Quando a Bienal de São Paulo, uma das mais importantes exposições de arte do mundo, sai de sua sede e rompe limites geográficos, obviamente amplifica a sua voz. Ao fazer uma parceria com o MON, maior museu de arte da América Latina, faz muito mais do que isso.

Além de alcançar novos públicos e levar os debates propostos a um outro território, realiza também uma espécie de caminho inverso. Encontra aqui, como palco, um dos mais significativos prédios projetados por aquele que foi o maior arquiteto brasileiro.

Assim como o edifício sede da Bienal, o Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo, localizado no Parque do Ibirapuera, em São Paulo, os prédios onde estão o MON têm a pesada assinatura de Oscar Niemeyer. Assim, as obras encontram, mais uma vez, suas singulares curvas e rampas, que conferem um caráter único às mostras abrigadas em projetos de Niemeyer.

Entendemos que a arte tem a capacidade de comunicar sem palavras. Por isso, ela proporciona uma conexão profunda e presente, que muitas vezes não seria possível de nenhuma outra maneira. Ao participar da itinerância desse tão importante evento, o MON ajuda a transpor barreiras por meio da arte e, desta forma, permite um elo entre pessoas, mundos e vivências.

Juliana Vellozo Almeida Vosnika 
Diretora-presidente do Museu Oscar Niemeyer

No ano seguinte a cada Bienal de São Paulo, o programa de mostras itinerantes leva recortes da exposição que parte da capital paulista para diferentes cidades dentro e fora do Brasil. Desenvolvido por meio de parcerias estabelecidas com museus, instituições culturais e órgãos públicos e privados, o programa contribui para a nacionalização e internacionalização do evento, permitindo novos encontros entre as obras expostas no Pavilhão da Bienal e seus públicos cada vez mais amplos.
Esta é a segunda vez que o programa é acolhido pelo Museu Oscar Niemeyer em Curitiba. A primeira ocorreu em 2011, ano da estreia do programa, momento em que a Fundação Bienal consolidou a iniciativa institucional que antes ocorria de forma esporádica desde 1952, o ano subsequente à primeira Bienal de São Paulo. Nesta renovada parceria, mais de uma década depois, a Fundação reafirma seu propósito cultural e educacional, consolidado ao longo de mais de setenta anos de história e agora potencializado pelo amplo alcance da atuação do MON.

A itinerância da 35a Bienal de São Paulo – coreografias do impossível conta com trabalhos oriundos de contextos de lutas e resistências, de imaginação de possibilidades dentro das impossibilidades. Essas obras, que aqui encontram novos olhares, oferecem a oportunidade para despertar sensibilidades e remodelar perspectivas. Por meio delas, a Fundação Bienal de São Paulo almeja contribuir para a construção de uma sociedade mais diversa e plural, estimulando e democratizando o acesso à arte contemporânea e aos debates que sempre a acompanham.
Andrea Pinheiro
Presidente – Fundação Bienal de São Paulo

Anna Boghiguian, Katherine Dunham, Luana Vitra, Maya Deren, Min Tanaka, François Pain, Sonia gomes, Tadáskía, Aida Harika Yanomami, Edmar Tokorino Yanomami, Roseane Yariana Yanomami, Amos Gitaï, Dayanita Singh, Gabriel Gentil Tukano, Geraldine Javier, Morzaniel ɨramari, Rosana Paulino, Sammy Baloji e Zumví Arquivo Afro fotográfico.

Diane Lima, Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes e Manuel Borja‑Villel

Curitiba will host one of the traveling exhibitions of the 35th São Paulo Biennial “Coreografias do Impossível” (“Choreographies of the Impossible”), in partnership with the Oscar Niemeyer Museum. Curated by Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes and Manuel Borja-Villel, tthe exhibition, which was a success with audiences and critics in 2023, will land in the city, where it will remain open to the public from March 12 to May 26, in rooms 1 and 2 of MON. This year, the exhibition expanded to fifteen cities, and Curitiba receives a special section, as the largest outside of São Paulo, with sixteen participants. 

coreografias do impossível reúne um conjunto de práticas artísticas, movimentos culturais e sociais que desafiam o impossível em variadas e incalculáveis formas. Referem-se a modos de expressão que lidam com a violência total, a impossibilidade da vida em liberdade plena e os limites da ideia de justiça. Assim como as suas linguagens, impactadas pelos desafios cotidianos dos tempos e contextos em que vivem, coreografam possibilidades estéticas e políticas nas quais se manifestam saberes e conhecimentos que se constroem, sobretudo, a partir da memória do corpo.

Elas são um convite a nos movermos por entre experiências que subvertem o conceito de uma história progressiva, linear e ocidental. Fundamentada em cosmologias e modelos de governança onde o tempo é concebido como uma espiral, sem a rigidez de estruturas e cronologias estabelecidas, esta Bienal se organiza sem categorias ou temas. 

Aqui, encontramos uma coreografia de percursos e narrativas que privilegia o diálogo entre expressões artísticas a partir de uma teia de relações que se constrói, reflete e encontra ressonância em diferentes territórios impossíveis do globo. Elas contrariam a história, desenvolvem ferramentas, tecnologias e dispositivos, questionam sistemas de representação, especulam sobre o fim deste mundo e promovem exercícios de imaginação radical e de saberes insubmissos. 

As coreografias do impossível também ganham forma a partir de um exercício conceitual que se reflete em nossa própria formação e prática curatoriais, um grupo horizontal, sem a hierarquia de um curador-chefe ou a homogeneidade de um coletivo. Que rupturas, consensos e dissensos esses encontros podem criar? Para nós, essa pergunta tem um papel central: eles possibilitam a manifestação de coreografias inimagináveis frente a tempos impossíveis.

Diane Lima, Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes, Manuel Borja-Villel

O Museu Oscar Niemeyer (MON) traz à Curitiba a itinerância da “Bienal de São Paulo - Coreografias do Impossível”. A mostra, com 16 artistas nas Salas 1 e 2 do Museu, explora as complexidades e urgências do mundo contemporâneo, abordando transformações sociais, políticas e culturais. Com a curadoria de Diane Lima, Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes e Manuel Borja-Villel, a exposição busca tensionar os espaços entre o possível e o impossível, o visível e o invisível, o real e o imaginário, dando voz a diversas questões e perspectivas de maneira poética.

Peixes, da série Mangue, 2023
Grafite, acrílica e pigmento natural sobre tela
267,5 x 566 x 5 cm

Hobé’s Art Nouveau Forest and Its Lines of Color, 2021
Instalação composta por quatro painéis de madeira e acrílica sobre tela
210 x 300 x 1 cm

arranjo, 2019-2023
taboa, bambu, frutas, pó colorido, arame, pratos, cascas de ovo costuradas, spray e miçangas sobre madeira

The partnership between MON and the São Paulo Biennial Foundation brings “Choreographies of the Impossible” to Curitiba

With a focus especially designed for the city, the exhibition will occupy the main museum of the capital of Paraná

Curitiba will host one of the traveling exhibitions of the 35th Bienal de São Paulo – “Coreografias do Impossível” (Choreographies of the Impossible), in partnership with the Oscar Niemeyer Museum. Curated by Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes, and Manuel Borja-Ville, the exhibition, which was a success with audiences and critics in 2023, will land in the city, where it will remain open to the public from March 12 to May 26, in rooms 1 and 2 of MON. This year, the exhibition expanded to fifteen cities, and Curitiba will receive a special section, one of the largest outside São Paulo, with sixteen participants:  

Aida Harika Yanomami, Edmar Tokorino Yanomami, Roseane Yariana Yanomami, Amos Gitaï, Anna Boghiguian, Dayanita Singh, Geraldine Javier, Gabriel Gentil Tukano, Katherine Dunham, Luana Vitra, Maya Deren, Min Tanaka and François Pain, Morzaniel Ɨramari, Rosana Paulino, Sammy Baloji, Sonia Gomes, Tadáskía, Zumví Afro Photographic Archive

The 35th São Paulo Bienal – Choreographies of the Impossible explores the complexities and urgencies of the contemporary world, addressing social, political, and cultural transformations. The curatorship seeks to tension the spaces between the possible and the impossible, the visible and the invisible, the real and the imaginary, giving voice to various issues and perspectives in a poetic way. Choreography, understood as a set of body-centered movements that defy limits, considers diverse trajectories and areas of activity, creating strategies to face institutional and curatorial challenges. The choreographies of the impossible generate their relationships, times, and spaces, offering visitors a remarkable experience.

For the curators, the exhibition must reach more cities, transcending the limits of the Bienal Pavilion. According to them, "the debates proposed by the 35th Bienal cross countless territories around the world; therefore, not restricting the Choreographies of the Impossible to the Biennale Pavilion is extremely important for the work carried out".

Andrea Pinheiro, president of the São Paulo Bienal Foundation, highlights the relevance of not only bringing the Choreographies of the Impossible to a wider audience but also of strengthening ties between cultural institutions. "Taking the exhibition to more cities and with a partner as important as the Oscar Niemeyer Museum is extremely important for strengthening cultural institutions in Brazil. The exchange of experiences between audiences and institutions is one of the great treasures of the São Paulo Bienal's touring tours", she states.

The director-president of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, Juliana Vosnika, comments that art can communicate without words and, therefore, provides a deep and present connection, which often would not be possible in any other way. "By participating in the touring of this important event, MON helps to overcome barriers through art and, in this way, allows a link between people, worlds, and experiences", she states.

Founded in 1962, the São Paulo Bienal Foundation is a private, non-profit institution with political-party or religious links, whose actions aim to democratize access to culture and stimulate interest in artistic creation. The Foundation holds the São Paulo Biennale every two years, the largest exhibition in the Southern Hemisphere, and its traveling exhibitions in various cities in Brazil and abroad. The institution is also the guardian of two artistic and cultural heritage sites in Latin America: a historical archive of modern and contemporary art, a reference in Latin America (Wanda Svevo Historical Archive), and the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, the Foundation's headquarters, designed by Oscar Niemeyer and listed as a Historical Heritage Site. The São Paulo Bienal Foundation is also responsible for devising and producing Brazilian representations at the Venice Biennials of Art and architecture, a prerogative granted to it decades ago by the Federal Government in recognition of the excellence of its contributions to Brazilian culture.

The Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON) is a state heritage linked to the State Secretariat for Culture. The institution houses important references of national and international artistic production in the areas of visual arts, architecture, and design, as well as great Asian and African collections. In total, the collection has approximately 14 thousand works of art, housed in a space of more than 35 thousand square meters of built area, which makes MON the largest art museum in Latin America.

Service:
35th São Paulo Bienal – Choreographies of the Impossible
Traveling Exhibition
Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON)
Rooms 1 and 2
From March 12 to May 26, 2024.

Coreografias do impossível | 35ª Bienal de São Paulo - mostra itinerante — Curitiba

35th São Paulo Bienal - Traveling Exhibition — Curitiba

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Conheça mais sobre esta exposição na plataforma Google Arts & Culture.

The Oscar Niemeyer Museum is a living space for dialogue, research, and constant exchange between professionals in the artistic and educational sectors with the public. 

Our proposal with the project "Before and Now, Far and Here Within," which culminated in this unprecedented exhibition, is to generate educational content for MON (Oscar Niemeyer Museum), based on a deep dive into its rich and diverse archives, aiming to establish dialogues between the Museum and Brazilian contemporary art.

We understand that the permanent collection of a museum is its heart. It is important to highlight that MON's collection currently comprises 14,000 artworks, having quintupled in size in recent years and being increasingly valued. Proof of this is that about half of the exhibitions held by the institution, such as this one, aim to present it to the public.

The "Before and Now" project, more than that, is part of the Museum's broad educational proposal. It stemmed from research coordinated by Professor and Art Curator Galciani Neves, along with the MON team, which began in 2023.

Through studies and the realization of a seminar, a hundred works produced by dozens of artists that make up our collection were chosen. These are works considered relevant both to the artistic production context of the city of Curitiba and to the history of art in the state of Paraná and Brazil, thus celebrating the diversity and importance found in the Museum.

By bringing together such works — created by artists, times, and languages ​​so distinct — we suggest a diverse coexistence. It is an intriguing way to invite the visitor to immerse themselves in the institution's permanent collection.

Chief Executive Officer | Oscar Niemeyer Museum

"To arrive here, you have traversed paths – spontaneous ones, with a predetermined route, with pauses, with surprises along the journey... Walking through the city or within buildings like this one are movements that change us at the same time we alter each place we pass through. This is the dynamic of landscapes; individuals shape them, and they interact with individuals. Walking is a sharing of time with space. The unique connections we create during journeys from one place to another become part of who we are and locate themselves as small flashes of memory in these places. It's a movement of many flows: our body moves simultaneously as we mobilize places.
 

In this exhibition, we propose that the experience of being with the works also includes gestures of creating routes, as the exhibition spreads across 11 spaces in the Museum. There is no specific route. There are small observations wherever it continues, which you can follow whenever you want and if curiosity arises.

The paths you create to view the works also integrate the experiences of visiting the exhibition. These ways of circulating through the Museum can intertwine the works and provoke unforeseen relationships, leaving traces of this experience. Furthermore, the Museum itself, its physical space, the artworks, as well as the people circulating here, including yourself, are part of these routes. Routes that transform into small temporary landscapes that you will glimpse as you drift around.

The works I develop addresses the violence against trans community dissident feminine bodies. The project "The Nature of Life" started in the year 2000, with actions and performances carried out in public places where I pose, often naked, for photos and videos taken by different photographers participating in the actions, and their multiple perspectives construct the work. Body matters through a political stance, discussing standards, aesthetics, and diversities are part of the work. 

It was during a trip that I followed news on social media about the cutting down of trees in Londrina's Central Forest to make way for a road. The resistance of journalists and artists in the city gave rise to the Ocupa Londrina Group, which allied with the NGO MAE to preserve the remnants of the original forest surviving in the heart of the city. Contributing to this collective activism, I proposed a photo clothesline so that everyone could participate and stand themselves. Upon my return, amidst numerous protests, I performed among the fallen trunks and the ground disturbed by the heavy machinery. This action was crucial for the work. The images, created as a form of protest, were exhibited alongside poems, drawings, cartoons, and other photos produced by various artists in the city. Myself, as the fat feminine body you now see, extend beyond discourse itself to merge with a social body which publicly manifests for a collective cause in servitude of everyone, rendering itself naked in front of violence 

After a long struggle, the construction work was embargoed, and the place was transformed into a permanent preservation area (APA). Unfortunately, ten years later, during the pandemic, the public authorities revoked the APA, turned the forest into a square, and "urbanized" it. Despite this, for now, the reopening of the road has not been reconsidered.

Here, we present other photographs that involve this performance, moments that resulted in the work and are its creative force. Journalist Guto Rocha faces the bulldozer and calls on artists to defend the forest. Foto by Gina Mardones; Graziela Diez and Luciano Pascoal immortalizing the performance; Foto by Camila Fujita; Photo Clothesline during Ocupa Londrina; Fotos by Graziela Diez and Fernanda Magalhães.

"Fábrica (Campo de Batalha)" presents a crossing of stories, people, and landscapes whose distances correspond to more than 200 years: the extermination of a Kaingáng community (1796) and of a working class (from the 1940s) in a territory occupied and controlled by a large paper factory in the city of Telêmaco Borba/PR. "Campo de Batalha (Battlefield)" is a military expression that designates a territory chosen in advance and prepared as a trap into which the enemy is led through persuasion or other subliminal means.

 "Official" history records the transmission and maintenance of economic power as the names of the region's landowners since before the Kaingáng extermination. It allows us to consider the factory owners as successors to the 18th-century grantees. On the other side of the story, that of the indigenous people and the workers, reports and images are practically non-existent. Would there be any relationship between the population of the region, the factory workers, and the Kaingáng? Were these loose threads ever part of the same weave? 

On the Tibagi River's right bank is Fazenda Monte Alegre's headquarters, which belongs to the families that own the paper mill. The site where they built the industry, its administrative headquarters, and the workers' village was called Vila Harmonia, although, for more than 150 years, it was called Mortandade. The name change was an attempt to erase the history of the extermination of a Kaingáng community.

Around 1796, at the behest of the landowner José Félix, owner of the largest estate in Campos Gerais, a group of Kaingáng, the original inhabitants of the region, were surrounded and murdered. They said there was so much blood that it ran in streams into a tributary river of the Tibagi. The bodies of the men, women, and children were piled up, and for many days, crows flew over them. In return for his extermination, José Felix received a large tract of land, which he called Fazenda Monte Alegre. The river and the location of the massacre became known as Mortandade until, in 1941, at the suggestion of the factory owners, it was renamed Harmonia.

"Let'savoidaccidents". The spacing between the letters doesn't make the message clear. That we, the factory + workers, "Avoid accidents"; or that you, the workers, "Avoid the accidents". This fog that covers the text is also present in the relationship between the factory and the workers—a mist of promises and threats. The factory's discourse has always been one of development, technology, progress, and opportunities. Its construction in the middle of "nowhere" - after all, those who once lived there were murdered, expelled, or erased from history by the latifundium - also projected an image of transformation to the workers. 

Between 1942 and 78, more than 60% of the factory's workers were from the region itself - the vast majority of them rural laborers, illiterate or with incomplete primary education, whose lives were isolated and abandoned. The ever-latent desire to be in a community, to share the world, and to improve material living conditions got mixed up with the factory discourse. This confusion was gradually undone by creating a union to represent the interests of the workers against those of the factory owners. 

Through the sabotage and military-patronage intervention in union organization after March 31, 1964, as well as the difficulties imposed in collective bargaining, the promises turned out to be threats. The steam from the boiler, the toxic fumes, the machines' noise, and the machines' danger permeated the workers' bodies. An experience that taught them to read the text and see an exclamation at the end, "Avoid the accidents!".

Fábrica (Campo de Batalha) - Felipe Prando

Ailton Krenak, Alice Yamamura, Aline van Langendonck, Amélia Toledo, Américo Vespúcio, Anita Malfatti, Ayrson Heráclito, Burle Marx, Cícero Dias, Didonet Thomaz, Dorothea Wiedemann, Edu Simões, Efigênia Rolim, Espedito Rocha, Felipe Prando, Fernanda Castro, Fernanda Magalhães, Georgia Kyriakakis, Gustavo Caboco, Gustavo Magalhães, João Groff, João Urban, Julia Kater, Juliana Stein, Juraci Dorea, Kamikia Kisedje, Leonor Botteri, Lia Chaia, Martín Chambi, Maya Weishof, Miguel Bakun, Milla Jung, Oscar Niemeyer, Paulo Bruscky, Raphaela Melsohn, Raquel Garbelotti, Regina Parra, Regina Vater, Rosana Paulino, Tiago Sant’ana, Tomie Ohtake, Tony Camargo, Vera Chaves Barcellos and Willian Santos

This exhibition and three seminar cycles are part of the 'Mvúka' project – an experimental research process carried out with the MON collection, in partnership with the museum's Educational, Design, Architecture, Communication, Collection, and Production teams. 'Mvúka,' in Bantu, a linguistic branch giving rise to over 400 African languages, means a noisy gathering of people in celebration. In Brazil, for indigenous peoples, 'muvuca' is an ancestral planting technique that involves mixing seeds from various species The differences between the seed cycles restore the forests, create a cooperative environment, and ensure the biodiversity of the place.

This artistic proposal draws on 'mvúka/muvuca' as its foundation. We seek to engage with the contexts in which the word circulates to articulate ways to approach and share works by artists, production times, languages, creative processes, layers of interpretation from other fields of knowledge, privileging a coexistence between works of art and ways of thinking and being in the world. In this way, similar to 'mvúka/muvuca,' we create an exhibition atmosphere that celebrates being together in diversity, in polyphony, in the encounter of singularities.

Titled 'Antes e agora, Longe e aqui dentro,’ [Before and Now, Far and Here Within], the exhibition presents works that discuss the inseparable relationships between body and territory and the many ways of inhabiting, being, and recording landscapes, proposing landscapes: what we see in the distance, defined as a cutout of a place, what is too close (like the palm of the hand), or the distance between two people, a construction of sharing with time and place.

The exhibition is organized based on the works and production contexts of six artists, with works from the MON's permanent collection: Gustavo Caboco, Rosana Paulino, Efigênia Rolim, Miguel Bakun, Cícero Dias, and Amélia Toledo.  Their works generated conceptual constellations with 40 other artists. Thus, like in a 'mvúka,' they gather and ask us: how do we practice our actions in the landscapes and places we see? Are landscapes in flux and can they define our ways of existing? Faced with these questions, we can think together with the many indigenous peoples who inhabit Brazil: body and place know no hierarchies, as they merge and, therefore, coexist, one being a part of the other. Or, as the poet, professor, and quilombola leader Nêgo Bispo (1959-2023, Piauí) would say:  'The human being cannot be understood as a creator but as a creature of nature, of the place where one is and inhabits.  When we are aware that we live thanks to the 'biointeractions' between species and the earth, we have the conditions to connect ourselves to territories and landscapes, inhabiting and respecting them with the same intensity that we see ourselves as part of them.' Thus, landscapes are not just abstractions of places but active instances that constitute us as beings and shape our ways of existing.

A exposição inédita “Antes e agora, longe e aqui dentro”, realizada pelo Museu Oscar Niemeyer, extrapola a Sala 11 e ocupa diversos espaços do MON, como Pátio das Esculturas, hall térreo, rampa e Parcão.

Photography | Photographic print on paper, 1/5

Photography | Photographic reproduction in black and white on photographic paper

There Goes the Cart With Knight and Little Angels, 2017

Sculpture | Wood sculpture with recycled material props

A exposição inédita “Antes e agora, longe e aqui dentro”, realizada pelo Museu Oscar Niemeyer, extrapola a Sala 11 e ocupa diversos espaços do MON, como Pátio das Esculturas, hall térreo, rampa e Parcão.

A mostra resulta de um projeto que teve início em 2023, cuja proposta é estabelecer diálogos entre o acervo do MON e a arte contemporânea brasileira, além de gerar conteúdo para o setor Educativo do Museu. 

Com curadoria da professora e pesquisadora Galciani Neves, a exposição apresenta mais de 100 obras realizadas por 44 artistas. Entre elas estão pinturas, desenhos, fotos, esculturas, vídeos, áudios e instalações, reunindo técnicas variadas.

antes e agora, longe e aqui dentro

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More than celebrating the centenary of this artist from Curitiba, who is one of the main names in the arts in the State and the Country, the exhibition “Trilhos e Traços – Poty 100 anos” (“Tracks and Traces – Poty 100 years”), held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON), becomes a reference point for Poty Lazzarotto.

From now on, visitors to MON, especially the hundreds of students from public and private schools who visit the Museum daily, will certainly be able to find out more and get to know this brilliant artist better.

It is also an opportunity for the viewer to delve into Poty's life and work. This immersion in such vast content, gathered here, increases the repertoire, instigating a new perspective about the artist.

Recently, the Museum added the largest collection ever donated to the institution to its collection: approximately 4 thousand works of art signed by him. An excerpt of this can now be seen in this exhibition. Thus, the central axis of this building becomes the stage for the largest collections received by MON, alongside Asian and African art exhibitions.

The donation of Poty's work, generously made by the artist's family, brought to the Museum, in 2022, more than 3 thousand drawings and 366 engravings, in addition to tapestries, carvings, silkscreens, and sculptures. These are works that further enrich MON's collection, which in recent years has increased fivefold in size, consolidating the Museum as one of the most important in Latin America. 

Being the institution that preserves Poty's legacy is a source of pride, joy, and responsibility. In this exhibition, we share some of these feelings, translated by the artist's unmistakable traits. Belonging here has a full name: Poty Lazzarotto.

Juliana Vellozo Almeida Vosnika 
Director-President of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum

"A alma se expressa com mais claridade através do rosto [The soul expresses itself most clearly through the face] (Simmel)." We find this depth in Poty's portraits. They are expressive and agitated images: they have an actual existence, and there is no room for impersonality. Icons that surprise natural and social reality, ranging from realism to caricature. They are precise strokes and economic lines that synthesize the subject's personality in small details. The macambúzio (sullen) Bakun contrasts with the artist's energetic self-portraits. Poty, looking at himself, reveals the individuality of a firm and direct man, given to few daydreams - and human, all too human.

Born in a modest wooden house in Capanema, raised on the railroad tracks that passed in front of his home, with a father who was a railroad worker, a mother who was a cook, and a grandfather who was a carpenter, Poty developed a passion for humble workers that he cherished throughout his life, even after living in metropolises such as Rio de Janeiro and Paris. His drawings and engravings reflect his passion for the working man, both the day-to-day hard worker, especially the railway worker, the "polaca's" carts, the street vendors, the drivers of the open streetcars and the pub owners, and the simple man in everyday life: at church parties, workers' societies, the Cine Morgenau, the game of truco, all celebrating life. Poty sees work much more as fulfillment than hardship and alienation. In this poetic work, we find St. Francis's energy, Goya's courageous strokes, and Käthe Kollwitz's tenderness. Delicacy and social character, dignity, and humanity.

Poty celebrates the indigenous wisdom of nature and myths. Amid the countless languages and rich rituals, he gathers the born artist in the basketry, the stools, the bows and arrows, the body painting, the masks, and even the superficial knots and the architecture of the huts. Poty's Upper Xingu drawings in the still extensive Amazon Rainforest of the 1960s (1967/68) are a eulogy to nature, to Rousseau's good savage. They do justice to the overflowing intellectual and intuitive imagination of the locals.

"O mundo profano é o universo das interdições, enquanto o mundo sagrado corresponde ao das transgressões [The profane world is the universe of interdictions, while the sacred world corresponds to that of transgressions] (Bataille)." Poty's saints are well known, especially St. Francis, whom he has drawn, carved, and engraved countless times. The traces of the sacred, the communication with the metaphysical present in Poty's soul, lead him to a religion in the sense of religar, from the Latin religare, which celebrates human understanding. So, you don't necessarily have to be linked to a religion praising the gods to be religious. The aura, if there is one, is the one that involves connecting with others, the practice of humanism. Inspired by Saint Francis, Poty celebrates nature and the human person.

Immersing yourself in Poty's drawings and engravings means traveling through the daily life of provincial Curitiba. From the scenes of the "polacas'" carts, workers going to the trade by bicycle, disasters on the railroad, fights in the bars, the floods in the city center, the children flying kites, the Queirolo Brothers' Circus, and Didi Caillet's glorious return, to the procession of children running after Father Maurício's trolley, which handed out candies to attract the little ones to the Holy Office. He also extended his gaze to other places: his strokes slipped through the maritime scenes of Bahia, the churches and saints of Ouro Preto, and the sculptures of Chartres and Paris cathedrals. An eternal traveler, Poty combines nostalgic Curitiba with the discovery of the world.

Since the beginning of his artistic activity, Poty has always been a narrator, creating images to tell stories. As a child, he made comic strips inspired by American models; as a teenager, he created images of violence and fantasy inspired by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare. The cinema, also a form of narration through images, was another decisive influence on his work: as a child, he used to go to the old cinema at the Morgenau Club and then draw the scenes that stuck in his memory. Poty became a book illustrator at a young age: from 1943 until the end of his life, he illustrated more than 170 titles by Brazilian and foreign authors. With his love of cinema, he also produced a masterful series of drawings in the style of classic movie posters - drawing as an extension of the seventh art.

"Na galeria dos nossos grandes (mas muito poucos) ilustradores de nossos livros (numerosos, mas ainda muito poucos), nunca a fusão verbo-ícone atinge tão intrínseca adequação: nunca um ilustrador, entre nós, foi tão ilustrador, tão capaz de dizer o que as palavras não sabiam ou não podiam. [In the gallery of our great (but very few) illustrators of our books (numerous, but still very few), never has the verb-icon fusion reached such an intrinsic adequacy: never has an illustrator, among us, been so illustrative, so capable of saying what words did not know or could not.]" (Antônio Houaiss)

Poty's first public mural was in Praça 19 de Dezembro, on the occasion of the Centenary of the Emancipation of Paraná, in 1953, in a more realistic style. Since then, he has created many public works, which are present in several Brazilian cities, and has also reached Europe, with works in the Algarve, Portugal, and Paris. Public murals were an extension of engraving for the artist due to their ability to bring his art to a broader audience. In his public work, Poty uses sophisticated techniques to assemble and articulate symbolic elements to represent human history, the development of cities, the arts, knowledge, and technology. For those who visit Curitiba, we invite you to find Poty's murals in the city: like the rain and the pine trees, they are part of the Curitiba landscape.

"Cabe a cada menino guardar, para todo o sempre, um instante daquele voo de silêncio e fúria, de ruído e paz... [It is up to each child to keep, forever and ever, an instant of that flight of silence and fury, of noise and peace...]" (Valêncio Xavier)

The exhibition “Trilhos e Traços – Poty 100 anos” (“Tracks and Traces – Poty 100 years”), held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON), has approximately 500 works, a sample of the donation of 4 thousand works made by the artist’s family to the Museum, in 2022. Curated by Maria José Justino and Fabricio Vaz Nunes, it celebrates the centenary of Poty Lazzarotto (1924-1998).

In the exhibition, the works were organized around nine thematic groups present in Poty's artistic career, representing his different facets: the Narrator, the Work, the Xingu, the Sacred, the War, the Daily Life, the Traveler, the Muralist, and the Portraitist.

Poty, an artist from Curitiba? No: Poty, artist of the world. The premise of this exhibition is to show one of Curitiba's most essential artists in his universal dimension. We are celebrating the centenary of Poty Lazzarotto's birth by bringing to the public a wide selection of his works, which were recently donated to MON by Mr. Lazzarotto. João Geraldo Lazzarotto, the artist's brother. In this exhibition, the pieces have been organized around nine thematic nuclei present in his work, representative of the different facets of the artist: o Narrador (the Narrator), o Trabalho (the Work), the Xingu, o Sagrado (the Sacred), a Guerra (the War), o Cotidiano (Everyday Life), o Viajante (the Traveller), o Muralista (the Muralist) and o Retratista (the Portraitist). But Poty, the "piá" (kid) from Capanema who loved movies and comic books, is even more than all that. Through drawing, his primary means of expression, he approached the most varied themes, passing through different styles, always seeking to take art to its most important destination: the people. In his constant and obstinate artistic activity, he showed the real world of work and social reality; he recreated, in images, the creative universe of literature; in his murals, he shaped the great adventure of universal history. Always seeking to make art popular, he went from engraving to illustration, from tiny drawings to monumental murals. In the simplicity of his drawing, with his human and poignant vision of the human experience in all its dimensions, Poty created a vast collective imaginary: in his trails and strokes, we travel the world.

A exposição “Trilhos e Traços – Poty 100 anos”, realizada pelo Museu Oscar Niemeyer (MON), reúne aproximadamente 500 obras, um recorte da doação de 4 mil peças realizada pela família do artista ao Museu, em 2022. Com curadoria de Maria José Justino e Fabricio Vaz Nunes, comemora o centenário de Poty Lazzarotto (1924-1998).

MON holds a grand exhibition celebrating the hundred years of Poty Lazzarotto

The Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON) is holding the grand exhibition “Trilhos e Traços – Poty 100 anos” (“Tracks and Traces – Poty 100 years”), to celebrate the centenary of Poty Lazzarotto (1924-1998). Curated by Maria José Justino and Fabricio Vaz Nunes, the exhibition brings together approximately 500 works, a portion of the donation of 4,000 pieces made by the artist's family to the Museum, in 2022. The opening will be on April 11th, at 7 pm, in Room 6.

"Poty, in its centenary, remains current, incomparable, and this new exhibition reinforces the importance of the artist to the cultural identity of Paraná. I am sure that the exhibition at the Oscar Niemeyer Museum will introduce his unique work to thousands of people and also to new generations", says Luciana Casagrande Pereira, Secretary of State for Culture of Paraná.

“More than celebrating the centenary of this artist from Curitiba, who is one of the main names in the arts in the State and the Country, the exhibition becomes a place of reference for Poty Lazzarotto”, says the director-president of MON, Juliana Vosnika.

“From now on, visitors to MON, especially the hundreds of students from public and private schools who visit the Museum every day, will certainly be able to learn more and get to know this genius of the arts better”, she comments.

The exhibition is also an opportunity for viewers to delve deeper into Poty’s life and work. “By providing an immersion in such vast content, gathered here, MON encourages the public to expand their repertoire by taking a new look at this unique artist”, says Juliana.

The premise of the exhibition, according to the curators, is to extrapolate regional borders and present Poty in its universal dimension. “In his ceaseless and obstinate artistic activity, he recreated, in images, the creative universe of literature; in his murals, he created the great adventure of universal history”, they inform. “Always seeking popular dissemination of art, he went from engraving to illustration, from tiny drawings to monumental murals.”

In the exhibition, the works were organized around nine thematic groups present in Poty's artistic career, representing his different facets: the Narrator, the Work, the Xingu, the Sacred, the War, the Daily Life, the Traveler, the Muralist, and the Portraitist. “But Poty, the boy from Capanema who loved cinema and comic books, is even more than all of that,” say the curators.

On March 29, Curitiba's birthday – and coincidentally, Poty Lazzarotto's birth date – MON received the largest collection ever donated to the institution: approximately 4.5 thousand works. The year was 2022. This collection has more than 3,000 drawings and 366 engravings, as well as tapestries, carvings, screen prints, and sculptures, among others. The donation was made directly by João Lazzarotto, brother of the artist.

These are works that further enrich MON's collection, which in recent years has increased fivefold in size, consolidating the Museum as one of the most important in Latin America.

A selection of Poty's vast collection can be seen in this exhibition. Thus, the central axis of the Museum building becomes the stage for the largest collections received by MON, alongside displays of Asian and African art.

Poty Lazzarotto (Curitiba, 1924-1998) followed his path through drawing, then delving deeper into engraving, of which he became a master, being the creator of the first engraving course at the São Paulo Museum of Art (Masp). Much of his production is biographical, ranging from boyhood memories around railway tracks and train carriages to records of Curitiba types and the settings they inhabit.

 Poty is direct and straightforward in his drawings and engravings. It was with this spontaneous characteristic that he illustrated various works of Brazilian literature, such as Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands), by Euclides da Cunha, and Grande Sertão: Veredas (The Devil to Pay in the Backlands), by Guimarães Rosa. He could also not have failed to give life to the controversial people from Curitiba portrayed in the stories of another icon from Paraná, Dalton Trevisan. 

 As if his presence in literature were not enough, Poty left his mark throughout Curitiba through his monuments or tile and exposed concrete panels, a practice that began with the panel “Desenvolvimento Histórico do Paraná” (Historical development of Paraná), in 1953, at 19 de Outubro Square. Other examples of this production are the panels on Nestor de Castro Street, in which he shows, on one side, a scene from a Curitiba that no longer exists, and, on the other, the evolution of the city, which emerged amid pine forests, inhabited by immigrants, and which stands out in the field of urbanism.

 The collection donated to the Oscar Niemeyer Museum relates to this entire production. In it we can find originals so often reproduced in books and other publications about the artist, we come into contact with the drawings he made on his expedition to the Xingu, in 1967, and we enter the intimacy of an almost unknown Poty. Furthermore, we still find sketches, projects, and studies, and we can see the evolution of the trait, from its youth to maturity. Therefore, the collection constitutes true ethnographic material about this artist. 

 Donated to MON by Poty Lazzarotto's family, the collection also includes, of course, consummate works, drawings, woodcuts, lithographs, metal engravings, wood carvings, and concrete blocks: thousands of pieces that give clear testimony to the versatility of this artist. Through Poty, we learned about the art that was made and is being made in Paraná.

 Preserving not only the legacy of this artist, but his memory, is above all a duty – a task assumed and adequately carried out, now, by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum.

Exhibition “Trilhos e Traços – Poty 100 anos” (“Tracks and Traces – Poty 100 years”)
Opening: April 11th, at 7pm
Room 6
www.museuoscarniemeyer.org.br 

A exposição “Trilhos e Traços – Poty 100 anos”, realizada pelo Museu Oscar Niemeyer (MON), reúne aproximadamente 500 obras, um recorte da doação de 4 mil peças realizada pela família do artista ao Museu, em 2022. Com curadoria de Maria José Justino e Fabricio Vaz Nunes, comemora o centenário de Poty Lazzarotto (1924-1998).

Na mostra, as obras foram organizadas em torno de nove núcleos temáticos presentes na trajetória artística de Poty, representativos das suas diferentes facetas: o Narrador, o Trabalho, o Xingu, o Sagrado, a Guerra, o Cotidiano, o Viajante, o Muralista e o Retratista.  

rilhos e Traços – Poty 100 anos

MON holds an exhibition of African art with pieces recently incorporated into its collection

The exhibition "Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent", held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, presented by Copel and made possible by the government of the State of Paraná, can be seen by the public from August 31 in Room 4. It is a selection of the significant donation made by the Ivani and Jorge Yunes Collection (CIJY) to the MON.

There are approximately 1,700 works from one of the most significant collections of African art objects from the 20th century, which now belong to the Oscar Niemeyer Museum collection and, consequently, to the State of Paraná.

Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent

“Turn a tree into firewood and it will burn; but it will never give you flowers and fruit again.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Bengali poet

The ancient metaphor of fertility related to the vital force and potency of trees, with their deep roots, their stem as a foundation, their ramifications as unfoldings of themselves, their legacy as symbolic flowers and fruits, was never more adequate as to be applied to the permanent links with our Mother Africa. If we then think of the metaphors of the gigantic baobab tree, from the more severe historical references associated with slavery by the so-called “tree of oblivion” to the milder ones, such as the famous tree in the book The Little Prince, the lessons arising therefrom would be analogous: “You become eternally responsible for what you captivate”, as Saint-Exupéry said.

If artistic expressions arise from the senses, the legacy of civilizations arises from the hands; and how beautiful are the manifestations of peoples, how beautiful are the arts of Africa! The love and yearning for the beautiful, the love and fear of nature and the gods and the fearless appreciation of civilization were so dear to African nations that they indistinctly distributed and reputed all aspects of existence, contradictory or not, some form of artistic expression.

The arts demarcate the forms of a time. The long-term exhibition “Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent” thus presents one of the essential points of the transition in the development of older African arts, since their withdrawal from the continent and the subsequent decontextualization of their intrinsic meanings, seen in the modern and contemporary world from an emphasis on their artistic forms. Previously restricted to European museums as objects of so-called traditional millenary cultures, today the works bequeathed from Africa have been able to conform to today's artistic work, offering the so-called “traditional contemporary African art” to the whole world, as it is known by specialists. These works are instruments of recent and authentic modernization of African popular arts or even modern reproductions of ancient pieces destined mainly for emerging markets in the tropics.

Strengthening institutional ties, the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON) received this important donation of African works from the Ivani and Jorge Yunes Collection (CIJY). Over more than fifty years, the couple has acquired works that span five continents. This donation includes around 1700 objects from Africa: masks, statuettes, busts, miniatures, everyday objects, musical instruments and a large number of other pieces. In a positive way, they are now part of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum collection, which we congratulate for having taken this opportune step, enriching its collection and, at the same time, the entire African legacy in Paraná and Brazil. We invite everyone to take an active part in this immersion in African art, observing its forms in what they themselves may surprise and allow an equivalent enjoyment to others in the artistic universe, without watertight determinations, taking this dialogue a step further. 

From the great tree of Africa, multiple fruits and new legacies were generated. It was no coincidence that, like most sub-Saharan peoples, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, the Mayans, the Incas, the Aztecs and basically all the great civilizations developed a culture of wearing masks and made representations in sculpture . With the exhibition of objects from such different cultural heritages, we find here an important point in common: within the museum, these arts are elevated to the same artistic platform, equaling African art to the level of world art. Here is a way to honor the visual ancestry of the past and to open up the new plantings, routes and perspectives of this art in the future.

Renato Araújo da Silva
Curator and Specialist in African Art

The exhibition “Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent”, held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, presented by Copel, can be seen by the public from August 26th, in Room 4. It is an excerpt from the great donation made by the Ivani and Jorge Collection Yunes (CIJY) to MON.

"The arrival of the African art collection is part of a consolidation process of MON's frame of reference. It establishes as a differential of the institution to primarily collect Brazilian and Paraná art and expand its non-Eurocentric look to Latin American, Asian and African art," explains Juliana Vosnika, director-president of MON. "We are constantly seeking to increase the collection because that is the soul of a museum, its essence," she says.

Juliana recalls that, in 2018, MON was the museum chosen for its technical conditions, management capacity, and credibility to receive a donation of almost 3,000 works of Asian art. Donated by diplomat and professor Fausto Godoy and coming from several countries of that continent, part of the works can be seen by MON visitors in the exhibition "Asia: the Earth, the Men, the Gods" in Room 5.

The largest art museum in Latin America inbuilt area, with 35,000 square meters, MON has tripled its collection in recent years. Since it opened in 2002 and until 2015, MON had about 3,000 works of art. Today, it has more than 9,300 works in its collection.

According to the curator of the exhibition "Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent," Renato Araújo da Silva, the works donated to MON were acquired over more than 50 years by the couple Ivani and Jorge Yunes, owners of one of the largest art collections in Brazil.

"With the exhibition of objects from such distinct cultural heritages, we find here an important common point: within the Museum, these arts are elevated to the same artistic platform, equaling African art to the level of world art," he says. "Here is a way to honor the visual ancestry of the past and to open the new plantings, routes, and perspectives of this art in the future," comments Renato.

The exhibition includes masks, sculptures, bronze busts and heads, metal miniatures, everyday objects, and musical instruments.

The works come from countries like the Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mozambique, among others.

Renato Araújo da Silva is a historian in Philosophy from the University of São Paulo and coauthor, among other published works, of the book "Africa in Arts." Curator and researcher, he has worked at the Afro Museum and held other exhibitions in museums, such as the Sacred Art Museum of São Paulo.

"Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent”
Room 4

folder-africa-en.pdf

ÁFRICA - EXPRESSÕES ARTÍSTICAS DE UM CONTINENTE

The exhibition “Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent” is a part of the donation of approximately 1,700 pieces of contemporary African art, from the partnership between MON and the Ivani and Jorge Yunes Collection. Watch a message from the exhibition's curator, Renato Araújo, and visit Room 4 at MON. Exhibition presented by COPEL@copel_energia. #ArteAfricana#MuseuOscarNiemeyer

África, Artistic Expressions of a Continent at MON!

África, Expressões Artísticas de um Continente no MON!

África, Expressões Artísticas de Um Continente. O nascer de um novo legado para a arte, para você.  ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀  Em cartaz na Sala 4 do Museu Oscar Niemeyer.  ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀  Exposição apresentada pela COPEL @copel_energia. #MuseuOscarNiemeyer#ÁfricaNoMON

#emcartaz | África, Expressões Artísticas de Um Continente

#emcartaz | África, Expressões Artísticas de Um Continente

MON is alongside major museums in Brazil and around the world on the Google Arts & Culture platform. Visit our exhibitions in virtual format.

Learn more about this exhibition on the Google Arts & Culture platform.

The “Extravagances” exhibition sets the “Baroque” tone of a work that defies all artistic trends and breaks the monotony of an aesthetic that is often also conventional. A selection of models from the main site-specific projects carried out by the artist Joana Vasconcelos around the world allows us to capture the breadth of an extraordinary personality who seems to have the sky as the limit.

After the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Château de Versailles, and the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, for her first museological exhibition in Brazil, she presents her works and, among them, “Valquíria Miss Dior” (“Miss Dior Valkyrie”), a gigantic immersive installation created this year for the fashion show, in Paris, of Dior's Fall/Winter 2023-2024 collection.

Many superlatives come to mind when we look at Joana Vasconcelos' work: unclassifiable, “apart”, unpredictable exuberance, transgression, excess… Her work explodes in ideas and energy, in a work that deviates from any established path. Popular tradition and contemporary art come together in an adventurous way to invent new forms. Joana questions what handicrafts can be in the 21st century. She subdues the banal and integrates everyday objects with an irony that is unique to her, creating a link between the domestic environment and the public space. She tirelessly questions women's place in the world, but also that of collective identity, without forgetting a scathing irony about a society where consumption knows no limits. Her dazzling “Valkyries” pay homage to great contemporary women from the different local cultures of the countries where she exhibits, while also giving a glimpse into her extravagant palette.

Baroque = “The Hall of Uselessness” – Simon Leys (1935-2014)

Coming from the combination of extra (“outside”) and vagari (“wander here and there”), the noun “extravagance”, chosen in the plural as the title of this first exhibition by Joana Vasconcelos in Brazil, suggests the idea of multiple changes of direction dictated by fantasy or whim, a baroque wandering associated with the crossing of any border or norm. With Joana, everything seems to be a possible path, as she does not follow any precise or defined path. Neither Pop Art nor New Realism will be able to lock it in its boxes.

“Extravagances”: where experimentation is pushed to the limit

A helicopter made from ostrich feathers, an architectural madness in the shape of a cake, the gigantic hearts of Viana do Castelo made from colored plastic cutlery, designs from swimming pool tiles, a chandelier made from sanitary pads, high-heeled shoes made from cooking pots, ever-larger embroidered Valkyries... no limits seem able to frame or confine her overflowing imagination. She charts her path and determines it as she pleases, in a poetic and euphoric way, without any apparent obstacle or logistical difficulty that could impede her creativity. Her “extravagance” takes the experience to the limit. With her work, she offers us the best antidote to the risk inherent in our human condition, of falling into routine or the routine of habit, leading us into a masterful dynamic of the usefulness of uselessness.

Her abundance of assertive and eccentric feminist works eagerly revisits what the “noble” or “lesser,” “tradition” and “elitism” want and can say today. Joana's “kitsch” or even “hyperkitsch” favors multiple reinterpretations of “our civilization of excess”, as defined by Gilles Lipovetsky & Jean Serroy, in their recent essay (Gallimard): “It is a kitsch that fortunately poetizes the world. Kitsch has the merit of being perceived and loved because it gives lightness, allows an easy form of escape.”

Undoubtedly, Joana Vasconcelos shakes conventions and stereotypes, forcing her audience to reconsider conventional ideas and the boundaries of taste. By abolishing the separation of genders, her (super) vibrant and optimistic work charts a path that enchants. Fasten your seatbelt and get ready for that big takeoff on MON.

A brain that seems to work 24 hours a day

Meeting Joana Vasconcelos, an artist born in Paris in 1971 who now lives and works in Lisbon, is to enter an infinitely large universe. Her XXL studio, in the refurbished old port warehouses on the banks of the Tagus, has 3,400 square meters spread over four floors and a team of 56 people working laboriously around it. The environment is that of a Renaissance studio and we meet visitors there for workshops, or multiple meetings to mount exhibitions or to create permanent works. Managing to talk to an artist who has projects in four corners of the world, when she is not in Aikido classes, is a challenge. But that is amply rewarded because, with everyone she welcomes, Joana is always available and smiling. There are no problems in her life, only solutions, appear to be her philosophy. This hyperactive girl never stops and has the adorable habit of always drawing when she talks to you on video conference. Does she give these drawings the names of people she was talking to?

Extravagantly lively, Joana Vasconcelos' inaugurations are orchestrated in such a way that we see her enter the stage. Because she is in the habit of supporting emerging designers, she is always spectacularly dressed. Her impressive collection of dresses can be seen in part of her studio, where there is also a large dining room for everyone, a yoga room, a massage room... A universe of life where everyone has the opportunity to stop and breathe in the best possible way, after the many creative turns that the boss multiplies.

If Joana Vasconcelos seems to give in to a certain coquetry by exaggerating her femininity, it is in the best interest of denouncing commonplaces. As famous as she is, difficulties still arise when she presents some of her works, as was the case with “A Noiva” (“The Bride”). In this sculpture hanging from the ceiling, in the form of a classic chandelier, she replaced the crystal pendants with approximately 14 thousand intimate sanitary pads. The work was censored in certain institutions, such as the Château de Versailles, for its exhibition in 2012. The struggle did not stop there. You can be sure, she has more than enough energy to make herself heard.

Joana Vasconcelos’ exhibition at MON includes two of her “Valkyries”: “Miss Dior” and “Matarazzo”. The latter was presented in 2014, at the “Creative Invasion” of the former homonymous hospital in São Paulo. Her large mobiles, suspended by systems of tensioned cables from the ceiling or from the architecture of the places where the artist exhibits, may look like octopuses with their multiple long arms, from which large drops flow that complete, vertically, the large horizontal meanders of the works. Joana has a fondness for textile materials. Her “Valkyries” are generally composed of fabrics and clothing made in Portugal: flowered skirts, napkins with extravagantly complicated embroidery, silks for curtains or armchairs, floral garlands – which allow Joana to explore sewing, knitting, and crochet – and many ancestral methods that, at times, she revives. The “Valkyries” are usually accompanied by a system of LED lights that accentuate the magic of their tentacular, immersive compositions.

Luxury is “something that differentiates us in Europe and is an essential provider of jobs. This sector makes it possible to support networks of artisans, and the traditional ‘savoir-faire’ endures thanks to the contemporary use of these skills. It is not insignificant. Personally, luxury inspires me. For example, in my work I like to subvert Portuguese luxury: I use lace, embroidery, silk, and ornaments. I like giving life to these techniques” (Joana Vasconcelos).

From Norse Mythology to Contemporary Aesthetics

Joana Vasconcelos recalls that in Norse mythology the Valkyries are deities who served Odin, master of the gods. Covered in armor, women were equal to men, they flew, led battles, distributed death among warriors, and took the souls of heroes to Valhalla, the great palace of Odin. Since Wagner, modern art has represented them as sumptuous virgins mounted on winged horses, adorned with helmets, and armed with spears. The name “Valkyrie” comes from the Old Norse Valkyrja, literally “chooser of the dead.” They choose who lives or dies on the battlefield.

Since 2003, Joana has created approximately 30 “Valkyries” around the world. They are generally composed of several large elements, with the mythological Valkyries numbering 13, to which smaller ones are added to complete the set.

Her “Valkyries” are pretexts for shedding light on female personalities,

as was the case, in 2019, with “Simone” (9.65 x 12.20 x 30.51 m), at the Bon Marché, in Paris, in honor of great French female figures such as Simone Veil and Simone de Beauvoir, but also Simone Hérault, an actress known for being the voice of the SNCF (national train line in France) for 40 years. For Joana, these women were great Valkyries of modern times.

Bringing Catherine Dior into the spotlight

With Maria Grazia Chiuri, the Italian designer, and current artistic director of the house of Dior, Joana wanted to create a dialogue around Catherine Dior, sister of Monsieur Dior, a strong and independent female figure, who served in the French Resistance. The “Miss Dior Valkyrie” (6.80 x 21 x 24 m) uses floral fabrics inspired by the brand’s archives for the Autumn/Winter 2023-2024 collection and was certainly one of the most “Instagrammable” works of the year.

For the Miss Dior Valkyrie, Joana chose to use mottled floral fabrics inspired by around 20 fabrics from the House of Dior's archives, but also embroidered with pearls and strass, lace, and crochet elements. Like all Valkyries, Miss Dior is entirely handmade by the teams at the Lisbon workshop. It is an ode to the flowers of “Miss Dior” and the splendor of nature dear to the legendary couturier, thus creating a link between places, times, and culture. Vasconcelos' work unfolds in a space bathed in blue light, evocating the abyss of an ocean. For the Dior show, this new “Valkyrie” took up the entire space of the tent where it was installed. She made it seem nearly impossible to escape her. “Islands” with organic shapes, also made of fabric, invited the public to sit. MON presents an adapted version, in the Eye, thus offering a dialogue between Joana Vasconcelos, Catherine Dior, and the architecture of the great Oscar Niemeyer Museum.

In the tradition of the architectural “Folies” of the 18th century

The MON exhibition also unites a series of models from the numerous site-specific projects carried out by Joana Vasconcelos around the world, such as, for example, the “Bolo de Noiva” (“Wedding Cake”). It is an incredible architectural “madness” on three levels, 12 meters high and 13 meters in diameter, which has been installed since June in the park of Waddesdon Manor, managed by the Rothschild Foundation, northwest of London. Joana created her version of “a temple of love and joy”, with the touch of humor that characterizes her: the lovers can meet at the top, thus becoming similar to the figurines of the bride and groom on top of the wedding cakes. The “Wedding Cake” is entirely covered, inside and out, with handmade tiles and ceramic pieces from the century-old Viúva Lamego factory. The work is based on a metal structure, into which waterfalls and a complex lighting system were incorporated. Although it immediately makes us think of the architectural “Folies” of the 18th century, the set is inspired by the exuberance of the Baroque and the decorative traditions of the city of Lisbon.

Another recent example of Joana Vasconcelos as an artist who never stops is the “Árvore da Vida” (“Tree of Life”), a work created this year especially for Sainte-Chapelle du Château de Vincennes. This 13-meter-high installation features around 140,000 black, red, and gold leaves that were, of course, embroidered and handwoven in the artist's studio. Another great woman is behind this work Joana Vasconcelos, who was inspired by the history of the place, and by Queen Catherine de' Medici, widow of Henry II who continued the development of the Sainte-Chapelle and the castle park, planting there three thousand elms.

The work also echoes the female mythological figure of Daphne, who turns into a tree to escape Apollo. Taking on the challenge of dialoguing with the 1622 sculpture by the great Italian sculptor Bernini, in the Villa Borghese, Joana Vasconcelos imagined the moment in which the mythological figure of Daphne decides to transform into a laurel tree. This work is also a moment of self-determination and self-improvement. During the Covid-19 pandemic confinement, the artist asked the artisans who worked with her to create 140,000 leaves, all hand-embroidered, with different patterns inspired by Portuguese embroidery in Viana do Castelo. Therefore, 354 branches form a tree that expresses the artist’s excess. Daphne will have escaped her and Joana's fate, from any criterion that could confine her.

Most cultures in the world include references to the alcohol so often present in people gatherings and celebratory ceremonies. The French drink champagne, the Japanese toast with sake, the Brazilians get extra joy from cachaça. From her travels around the world, and in a nod to Marcel Duchamp’s first readymade – ‘Porte-Bouteilles’, 1914 – Joana Vasconcelos envisioned the ‘Candlestick’ series. 

‘Nectar’ (2006) uses the traditional green wine bottles from Portugal and has joined the collection associated with the Bacalhoa brand; ‘Message in a Bottle’ (2006) was created with blue glass containers for sake; ‘Blue Champagne’ was developed for the visual artist solo show at Versailles Palace in 2012 using Pommery POP and ‘Lafite’ (2015) employs the bottles from the famous brand developed at Château Lafite Rothchild. 

All of them monumental outdoor sculptures, formed by two twin vertical iron structures, where thousands of champagne bottles are juxtaposed to form candleholders, with their own interior light. Subverting the domestic scale and bringing the indoors out with flamboyant verticality, the Portuguese artist highlights the identity values associated to ‘les arts de la table’ (the arts of the table) around the globe.

Message in a Bottle, 2006
Sake bottles, metallized and thermo-lacquered iron, ultra-bright LED, power supply unit
(2x) 650 x Ø 350 cm

Néctar, 2006
Wine bottles, metallized and thermo-lacquered iron, ultra-bright LED, power supply unit, concrete
(2x) 720 x Ø 350 cm
Coleção Berardo

Blue Champagne, 2012
Pommery POP Champagne bottles, metallized and thermo-lacquered iron, ultra-bright LED, power supply unit
(2x) 940 x Ø 496 cm
Work produced with the support of Vranken Pommery
Private collection

Lafite, 2015
Château Lafite Rothschild wine bottles, metallized and thermo-lacquered wrought iron, ultra-bright LED, power supply unit
(2x) 700 x Ø 280 cm
Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (Rothschild Family Trust)

18'' light alloy golden wheel rims, vrystal whisky glasses, metallized and thermo-lacquered iron, stainless steel, tempered and laminated glass
720 x 604 x 209 cm
Artwork made with 1449 glasses and 110 wheel rims.
Private Collection

The theme of desire can be found at the epicentre of this creation by Joana Vasconcelos, which reproduces an engagement ring on a monumental scale. A representation of the love and commitment between two people that consumer society would eventually transform into a symbol of status and power, the artist's ‘Solitaire’ is made up of 110 golden car rims creating a circumference crowned by an inverted pyramid composed of 1,450 crystal whisky glasses, simulating a giant diamond. Combining two of the most stereotypical symbols of luxury - cars and diamonds - to recreate one of the most coveted objects in the world, Joana Vasconcelos also questions male and female roles in today's society. The piece, created in 2018 for the exterior of the Guggenheim Bilbao as part of the I'm Your Mirror exhibition, has also travelled to the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Serralves Museum Park and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

In 2007 Joana Vasconcelos initiated a series of artworks that question women’s domestic condition, departing from an everyday cooking object and establishing an unlikely association with the world of glamour. Overlapping stainless steel pans and lids, the artist creates another symbol, associated both with the elegance depicted on the big screen (through titles such as Marilyn, Dorothy, Priscilla or Carmen Miranda) and the dreamlike aspirations of children's imagination (carried over through the references to Cinderella and Betty Boop). The multiplication of a small object – the Silampos number 18, used in Portugal to prepare plain rice for a family of four on a daily basis – ends up creating a monumental scale, in what could be seen as a tribute to the stoic, and not often recognized, role played by women all over the world. Through the reference to famous stories of transformation, the visual artist also creates a new layer of meaning, aiming to deconstruct stereotypes. 

Bronze, mirrors
356 x 610 x 550 cm
Work made with 255 frames e 510 mirrors
Edition of 7 + 2 AP
Sierra Portugal, SA

While referring to the role of artists in society, Joana Vasconcelos ends up creating a game of concealment. Using 255 baroque bronze mouldings (designed and decorated by the artist) and 510 mirrors superimposed as if they were scales, she creates a surprising Venetian mask. Through a sculptural piece that adapts to both indoor and outdoor spaces, a dialogue is established with the surroundings. In turn, visitors who want to see their image reflected back are invited to discover that “there is only reflection when there is parallelism”, as the visual artist explains. Taken from the song of the same name, written by Lou Reed and performed by the Velvet Underground and singer Nico, the title also served as the theme for the solo show at the Guggenheim Bilbao.

29/06/2018 > 11/11/2018
Museu Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbau
Espanha, Spain

Between June and November 2018, the Guggenheim Bilbao presented the first solo exhibition by a Portuguese artist at the museum and the first anthological dedicated to Joana Vasconcelos in Spain. With a total number of 649,082 visitors, it continues to be the third most viewed in the museum's history and has been voted fourth best that year at the top 10 by The Art Newspaper. Curated by Petra Joos and Enrique Juncosa, the exhibition brought together around 30 works and a site-specific installation for the museum's central atrium, the Egeria valkyrie (in honour of the first female traveller from that region) specially designed to dialogue with the architecture of Frank Ghery. The title for the exhibition came from the song I’m Your Mirror (composed by Lou Reed, performed by Velvet Underground and singer Nico), as the visual artist reflected upon the role of representing society attributed to the creators of each historical time.

Viúva Lamego hand-painted tiles
215 x Ø 900 cm
Robert & Nicky Wilson Collection, Edinburgh

Jupiter Artland is famed for its exquisite sculpture collection and, therefore, founders Nicky and Robert Wilson surprised Joana Vasconcelos with the non-conventional request to create a swimming pool. Honoring her country’s long-lasting relationship with the seas and oceans, she then approached Viúva Lamego to create 13,000 hand-painted and glazed tiles manufactured the traditional way, as they’ve been doing since 1849, but with the added non-slip and non-frost challenge required for Edinburgh’s wintery temperatures. The visual artist’s vibrant and colourful drawing motifs span collective narratives, from sacred geometries to the zodiac and beyond. Within an enclosed garden, Gateway provides a both intimate yet expansive experience, interweaving the dichotomies of publicness and privacy, exploring the idea of swimming pools as playful sites where to foster community. Located in a mythical landscape, deliberately positioned along Ley lines, it provides a contemporary entry point into ancient discourse and collective spirituality; a site to contemplate and immerse. 

Aluminium, steel, fabrics, handmade cotton crochet, ornaments, LED, power supply unit
1350 x 900 x 900 cm

Faced with the challenge to interact with Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture at the Villa Borghese, Joana Vasconcelos imagined the tree that the mythological figure of Daphne turns into when, fleeing Apollo's amorous advances, she decides to transform into a laurel. A gesture of self-determination and overcoming that found a parallel when - in the confinement to which her studio was forced due to the Covid-19 pandemic - the artist asked the craftsmen who work with her to create leaves from home. 140,000 in total, all hand-embroidered with different motifs, such as the Viana do Castelo canutilho stitch, ended up forming 354 branches on a 13 metres high tree. A site-specific creation for the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes in Paris carried out in collaboration with the Centre des Monuments Nationaux to celebrate the Cultural Season between Portugal and France 2022, curated by Jean-François Chougnet; the work reinforces the verticality of the link between earth and sky, the mundane and the spiritual.

Viúva Lamego ceramic tiles and ceramics, glass, metallized and thermo-lacquered wrought iron, galvanized and painted iron sheet, LED, optical fibre, power supply unit, hydraulic system, iron
1100 x ø 1300 cm 
Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (Rothschild Family Trust)

A three-storey, 12-metre-high sculpture measuring 365-squaremetres in total area, Joana Vasconcelos’ monumental ‘Wedding Cake’ for the Rothschild Foundation is completed each time a pair of visitors stands atop the artwork like the traditional bride and groom figures on the traditional confectionery versions. The structure, developed by Metal Azóia, completed with waterfalls and an intricate lighting system, is covered, inside and out, with artisanal tiles and ceramic pieces from the traditional Portuguese manufactory Viúva Lamego. Inspired by the exuberant Baroque and decorative traditions from the city of Lisbon, where the artist lives and works, visitors may pre-book a tour of the installation in the Waddesdon sculpture park, England, where the Dairy is included. In the tradition of the Rothschild family’s festive pavilions, and in a dialogue with their exquisite ceramics collection, this installation offers visitors from around world an immersive experience that will remain in the memories and photographs of families to come. A cross between pâtisserie and architecture, it is above all “a temple to love”.

This work, conceived in 2014 for the “Creative Invasion” of the former hospital of the same name in São Paulo, presents forms that resemble octopuses with their multiple arms, from which elements flow that complete the central body of the work. Joana has a predilection for textile materials and her “Valkyries” are composed of fabrics and clothes made in Portugal: flowered skirts, complex embroidery, silk curtains or armchairs, floral garlands that allow Joana to explore sewing, knitting, and crochet, and other ancestral methods that she revives. 

“Luxury is something that differentiates us in Europe and is an essential provider of jobs. This sector makes it possible to support networks of artisans, and the traditional ‘savoir-faire’ persists thanks to the contemporary use of these skills. Luxury inspires me. In my work, I like to subvert Portuguese luxury: I use lace, embroidery, silk, and trimmings. I like giving life to these techniques” (Joana Vasconcelos).

As we enter the tunnel that Oscar Niemeyer created, we establish our feet in a magical territory that takes us towards a landscape that is that of the future. Powerfully dreamlike, one of the most photographed areas in all of MON is also the one where the architecture manifests itself in all its lightness, white and curvilinear. It was in this place, simultaneously passing through and meeting, that Joana Vasconcelos visualized her “Dream Curtain” (“Cortina do Sonho”). A site-specific intervention temporarily installed as a complement to the “Extravagances” (“Extravagâncias”) exhibition, it presents itself as a veil of textile components, color, and light. From the ceiling descend 41 drop-shaped modules, of varying heights, the largest of which are two and a half meters high and 50 centimeters wide, joined by a suspended structure 45 meters long. 

The work was developed in collaboration with Dior, Paris, using fabrics with floral motifs provided by the French fashion house, and also uses LED lighting, various trimming elements, various accessories, and handmade wool crochet. A marvel of detail created by the artisans at Atelier Joana Vasconcelos, updating the connection between arts and crafts for the 21st century, the “Dream Curtain” defines the route to the Miss Dior Valkyrie, which served as her motto and which can be found in the space of the Eye. Focusing on the connection between fashion and manual know-how, the artist challenges different creative universes, while establishing a unique and unrepeatable dialogue between sculpture and architecture, based on Oscar Niemeyer's creation.


“Cortina do Sonho”, 2024 (Dream Curtain)

Handmade cotton crochet, fabrics, props, LED, polyester, polystyrene, microcontroller, power supply and plywood.

Work created in collaboration with Dior, Paris.

Recognized for her monumental sculptures and immersive installations, Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos invites visitors to dive into a universe never created at the Oscar Niemeyer Museum. “Extravagances” brings together works with stratospheric dimensions, such as the “Miss Dior Valkyrie” and the “Matarazzo Valkyrie”, as well as an exhibition of models that allow exploring the connection between art and space and architecture. This grand exhibition occupies not only the Eye, the floors of the tower, and the Araucária spaces, but also transforms, for the first time, the Museum's ramp into an extraordinary exhibition space. Marc Pottier's curation reveals installations and sculptures that go beyond and invade the Museum's space, giving a glimpse of Joana Vasconcelos' extensive professional trajectory, which, with humor and irony, questions the status of women, consumer society, and collective identity.

An unforgettable immersion in the magical world of the artist Joana Vasconcelos is the proposal of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum with this exhibition, one of the most magnificent ever held by the institution.

Monumental installations and sculptures extrapolate the space and invade the MON. The visitors are invited to immerse themselves in a universe never created at the Museum.

The eye, ramp and floors of the tower were occupied by the color and creativity of this artist who lives and works in Lisbon, but whose art has transcended the limits of Portugal and Europe and fascinates the public from several continents.

Her “Valquíria Miss Dior”, an internationally famous work, is the attraction of the Museum's most noble exhibition space. With stratospheric dimensions, the incredible work mixes handmade wool crochet, fabrics, and polyester, suspended on steel cables, in a unique piece. 

Using a huge variety of techniques, in her unique language, Joana Vasconcelos updates the concept of art. With irony and humor, she brings everyday symbols to public space and irreverently questions topics such as the feminine, consumerism, and collective identity. 

On view exhibition

Choreographies of the Impossible

Before and now, far and here within

Tracks and Traces

Africa

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