Visual Voices from Brazil: Decades of Art and Expression

FEMA Gallery – Cascais, 2024

Abraham Palatnik Antônio Dias
Emmanuel Nassar
Graubem do Monte Lima
Jorge Zalszupin
José Damasceno
Marcela Cantuária Mira Schendel Roberto Magalhães
Suzana Queiroga
Vik Muniz

The exhibition “Visual Voices: Decades of Art and Expression” brings together works by renowned Brazilian artists from different eras and movements, creating a rich and multigenerational dialogue. Over the decades, these visual voices have echoed political, social and cultural changes, using art as a channel to express the complexities of their time.

The abstractionism of Mira Schendel, the geometric precision of Abraham Palatnik and the experimental character of Antônio Dias, with his conceptual investigations into politics and society, transport the visitor to the effervescent 60s and 80s. Their works are testament to the search for new artistic languages, challenging traditional boundaries and proposing reflections on identity and freedom. Alongside them, the presence of Jorge Zalszupin, with his rosewood and iron armchair, reflects the sophistication and modernist design that marked this same era of renewal.

In contrast to this panorama, artists such as Sebastião Salgado and Vik Muniz bring to light fundamental aspects of the human condition and the environment. Salgado’s iconic images, especially “Serra Pelada”, capture the struggle, dignity and inequalities present in society, while Vik Muniz, with his series involving recycled materials, subverts traditional aesthetics to highlight contemporary environmental and social issues.

Contemporaneity is even more exalted in the vibrant paintings of Suzana Queiroga, Emmanuel Nassar and Marcela Cantuária, who explore color and form as fundamental elements of their visual poetics. Their works, charged with chromatic and symbolic energy, dialogue with popular traditions and Brazilian visual culture, bringing to light themes of memory, territoriality and narrative.

In the section dedicated to popular art, the works of José Damasceno and the drawings of Roberto Magalhães connect us to the playful and spiritual imagery of Minas Gerais and Brazilian culture. These are celebrations of everyday life, rituals and festivities that make up the country’s cultural mosaic, revealing a Brazilianness that transcends temporal and geographical boundaries.

In “Visual Voices”, decades of production and different techniques and styles intertwine, creating a symphony of perspectives. Whether in the precise lines of a monotype, the robustness of a piece of modernist design or the exuberant brushstrokes of contemporary art, each work contributes to a collective narrative, where Brazilian artistic diversity reveals itself as a powerful reflection of its multiple realities and histories.

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