From my column at Pipeline, Valor Economico, here.
With multiple solo and group exhibitions dedicated to Brazilian artists, Manhattan is filled with works by Beatriz Milhazes, Adriana Varejão, Volpi, Mestre Didi, Abdias Nascimento and Rubem Valentim. Not to mention the recently closed exhibitions by Madalena dos Santos Reinbolt at the Folk Art Museum and Laura Lima at the Tanya Bonakdar gallery in Chelsea.
Beatriz Milhazes: Rigor and Beauty at the Guggenheim Museum through September 14
In a room on the fifth floor of the spiral museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the geometric shapes of Beatriz Milhazes seem to have found their home. There are 15 canvases – almost all monumental – made between 1995 and 2023. Milhazes and her inspirations cover a vast terrain of Brazilianness – Tropicália, Bossa Nova, the landscape of Rio de Janeiro’s Botanical Garden, crochet accessories and the trinkets from her grandmother, Tarsila do Amaral, Baroque architecture, Anthropophagy, Carnival – and also incorporates references from art history itself, such as Matisse and Mondrian, in addition to fabrics and kimonos from her most recent canvas.
It is also worth highlighting the monotransfer technique, created by the artist and investigated in the exhibition. Curator Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães dedicates time to explaining the methodical process which involves painting an image on a piece of plastic and gluing it to the canvas, producing a mirror image with acrylic paint (like a kids’ tattoo). A key figure in the show is Fred Henry, president of the Bohen Foundation. He collected the artist’s work and bought five of her paintings for the foundation. In 2001, he then donated them all to the museum and the exhibition now revolves around these works from the collection.
Adriana Varejão: Don’t Forget, We Come From the Tropics at the Hispanic Society until June 22
It makes total sense to organize a trip to Washington Heights, between 155th and 156th streets in the North of Manhattan, to see Adriana Varejão’s never-before-seen maxi-plates. Bringing together new sculptures from her Plates series, the exhibition also includes a site-specific work around the open-air sculpture in the museum’s courtyard. The artist “wrapped” a snake around Anna Hyatt Huntington’s 1927 bronze statue of El Cid on horseback – the kind of intervention that will be missed when she’s gone.
The new works by the Rio native point to the Amazon rainforest as a fundamental part of ecology, art, and culture. The pieces were developed based on the artist’s research for the 2023 Amazon Biennial and on studies dedicated to the Yanomami people over the past two decades. Ceramics from Palissy, Marajoara, and the Ming dynasty are also among Varejão’s inspirations. Brazilianness appears in the title of the exhibition that pays homage to Brazilian surrealist artist Maria Martins. Don’t Forget, We Come From the Tropics — or Don’t Forget That I Come from the Tropics. In addition to the works produced for the exhibition, the artist curated historical ceramics from the museum’s collection, exhibited alongside her own, questioning aesthetic hierarchies between crafts, decoration, and visual arts.
Mestre Didi: Spiritual Form at El Museo del Barrio through July 13 Curated by Brazilian Rodrigo Moura alongside Ayrson Heráclito and Chloë Courtney, Spiritual Form examines the work of Afro-Brazilian sculptor, writer, and spiritual leader Mestre Didi and celebrates the cultural and spiritual contributions of the Afro-Brazilian community. Featuring more than 30 sculptures made between 1960-2010, the exhibition contextualizes Mestre Didi's work by presenting it alongside contemporary works by artists such as Nádia Taquary, Emanoel Araújo, and Abdias Nascimento.
Mestre Didi, 1977
Sign Posts at MoMA (indefinitely)
Speaking of Abdias, the artist's work is also on display at the Museum of Modern Art — room 407. The Sign Posts exhibition addresses the relationship of this and other international artists with the creation of symbols, diagrams, personal systems, visual languages, signs and their role as guides – or beacons – pointing the way in the dissemination of complex ideas. Between paintings and works on paper, the images include icons, geometric shapes, and images that suggest spirituality, geopolitical connections and mathematical concepts.
Rubem Valentim, Untitled, 1956-62