Happenings provides references on art events, exhibitions, biennales, art fairs and festivals, with a focus on Abstraction in Action artists and post-90s abstraction from Latin America.
Possible Memory
April 2, 2016 – April 30, 2016 Zipper Galeria
São Paulo, Brazil
Against the backdrop of a social vision that remains very clear in the way that the act of physical labor is understood, the artist seems to once again emphasize the sculptural value of his production. Evidently, the works of Rendón never ceased to be properly sculptural, and thus occupying, in an inescapable way, the exhibition space. But what we see here is a clear concern with specific aspects of the sculpture, notably the treatment of weight, or the way in which the weight of each piece is not an accessory but rather central to the creation of the work. By suspending wooden and stone slab fragments, Rendón brings these questions to light, while suggesting a dialogue with references to the recent history of Western sculpture, such as the series Gravitaciones by Eduardo Chillida, among other possible references, thus justifying his claim for a central role for sculpture in the contemporary art scene.
Back in 2012, Giaconi conceived the gallery space as a field of conceptual and material experimentation with his exhibition Season of Lead. Where the graphite-covered walls became a set of exchanges between the outside and inside world, between the architectural references and psychical elements from the near environment, making a permeable membrane between different states and dimensions.
After three years and five months, the artist —with the assistance of a restoration team— used ethanol and acetone compresses, tensoactive agents and sharp tools directly on the wall fragments until he found the yet recognisable traces of his past exhibition —now intentionally cracked, underlining their chaotic, fragile and impermanent condition.
By exploring concepts and basic techniques of restoration, the artist deconstructs the architectonic space to rediscover imagery that remained deliberately hidden until now, to unveil ideas of nostalgia, violence and order.
Poemata (It is all poetry)
March 30, 2016 – May 21, 2016 Galeria Pilar
São Paulo, Brazil
The latest exhibit by Brazilian artist Montez Magno (b. Pernambuco, 1934) contains over forty works, rigorously selected to reflect Magno’s sixty-year investigation of artistic language as expressed on a myriad of surfaces. Curated by art critic Lisette Lagnado.
Lagnado examines the artist’s poetic inflections, a lesser-known aspect of his work, highlighting the dialogue between painting and script; between “celestial letters” and poems.
“Poemata” seeks to establish non-hierarchical relations between two praxis of creation, making subtle transitions using works in different forms (for example, a painting and a score, a drawing and a poem), subtle just like the lines that appear in the white space on the surface of his work, be it paper, canvas or Styrofoam.
With lines at times vertical and at others horizontal, reminding us of the patterns of a notebook, the chosen works display a type of leitmotif in the vocabulary of the artist, independent of the chosen surface.
Sound and language have a challenging relationship. What exactly does it mean to “understand” what we hear? This doubt is expressed through various artistic forms in this exhibition, taking the form of a dialogue and blurring the lines that divide aesthetic categories as apparently well-defined as music, poetry, or the visual arts.
In their installations, artists Víctor Aguado, Miguel Álvarez-Fernández, María Chávez, Ferrer-Molina and Richard Garet place us face to face with some of the infinite nuances that constitute and inhabit our language.
Diana de Solares: The Material Space of Radiance
March 17, 2016 – April 23, 2016 Henrique Faria Fine Art
New York, NY, USA
It is no coincidence that my immersion in art began through my brief studies of architecture as a very young woman. In retrospect, it makes sense to me. I now realize that I wasn’t seeking tools for creating buildings and houses, but trying to get at some kind of knowledge about space in human life. Some years ago, my paintings became three-dimensional, and then my three- dimensional constructions became installational.
The notion of space led me to that of place. And to questions such as, Where are we when we are in the world? How does an object become a place? How do we experience the world?
Andrew J. Mitchell begins his brilliant monograph of Heidegger’s ideas on sculpture proposing, “sculpture teaches us what it means to be in the world…to be in this world is to be ever entering a material space of radiance1”. Mitchell is referring to Heidegger’s reflections on the relation between space and body. In this context, space is no longer deemed as the void where bodies are contained, but as an almost material entity that facilitates and embraces, that allows bodies to appear, radiate, and thus, constitute a world. In Heidegger’s novel conception of limit, a body’s boundary does not mark its end but rather its beginning–for it is there that it interacts and mingles with the physicality of the world around it. This beautiful notion of a participatory space that allows bodies to move beyond themselves and distribute their radiance has changed my perception of a work of sculpture, as it appears in front of me.
I imagine an experience in which a multiple exchange of radiance occurs. The work of art emanating its life through space, and the viewer momentarily emptying himself to accommodate its radiance, in an ongoing movement that transforms both person and object. With the works contained in The Material Space of Radiance, I have sought the embodiment of space through the various visual and haptic qualities of the constructions interacting in it. These varied works have unfolded in the same span of time and share qualities of color and tactility as well as an affinity to human body, and in sharing this moment in space and time they “slowly dissolve in the world”.
