There was no shortage of
great art exhibitions throughout Brazil in 2023, marking the return of the cultural sector after the pandemic. From solo and collective exhibitions to works by visual artists, as well as another edition of the
São Paulo Biennial ,
SP–Arte has selected the
10 main exhibitions that marked the year 2023. Check them out below!
1. Portrait Artists of the Hill – Sesc Pinheiros, SP
Aniversário da Renatinha, registro de Afonso Pimenta. Ano 1988 / (Divulgação/CASACOR)
Composed of photographs spanning the period from
1960 to
1990 , the exhibition presents (until January 28, 2024) the work of photographers
Afonso Pimenta and
João Mendes, curated by researcher and visual artist
Guilherme Cunha , focusing on the
Aglomerado da Serra region, located south of Belo Horizonte.
The exhibition is an
offshoot of the social project
“Retratistas do Morro” , started by Cunha in 2015, whose objective is to contribute to the preservation of the
national historical-cultural heritage and broaden the understanding of the history of images in Brazil, especially the visual narratives produced by portrait artists who worked in the communities.
2. 35th São Paulo Biennial: choreographies of the impossible
Instalação de Tadáskía durante a 35ª Bienal de São Paulo – coreografias do impossível (Levi Fanan/CASACOR)
The
largest contemporary art exhibition in the southern hemisphere and the second
oldest in the world after the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Biennale held its 35th edition between September and December this year. Entitled
Choreographies of the Impossible , the exhibition brought together
121 artists from around the world – 80% of whom were non-white – with sculptures, paintings, installations and videos. Dispensing with the figure of a chief curator, the 35th was curated by
Diane Lima, Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes and
Manuel Borja-Villel. 3. From Brazils – Sesc Belenzinho, SP
(Matheus Jose Maria/CASACOR)
Dos Brasis – Arte e Pensamento Negro is the most comprehensive exhibition dedicated
exclusively to the production of black artists ever held in the country. The idea was born in 2018, as a result of Sesc's institutional desire to learn about, give visibility to and promote Afro-Brazilian production. Curators
Hélio Menezes and
Igor Simões were invited to organize the exhibition. The exhibition will run until
January 28, 2024. 4. 1st Amazon Biennial, PA
The first edition of the
Amazon Biennial had as its main exhibition space an old department store measuring 7,600 m² in the commercial center of Belém, in Pará. Between August and November of this year, the exhibition brought together works by
120 artists from the nine Brazilian Amazon states and the seven countries that make up the Pan-Amazon region. One of the proposals was to reveal a powerful cultural system, which goes far beyond the forest, and to debate
global issues such as the economy, social relations and climate issues.
5. Revenguê: an exhibition-scene – MAR, RJ
(Cortesia do artista / Revista Terremoto/CASACOR)
The proposal by visual artist, writer and playwright
Yhuri Cruz in "Revenguê: uma Exposição-cena", his solo exhibition at the
Rio Art Museum , was inspired by a fiction developed by him in recent years, where he presents a
new planet and its
reverberations on those who know it.
The second edition of the project
“Instituto Tomie Ohtake visita” invited curator
Jacopo Crivelli Visconti to propose a journey through the trajectory of
Paulo Kuczynski’s Imaginary Collection. The exhibition, which took place between May and August, brought together some of the
most important works that have passed through the
art dealer and collector's scrutiny over almost
50 years of activity. With just over 200 works by 39 artists, the exhibition – which took its title from an exhibition held by Kuczynski in 2004 –
aligned different periods and expressions of Brazilian art , allowing for unexpected and extremely fruitful connections and approaches.
7. Alex Červený: Mirabilia – Pinacoteca, SP
The panoramic exhibition presents the artist's iconographic universe over a
career spanning more than 40 years , with an emphasis on his research on travel, real or dreamlike, mixing biblical and mythological characters, pop icons and scientific illustration. On display until
March 10, 2024 , the
Pinacoteca exhibition brings together more than
100 works , including tiles, polychrome ceramics, bronze sculptures, paintings and engravings, the result of a collection of very diverse references, articulated with
great erudition and humor .
8. 22nd Sesc_Videobrasil Biennial: Memory is an editing island – Sesc 24 de maio, SP
With artistic direction by
Solange Farkas and curation by
Raphael Fonseca and Kenyan
Renée Akitelek Mboya , the
22nd Sesc_Videobrasil Biennial is conceived based on a verse by Waly Salomão: “memory is an editing island”. The curatorial selection presents
different views and
ways of dealing with memory – and forgetting –, whether individual or collective, linked to varied social, political and cultural contexts. The exhibition will be on display until
February 25, 2024. 9. Making the modern, building the contemporary: Rubem Valentim – Inhotim, MG
On display until
September 30, 2024 and co-curated by
Lucas Menezes and guest curator
Igor Simões , the exhibition presents works from
different periods of the artist's production (1922-1991), from painting to reliefs, objects and serigraphic emblems. The works on display include more than
30 years of Valentim's productions that are part of the
Inhotim Institute 's collection, as well as works loaned by the
Museum of Modern Art of Bahia ,
the Museum of Contemporary Art of São Paulo and the
Pampulha Art Museum. 10. Paul Gauguin: the other and I – MASP, SP
Paul Gauguin: O outro e Eu— MASP / (Reprodução/CASACOR)
Sample
from MASP was a pioneer in critically addressing the problematic relationship of modern artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) with landscapes and characters from Tahiti, the island in the Pacific Ocean that is part of French Polynesia. His work, especially during this period, is an extraordinary investigation into figure and color, as well as being extremely contemporary in the way he appropriated iconographies from different cultures, placing them in dialogue with the tradition of Western painting itself.
