Henrique Oliveira, Baitogogo (2013), courtesy André Morin, Palais de Tokyo

In a myth which circulated amongst the Bororo people of central Brazil, an early chief named Baitogogo flees into the forest after avenging the rape of his wife. While running through the wood, he is attacked by his son, who flies above him as a bird and bombards his father with droppings which germinate into a tree. At first shamed and burdened by the tree, as he wanders the forest, Baitogogo eventually becomes enchanted by his surroundings, and lives from then on in his newly found paradise.  While refusing a direct correlation between the myth and his latest work, contemporary Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira has created his own “Baitogogo” in the form of a knotted, anthropomorphic forest, currently on view at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo. Interested in the same dream logic, binary oppositions, and unexpected life explored in the myth of Baitogogo, Oliveira’s work is hybrid and transformative, fantastic and unexpected. (more…)