cythera and Santa Rosa in the exhibition’s title stemmed from two convictions by Nelson Felix. By literally rolling the dice on a world map, with the number six engraved on all its six sides, Felix created a situation that disrupted the general meaning of chance and admitted another type of randomness for the creation of the works. With two dice strategically rolled at a planned day and time in order to intensify the complexity of his poetic act, Felix would establish the position of two geographical points for future journeys. These dislocations experienced in real life by Felix in two different situations, would materialize the two itineraries of an experiential proj-

ArtNexus 106 | 119 REVIEWS and Track for Two Places, 2017), a video activated by the dense traffic a seriously artistic family (of his siblings, Fedora and Joaquim became experienced by Felix during his incursions through the cities and regions painters; Débora, a writer), Vicente Rego Monteiro began to learn the that were part of his visual exercise on chance. art of sculpture at an early age, not yet 13, in , where his family had As we were able to confirm, the exhibition resumed the itinerary of relocated in support of Fedora’s studies. This early foray into sculpture a poetic methodology of movement created by Felix to disrupt conse- left an indelible mark on his way of painting. His best known figures crated notions of space and time, and inaugurated a new chapter in his eschew the two-dimensionality of the canvas; on the contrary, we find attempts to create other notions of place. in his process an emphasis on volumetry coexisting with compositions In this manner we observed that the context for Variations for Cyth- that are particularly economical in terms both of outlines and of colors. era and Santa Rosa worked for Nelson Felix as a sort of visual form of In the vast majority of his works, Rego Monteiro remained within a more expression with which to confront the provocations contained in Mal- or less luminous yet always opaque and dense range of ochres, rusts, and larmé’s poem, with chance as the poetic path towards an intervention grays. These colors allude to the materiality of the Earth and are present always implicated in mental constructs. in the universe of indigenous peoples, so dear to the painter’s imagina- Through this poetic method, through a narrative proposed as ex- tion. His O Atirador de Arco (The Archer) illustrates these preferences: as pression of the gaze as a defining factor in the creation of a real and is common in Rego Monteiro’s work, this is a rather large canvas (108 x imaginary field of latitudes and longitudes, the work by Nelson Felix 137 cm), split into two main mirroring sections, each depicting a standing embodies a density of decisions fueled by the critical thought of a indigenous man in profile whose arms emphasize the curve of the bow journey clearly established on unstable grounds. arranged in front of him. At the center, upside down, the title character prepares to discharge his weapon. The figures are schematic, made with CLAUDIA FAZZOLARI just a few lines, and they share a common rotundity. It is interesting to note that the representation of indigenous individuals in Rego Monteiro seems to have Eastern elements as a point of reference. The face of the Vicente do Rego Monteiro central figure reminds us of many representations of the Buddha, while Almeida e Dale the background characters follow almost faithfully the precepts of An- “Let my poem be neither taboo, nor totem.” This phrase, a quote from cient Egyptian painting: forward-facing torso, head and limbs in profile. Vicente do Rego Monteiro’s poem “Meu poema,” greets visitors into the As he adopted different styles, the artist always retained his almost gallery and gives this solo retrospective its title. Originally written in complete disdain for backgrounds; at best there is a shadow or—in his French, the poem provides a good clue to the restless personality of cubist period—a division of the plane, but the dominance of the central an artist often described as difficult, arrogant, and even intractable. plane is evident. Even in that cubist period, the fragmentation of space Whatever the case, he was also a prolific painter, and Almeida e Dale does not unfold into different planes, as in Picasso or Braque, but rather presents a selection of works spanning the different periods of his ca- splits a single plane into different sections that sometimes intercut one reer, complemented with works by Vicente’s siblings Joaquim do Rego another discreetly, as we see in Mulher diante do espelho (Woman Facing Monteiro and Fedora do Rego Monteiro, little known to the wider public. a Mirror). Rego Monteiro also experimented with compositions based on Most of the works on exhibit belong to private collections. a surrealist matrix, like Arlequim e o bandolim (Harlequin and Mandolin) A modern artist who followed a unique path and was, perhaps because and Uma bela na noite (A Beauty in the Night), where his treatment of the of this, less celebrated than his contemporaries in the Modernist move- background approaches the sensation of insufficient air that character- ment, Rego Monteiro moved through a variety of styles and experimented izes metaphysical painting. It is said that Rego Monteiro often revisited with different techniques throughout his career in poetry and the visual older paintings and even changed their dates; this is why the labels in arts. His life alternated between Paris and Recife, and he divided his this exhibition at Almeida e Dale include no dates, leaving viewers only time between painting, sculpture, poetry, and book publishing. Born to with those that appear in the works themselves. Vicente do Rego Monteiro’s life had many ups and downs, likely derived Vicente do Rego Monteiro. Natureza Morta (Still Life), 1928. Oil on fabric. from his complex personality. His relationship with the Modernist group 61 13 14 ⁄64 x 24 ⁄32 in. (38 x 62 cm). Colección Museu de Arte Moderna Aloísio Magalhães - Mamam. Photography: Robson Lemos. was turbulent; a participant in the Week of Modern Art at the Municipal Theater in 1922, he nevertheless refused ’s invitation to join the Antropófago Movement in 1928, arguing that he had in fact been the precursor of “anthropophagy”. In 1930 he was the first to bring to works by the School of Paris, but to this day little is known about that initiative. A Government-supported exhibition of works in the same style, the Exhibition of French Art, held ten years later, is often given that landmark status. In the 1940s, Rego Monteiro devoted himself to poetry; after abandoning it he received the Guillaume Apollinaire Prize. In his older years he painted compulsively and not altogether brilliantly, but it was in that period that the value of his work gained wide recognition. Rego Monteiro was a painter, poet, cultural promoter, sculptor, and even a maker of cachaça (a Brazilian sugarcane-based firewater). Interestingly, in every one of his artistic endeavors accolades came to him only after he had moved on from that specific practice. In an ironic twist of fate, his oeuvre was never taboo, nor totem.

SYLVIA WERNECK

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