White Cube Gallery will close its São Paulo exhibition space this August, when its three year lease ends, The Art Newspaper reports. The gallery told the paper that it will focus on “special projects” in Brazil,“as was the impetus when the gallery was first introduced to the region.” (more…)
As the fallout over Brazil’s scandal regarding oil giant Petrobas’s continues, the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Curitiba is receiving 139 works from the collections of Petrobas heads and other involved parties, including pieces by Salvador Dali and Joan Miró. The majority of work comes from the collection of Petrobras’ former director of services Renato Duque, who stands accused of siphoning off over $3.8 billion from Petrobras. (more…)
R. H. Quaytman, O Tópico, Chapter 27 (Installation View)
Currently on view at Gladstone Gallery’s 21st street location is O Tópico, Chapter 27, R. H. Quaytman’s latest chapter in her ambitious, ongoing project of cohesive, site-specific installations. Quaytman started her serial painting project in 2001 with eighty paintings she made to be exhibited at the Queens Museum, and has now reached the 27th installment of the project, this one inspired by Inhotim, a botanical garden and art park located in the Brazilian region of Minas Gerais. (more…)
Vik Muniz has ventured to Brazil for his newest project, opening an art and technology school in the Vidigal neighborhood of São Paulo for young students. Developed in conjunction with MIT, The Escola do Vidigal (Vidigal School) follows a similar arts and technology centre Muniz worked on in 2006 in Rio. “We want to prepare kids to live and exist in a very visually challenging environment and to be able to act as producers as well as consumers,” Muniz said last year in an interview with Art Newspaper. (more…)
The city of São Paulo is preparing for its 31st Bienal (Biennial) this month in Ibirapuera Park, and hopes for the event are high. The event boasts an international curator team, fronted by Charles Esche, director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, and former curator for biennials in Gwangju (2002), Istanbul (2005), Riwaq, Palestine (2007 and 2009) and Ljubljana (2010), as well as an $11 million budget, marking a considerable step forward for the event. “I don’t think we need to once again announce that we’re going to reinvent the idea of the Bienal,” says Esche. “We need to make a really good Bienal. We need to make an event, an exhibition, an experience that touches people.” (more…)
Lygia Clark (Installation View), via Art Observed
The Abandonment of Art is an ambitious name for an exhibition at MoMA, even if the work happens to be the medium-pushing sculptures and objects of Brazilian artist Lygia Clark, who over the course of her career constantly sought new modes of encounter, interpretation and perception in the space of art. Clark’s long-anticipated MoMA retrospective, taking up half of the museum’s top floor, welcomes this expansion, moving through the artist’s career from her early canvases to her later innovations in sculpture and performance. (more…)
A trove of artworks valued at over $4.5 million has been discovered in Brazil, hidden away in shipping crates sent over from the United States. The works, among them pieces by contemporary artists Os Gemeos and Sergio de Camargo were among the possessions of a Brazilian woman who authorities believe was seeking to avoid export taxes. (more…)
As Brazil prepares to host the World Cup this summer, Brazilian artists Os Gemeos have created a custom design for the plane used by the Brazilian team, featuring the pair’s signature style. “Everyone has thought about walking on clouds. And this is only possible with a plane and faces painted on it,” says Otavio, one half of Os Gemeos. (more…)
Tunga, Na Lua (On the Moon) (2014) via Osman Can Yerebakan
Crystals, sponges, glass vessels and ceramics are among an array of materials on view at the current exhibition of new work by Tunga at Luhring Augustine’s Chelsea location. During a career spanning over four decades, Tunga has presented a body of multidisciplinary work, finding inspiration in poetry, physics and alchemy to create intricate, symbolic work that presents a visual challenge to the viewer. Marking the artist’s fifth collaboration with the gallery, From ‘La Voie Humide’ underlines the artist’s strong interest in a multi-disciplinary approach to art, comprising a large selection of mediums and undertones running throughout the body of the exhibition.
Tunga, Untitled (2013) via Osman Can Yerebakan (more…)
Three Pieces from Mira Schendel’s Spray Series, via Art Observed
Late last year, when Hauser and Wirth opened its show of Brazilian Neo-Constructivist, Concrete and Neo-Concrete works, the few works on view by Mira Schendel immediately stood out. Light, effortless prices of rice paper printed with China ink and left hanging encased in glass, the works sat somewhere between linguistic deconstruction, minimalism and light art, tracing slight reflections of light over the multi-surface piece. Among a show of boldly colored works and large, impressive sculptures, Schendel’s work stood out for its soft focus and minimal exertions of color.
Mira Schendel, Untitled (from series Discos) (1971-73), via Hauser and Wirth (more…)
Geraldo de Barros, Composição Concreta (1953), Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth
Currently on view at Hauser & Wirth‘s upper east side town house is Sensitive Geometries: Brazil 1950s – 1980s, a two-floor installation that presents a range of artists working in an abstract idiom through the radically liberalized postwar decades in Brazil, encompassing multiple generations and artistic movements. Wide scale cultural changes in the wake of World War II, including the reinstatement of democratic rule, a flourishing economy and increased international exchange, inspired an artistic revolution that would ultimately mark Brazil as the epicenter of contemporary art it is today.
João José Costa, Untitled (1959), Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth (more…)
Ernesto Neto, for ever (2013), Courtesy Max Hetzler
A series of new drawings and sculptures by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto (1964) are currently on view at Galerie Max Hetzler in a solo exhibition entitled notes, stones and dots. The exhibition sees Neto exploring the forms and movements generated from the act of dancing: “If we could feel our body in a state of dance,” he says, “we might gain a better balance.”
Ernesto Neto, animal nature (2013), Courtesy Max Hetzler
Vik Muniz, Pictures of Magazine 2 (Installation View), via Galeria Elba BenÃtez
Currently on view at Galeria Elba BenÃtez in Madrid, Pictures of Magazine 2 is a solo show for Brazilian artist Vik Muniz. The works in this exhibition are created using Muniz’s unique collage process, combining magazine images to recreate the works of famous artists, all while incorporating his own artistic bent. He then takes photographs of his finished collages, enlarges them, and prints them to create the finished piece. (more…)
The second annual ArtRio fair closes in Brazil today, with blue-chip exhibitors seeing strong sales of work by international and Brazilian artists. Gagosian and White Cube reported millions of dollars in total sales. 120 galleries participated, around half of them international.
