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

MON is alongside major museums in Brazil and around the world on the Google Arts & Culture platform. Visit our exhibitions in virtual format. Find out more about this exhibition on the Google Arts & Culture platform.

It's not an exaggeration to call him a master. With this latest achievement by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, “German Lorca, Master of Photography”, MON confirms its vocation of, among other artistic aspects, collecting and exhibiting photos, bringing them to our immense and interested viewing public.

Award-winning Brazilian photographer German Lorca dedicated most of his almost 100 years (1922-2021) to recording with his cameras scenes, scenes, and characters that could only have been discovered by him. 

He printed his mark on everything he did, revealing innovative images, which made his work unmistakable. He broke the limits of photography by masterfully using shadow and light techniques, always seeking new and different framings.

This exhibition is a testimony to decades immortalized thanks to his sensitive vision. His unique perception of revealing everyday scenes unusually has elevated him to the category of photographer-artist. 

His work has been included in the most important collections in the world, such as the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), among many others. Here at MON, seven of his photographs are part of the Museum’s permanent collection, enriching our collection.

The exhibition “German Lorca, Mestre da Fotografia” (“German Lorca, Master of Photography”) takes us to travel in time and space. They are genius images that have poetry, that touch and inspire, and that allow a silent dialogue with each visitor. Reflecting and admiring is the aim.

Juliana Vellozo Almeida Vosnika
Diretora-presidente do Museu Oscar Niemeyer 

New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is considered one of the most important museums in the world. It features works from the 1940s and 1950s by German Lorca and two from the iconic Aeroporto (Airport) series from the 1960s. Being part of MoMA's collection of notable photographers marks German Lorca's recognition in the context of world art.

In March 2021, the museum held a large exhibition focusing on Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante (Bandeirante Photo Cine Club), an essential training center for Brazilian photographers, attended by German Lorca in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Lorca's works were a major highlight of the exhibition.

Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante (Bandeirante Photo Cine Club), created in São Paulo in 1939, was extremely significant for disseminating information about the technique and training of amateur and professional photographers. Between 1949 and 1952, German Lorca attended the club. There, he broke the rules of traditional photography, gaining prominence among the participants. Both in the photographic excursions promoted by the group and in the exhibitions he participated in, Lorca's irreverent and innovative images stood out. They were a counterpoint to the existing pictorial construction.

German Lorca was a pioneer in introducing a new visuality to Brazilian photography. He explored and tried unusual plans and different angles.

In addition to the figurative images, which sought the personality of the person portrayed—or who created them—he often gave an expressionist character to the photography. At other times, he looked for abstraction in his images. He flirted with informal Concretism, which was in vogue in the 1950s and 1960s. Cuts and framing, both when capturing the photo and when developing it, showed that, in his laboratory, he used innovative and difficult-to-manage artisanal techniques.

Lorca was enchanted by the computer and, together with an assistant, tested the infinite possibilities of recreating the images, changing the cut, texture, and highlighting, especially, the colors. There was one image in particular that struck him. In a swimming pool, he found an inflatable mattress on a sunny morning. His keen eyes noticed that the total lack of wind and movement created a perfect moment: it seemed as if the mattress was floating in the air and the water did not exist. He took the image but felt that the colors didn't match the magic of the moment. Later, with the studio assistant, he changed the image until arriving at the famous final version: “Levitação na Piscina” (“Levitation in the Pool”). This is how he decided to rescue his old colored images and produce new ones.

German Lorca loved New York. He was there several times, and in three of them (1967, 1978, and 1984), he portrayed in black and white, faithfully, with his keen eye, the figures that represented the city, sometimes with its main symbols as a background. He managed to create a very significant panel of different types of New Yorkers: children, young people, many elderly people, and even tourists—a great social mosaic of characters from one of the main cities in the United States.

The year was 2014. German Lorca, aged 92, had to remain secluded in his home due to a small health issue. Creative and restless as he always was, he found a way, sitting next to the living room window, to record the sunlight and the shapes and shadows it caused as it entered through the cracks and the curtains. The result is a beautiful shoot done with his Digital Leica —a true study on light and environment that he poetically named A Geometria das Sombras (Geometry of Shadows).

German Lorca impresses us and overlaps past and present. Invited in 2018, after completing 70 years of his career, to document again some locations of his iconic photos of the city of São Paulo, he surprises us with the same mastery. At 96 years old, he faces the challenge, climbs the slope, and looks for the same angles. In the image he made on the Fourth Centenary of São Paulo's anniversary, at the inauguration of Ibirapuera Park, with his grandmother and son walking towards the OCA building like abductees in a spaceship, he finds the same magic again. He photographs, more than 60 years later, his niece and his young son, capturing the same emotion.

In the 1950s, with the arrival of car manufacturers in Brazil, a large advertising market began to emerge. The large consumer goods department stores were also investing. Lorca combined his experimental freedom with curiosity about techniques for researching new things and generating impactful images for ads. By freezing moving scenes using new electronic flashes, Lorca generated innovative and distinctive advertising images. Just like in authorial images, in commercial photography, the artist always makes the perception of magic present. That's why he was so sought after by agencies—something new to Brazil—and he grew with them.

The exhibition “German Lorca, Mestre da Fotografia” (“German Lorca, Master of Photography”) highlights the photographer's artistic career, which is recognized nationally and internationally. Exhibiting since his first work as an amateur photographer in 1947, the exhibition features around 160 photographs, as well as cameras and other personal items.

Curated by Adriana Rede and José Henrique Lorca, the photographer's son, the exhibition is organized into eight sections that highlight the photographer's emotional outlook on the world. Throughout his career, Lorca experimented with different types of photography, from analog to digital, always maintaining his unique language in the scenes he captured.

GERMAN LORCA, MASTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY 
German Lorca was one of the few photographers to fully experience photography in its most diverse modalities: from amateur to professional, from analog to digital, and from cameras to smartphones. With a peculiar vision of the most diverse themes, he uniquely established his language.

At the end of the 1940s, Lorca accompanied a new movement—the dawn of a modern aesthetic in Brazilian photography. He joined Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante (Bandeirante Photo Cine Club), in São Paulo, now the subject of international study for his avant-garde. With a unique look, capable of combining photography and art—unlike conventional pictorial photography—in his long artistic career of more than 70 years, German Lorca has always been free when taking photographs. Unafraid of criticism, he remained true to himself.

When modern photography gained momentum and revolutionized the Brazilian scene, Lorca stood out with his cuts and framing, both in the photo capture and in the development process. He went through a so-called “concrete” phase during the concrete movement in the 1950s. He explored unusual planes and different angles, but Lorca's “concretism” was not exactly intentional; it was free and generated beautiful works. 

In advertising photography, he was a pioneer. Incessantly looking for new things, with audacious chromatic searches, bold angles, and irreverent and provocative themes, he conquered the advertising market, which was starting in Brazil. 

With a restless look, he took advantage of his rare moments of intermission to make official records, always getting the best angle of the scene that his gaze chose. With a recognized trajectory, both nationally and internationally, he never stopped. He continued with his watchful eye, forming generations of photographers who were inspired not only by his technique, but also by his emotional way of looking at the world. They called him Master. Always timeless, he continued taking photos until the last days of his extraordinary life. We see that when observing his work, our gaze rests between the real and the imaginary. Each moment is an accomplice-moment.

Adriana Rede e José Henrique F. Lorca
Curators

German Lorca, Mestre da Fotografia é a mais nova realização do Museu Oscar Niemeyer (MON), em cartaz na Sala 1. A exposição tem curadoria de Adriana Rede e José Henrique Lorca, filho do fotógrafo.

Mineral pigment on cellulose base
61 x 46,5 cm

Mineral pigment on cellulose base
50 x 41,6 cm

Mineral pigment on cellulose base
36 x 34,7 cm

Mineral pigment on cellulose base
35 x 31,6 cm

Mineral pigment on cellulose base
34,4 x 35 cm

Mineral pigment on cellulose base
43,9 x 61 cm

MON holds an unprecedented exhibition by German Lorca

The exhibition “German Lorca, Mestre da Fotografia” (“German Lorca, Master of Photography”) is the Oscar Niemeyer Museum’s (MON) newest exhibition. Curated by Adriana Rede and José Henrique Lorca, the photographer's son, the exhibition will be displayed on July 5th in Room 1.

“German Lorca is simply one of the biggest names in Brazilian photography,” says the Secretary of State for Culture of Paraná, Luciana Casagrande Pereira. "Our expectation for this Lorca exhibition at MON is that it will be a landmark for the Museum due to the greatness of his career, which deserves to be seen, reviewed, and known by the public here in Paraná."

According to Juliana Vosnika, director-president of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, the exhibition makes us travel through time and space. “These are brilliant images that have poetry, that touch and inspire, and that allow a silent dialogue with each visitor”.

She comments that “with this exhibition, MON confirms its vocation of, among other artistic aspects, collecting and exhibiting photographs, taking them to the immense and interested spectator public”.

Brazilian German Lorca (1922-2021) was one of the few to fully experience photography in its most diverse forms: from amateur to professional, analog to digital, from cameras to smartphones. With a peculiar vision of the most varied themes, he uniquely established his language.

His work is part of the most important collections in the world, such as that of the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), among many others. Seven of his photographs are part of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum's permanent collection.

Divided into sections, the exhibition comprises a retrospective of his work, including his first as an amateur photographer in 1947. There are around 160 photographs, as well as cameras and other personal items. The exhibition covers Lorca's trajectory as an artist and professional in photography for more than 70 years with exceptional dedication, winning several awards and recognition in Brazil and abroad.

“His work makes up a large section of the history of Brazilian photography, following a new movement, a new form of photographic expression, and the dawn of a modern aesthetic in our Brazilian photography,” inform the curators.

At the end of the 1940s, Lorca joined the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante (Bandeirante Photo Cine Club) in São Paulo, today the object of international study for its avant-garde. “When modern photography gains momentum and comes to revolutionize the Brazilian scene, it stands out with its cuts and framing, both in capturing the photo and in the act of developing it,” explain Adriana and José Henrique.

Lorca went through a so-called "concrete" phase, in which he explored unusual plans and different angles. He was a pioneer in advertising photography. Incessantly looking for new things, with audacious chromatic searches, bold angles, and irreverent and provocative themes, he conquered the advertising market, which was just starting in Brazil.

With a recognized trajectory, both nationally and globally, it has never stopped. He continued with his watchful eye, forming generations of photographers who were inspired not only by his technique but also by his emotional way of looking at the world. “Always timeless, he continued taking photographs until the last days of his extraordinary life,” explains the curator. 

The eight sections that compose the exhibition are: “Lorca na coleção do MoMA” (“Lorca in MoMA’s collection”), “Primeiros tempos: Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante” (“Early times: Bandeirante Photo Cine Club”), “Um olhar livre” (“A free look”), “E fez-se a cor” (“Let there be color”), “New York e seus personagens” (“New York and its characters”), “A geometria das sombras” (“The geometry of shadows”), “Sobreposição do tempo” (“Time overlapping”), and “O Mago dos Anúncios” (“The Wizard of Advertising”).

German Lorca, Mestre da Fotografia é a mais nova realização do Museu Oscar Niemeyer (MON), em cartaz na Sala 1. A exposição tem curadoria de Adriana Rede e José Henrique Lorca, filho do fotógrafo.
Dividida em núcleos, apresenta uma retrospectiva de sua obra, incluindo desde seus primeiros trabalhos como fotógrafo amador, em 1947. São cerca de 160 fotografias, além de câmeras e outros itens pessoais. 
A mostra percorre a trajetória de Lorca como artista e profissional na fotografia, por mais de 70 anos, com excepcional dedicação, conquistando diversas premiações e reconhecimento, no Brasil e no exterior. 

German Lorca, mestre da fotografia

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.

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

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By holding this unprecedented exhibition by Brazilian artist Efrain Almeida, the Oscar Niemeyer Museum brings a garden into the exhibition room. Here, there will certainly be a silent exchange between artist and visitor.

With his birds, houses, nests, trees, and various other animals, Efrain connects us to nature, which can serve as an antidote to oblivion and contemporary ephemera. Sculptures, installations, paintings, and embroidery evoke simple scenes that bring us into contact with our essence.

Each work gains its meaning from the viewer's singular gaze, confirming the most genuine vocation of artistic creation: to provoke reflection. 

His intimate, symbolic work is always sensitive. Attentive, he turns banal images into disturbing art. Unusually, he demonstrates in his work what often escapes our hurried glances. 

MON’s purpose is to raise people’s awareness of art. By offering multiple experiences, such as the presentation of this artist's interesting work, it provides the viewer with a more plural interpretation of themselves and the world. 

In a happy coincidence, the “O Jardim” (“The Garden”) exhibition takes place simultaneously with the installation of the “MON sem Paredes” (“MON without Walls”) project, in which the Museum breaks its physical limits. With an interactive sculpture park in the outdoor area, MON embraces the public and invites them to enter.

The largest art museum in Latin America, with 35 thousand square meters of built area, the MON building is the result of a bold proposal designed by Master Niemeyer. 

Transformed into a museum, what would otherwise be just a building, it is a living space inhabited by art. And, so that its content never falls short of the beauty of the building, which is immense, it is always necessary to delight the public. That is the role of exhibitions like this. 

Director-president of Oscar Niemeyer Museum

I had a lot of conflicts with my father over issues of belief. Not religious beliefs, but beliefs about things in life. I didn't talk to him for many years, and my work reconnected me with my father. At the time he returned to live in the backlands (Sítio Olho d’Água, in Boa Viagem – CE), I started traveling there frequently and started working on projects that I was willing and interested in. Living in his workshop environment was decisive for the work I do, especially in sculpture. I remember the smell of wood, recognizing wood by its smell, and the specific tools for each type of work.

Then he started helping me with the possible parts of the job. I drew and made the silhouette, and he cut it on a band saw. Then I made the sculpture itself. This manufacturing brings the knowledge of the hand – even the way of holding the piece – and the heat that the hand transfers to the materials you work with. This hand can bring back a kind of ancestral memory. All of this, for me, has a relationship of ancestry and the transmission of knowledge through this type of slow and silent ritual that is manual work. Much of the communication that I begin to establish with my father is a silent kind of exchange.

I also remember a moment when, because of my work, people started to order ex-votos for my father. And then I asked him “how did you manage to make the ex-votos”? He replied: “I learned how to make ex-votos by watching you make your sculptures.” It's very interesting how this story creates a kind of circularity – the ex-voto that my father makes after seeing me working.

Efrain Almeida in an interview with Bitu Cassundé, April 2023.

I work on a small scale – the sculptures are hand-sized. It is as if these works were confessional, a whisper. The work would be much more about something silent than actually a scream, in the sense of being spectacular. It's a small event that will reveal great things to you.

There is a simplified idea of saying that it is a work about the backlands. It's not a work that talks about the backlands: it's a work that talks about my experience in the backlands, my childhood experience, and my experiences as an artist in the world. So, it's much more about this place that I belong to – and about its complexities – than in the sense of representation.

For example, the presence of the hummingbird, a bird that I use frequently, has to do with the experience of being in my parents' garden and having the presence of these birds. It also has to do with knowing that hummingbirds have a spiritual relationship with the representation of the rainbow, water, and the spirit of the forest. It's not about the image, the bird, or nature, but about all the surrounding senses.

So, I always think about these possible connections with the place, with nature, with the idea of belonging, the body as a shelter, or the place that receives this information, and that puts me in touch with these moments, which, for me, are very dear and important, in the sense of realizing that it is something bigger, that it is a vibration, that it is a connection with my history. 

I increasingly believe in the ideas that some scholars defend about ancestral knowledge through dreams, which is that it is through dreams that you connect with your ancestry. I also believe that ancestry and knowledge are given through work and crafts. Manual work and craftsmanship bring a lot to this character of the ancestry. It brings with it the knowledge that is passed from hand to hand. And this hand can bring back a kind of ancestral memory that is passed from generation to generation. That's what reconnects me with my history and with my place of belonging.

I only became aware of this type of production through miracle houses, at religious festivals, mainly in Canindé, which was where my family went for the feast of Saint Francis. So I understand the room of miracles as this place of a kind of religious trance, but also the trance that the work of art itself causes. When you're in front of a work and you don't even know exactly what's happening there, there's something about that exchange, in the presence of that object, that transforms you in some way.

It's this purest sense of art, of transformation, of taking you from one place and putting you in another, of a kind of displacement. It's a key that will take you out of one place and put you in another. Furthermore, it will put you in a different tune. So, it happened to me in the miracle room, and I think it's beautiful to think about these ideas because it's a miracle, it's religion, it's transformation, but it changed me as a person, maybe as an artist. 

The exhibition “O Jardim - Efrain Almeida” (“The Garden - Efrain Almeida”) has nature as its central theme, exploring the dimensions of the sacred, everyday life and life. The territory full of fauna and flora conveys memories and affections originating from the artist's parents' house, located in the Ceará hinterland.

Curated by Bitu Cassundé, the exhibition features sculptures, installations, paintings, and embroidery and invites the public to dialogue with the essence and contact with the metaphorical garden, where everything is renewed, reinvented, and regenerated.

The monographic exhibition O Jardim (The Garden) presents a cross-section of different periods in the production of the artist from Ceará, Efrain Almeida. Developed especially for the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON), the exhibition has nature as its center and highlights nuclei that activate the dimensions of the sacred, daily routine, and life, using the metaphor of the garden – a territory of memories and affections originating from the artist's parents' home, at Sítio Olho d'Água dos Facundos, in the city of Boa Viagem, in the backlands of Ceará. The set presented also comprises the transition that is established in the artist's sculptural projects, from wood production to bronze, in addition to including other techniques he worked on, such as painting, embroidery, and drawing.

The exhibition continues the research that began in 2020 and unfolds in the documentary “Ensaio para outros Instantes” (“Rehearsal for other Instants”) (2021) and the exhibition Encarnado (Incarnate) (2023), presented at Cariri Cultural Center in Crato (CE). Both works discuss the body, the sacred, and the territory, starting from Canindé and Juazeiro do Norte, important religious centers in that state.

In this new moment, O Jardim focuses on the biographical gesture that announces itself through intimate fauna and flora of a body-nature, in which different cycles compose the relationships established between survival and existence, between life and death, between camouflage and mimicry. Cardinals, hummingbirds, moths, and campo troupial materialize displacements, transits, flows, and the desire for survival in other landscapes, processes of a bird-body that are related to the lives of so many migratory bodies throughout Brazil. These are natural actions and processes that are organized with the sole aim of establishing a way of existing and coexisting.

A place for the articulation of an intricate biological plot – where the system of habits and repetitions coexist in a game of exchanges, agreements, and dialogues –, Efrain Almeida's garden combines the biographical dimension with the relationships between life and art that are so fertile in the artist's poetic territory. Here, the simplest places are potential spaces for the great transformations that we see in nature all the time, where everything is renewed, reinvented, reproduced, and regenerated.

Bronze and acrylic
3 + 2AP Edition, 1/3
15,5 x 18,5 x 19 cm

Oil on bronze
Edição de 3 + 2AP, 1/3
6 x 36 x 30 cm

Bronze and oil
3 + 2 AP Edition, 3/3
8 x 11 x 9 cm

Bronze and acrylic
3 + 2AP Edition, 1/3
15.5 x 18.5 x 19 cm
Artist’s collection

MON holds a new exhibition by artist Efrain Almeida

The exhibition “O Jardim – Efrain Almeida” (“The Garden—Efrain Almeida”), held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON), will open on June 20 in Room 2. There are nearly 40 works that include sculptures, installations, paintings, and embroidery, covering different periods of the artist's production. Bitu Cassundé is the curator.

Developed especially for MON, the exhibition places nature at the center and highlights the dimensions of sacred, daily routine, and life, using the metaphor of the garden—a territory of memories and affections originating from the artist’s parents’ house, in the backlands of Ceará.

“Thinking about nature through art is a magnificent way to raise people's awareness about its importance, and Efrain Almeida develops poetic work around this theme like few others”, states the Secretary of State for Culture, Luciana Casagrande Pereira. “It is an honor for Paraná to host, at MON, this solo exhibition that will certainly move us and connect us not only with nature but also with the popular culture of the Brazilian backlands,” she comments.

Juliana Vosnika, the director-president of MON, explains that when holding this unprecedented exhibition, the Oscar Niemeyer Museum brings a garden into the exhibition room. “There will certainly be a silent exchange between artist and visitor here,” she says.

She highlights that “in a happy coincidence”, the exhibition “O Jardim” takes place simultaneously with the installation of the project “MON sem Paredes” (“MON without Walls”), in which the Museum breaks its physical limit. With an interactive sculpture park in the outdoor area, MON embraces the public and invites them to enter.

“With his birds, houses, nests, trees, and various other animals, Efrain connects us to an intimate nature, which can serve as an antidote to oblivion and contemporary ephemera. Sculptures, installations, paintings, and embroidery evoke simple scenes that make us come into contact with our essence”, says Juliana.

Curator Bitu Cassundé explains that the exhibition, in addition to presenting different periods of Efrain's production, also encompasses the transition that is established in the artist's sculptural projects. “It goes from wood production to bronze, in addition to including other techniques he worked on, such as painting, embroidery, and drawing”, he comments.

The exhibition continues the research that began in 2020 and unfolds into the documentary “Ensaio para outros Instantes” (“Rehearsal for Other Instants”) (2021) and the exhibition Encarnado (Incarnate) (2023), presented at the Cariri Cultural Center, in the city of Crato, state of Ceará. “Both works discuss the body, the sacred and the territory based on Canindé and Juazeiro do Norte, important religious centers in that state”, informs Cassundé.

Recent solo exhibitions by Efrain Almeida include “Encarnado” ("Incarnate"), Cariri Sérvulo Esmeraldo Cultural Center, Crato (2023); “O Sexto Dia” (“The Sixth Day”), Museum of Sacred Art of São Paulo, São Paulo (2022); “A Memória da Mão” (“The Memory of the Hand”), MCO Contemporary Art, Porto, Portugal (2018); and “Trance”, James Harris Gallery, Seattle, United States (2017). He also participated in group exhibitions: “Nunca só essa mente, nunca só esse mundo” (“Never just this mind, never just this world”), Carpentry – Rio de Janeiro (2023); “I Could Eat You”, Fortes d’Aloia & Gabriel + Madragoa + CLEARING, House of Culture Comporta – Comporta, Portugal (2022); “Crônicas Cariocas” (“Rio de Janeiro Chronicles”), Rio Museum of Art (MAR) – Rio de Janeiro (2022); and “Engraved Into the Body”, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery – New York, United States (2021).

Efrain Almeida has works in important public collections, including Caixa Geral de Depósitos (Culturgest) – Lisbon, Portugal; Galician Center for Contemporary Art (CGAC) – Santiago de Compostela, Spain; ARCO Foundation – Madrid, Spain; Inhotim Institute – Brumadinho; Museum of Contemporary Art of Niterói (MAC) – Niterói; Aloísio Magalhães Museum of Modern Art (MAMAM) – Recife; São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MAM) – São Paulo; Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio) – Rio de Janeiro; Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) – New York; Pinacotheca of São Paulo – São Paulo; Toyota Municipal Museum of Art – Toyota Aichi, Japan; and The Polyclinic – Seattle.

The exhibition “O Jardim – Efrain Almeida” (“The Garden—Efrain Almeida”), held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON), will open on June 20 in Room 2. There are nearly 40 works that include sculptures, installations, paintings, and embroidery, covering different periods of the artist's production. Bitu Cassundé is the curator.

Developed especially for MON, the exhibition places nature at the center and highlights the dimensions of sacred, daily routine, and life, using the metaphor of the garden—a territory of memories and affections originating from the artist’s parents’ house, in the backlands of Ceará.

O Jardim - Efrain Almeida

The subjectivity of Elizabeth Jobim's work takes us on a journey that includes drawings, paintings, sewing, and three-dimensionality. Poetically, without needing words, she tells us about time and chance. With her work, she evokes deep thoughts.

In this new production by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON), “O Tempo das Pedras” (“The Time of Stones”), visitors have the opportunity to see up close several decades brought together in the work of one of the most important contemporary visual artists.

More than one hundred works use different techniques, such as Chinese ink, graphite, or acrylic on paper; oil on canvas; fabric and oil on sewn linen; charcoal on paper and pigmented concrete, wood, and granite, among others, demonstrating her versatility and mastery.

With dozens of solo exhibitions and participation in group exhibitions, inside and outside Brazil, Elizabeth Jobim has works spread across the world. Her work is in public collections at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM), the Museum of Art of Rio (MAR), the Pinacotheca of the State of São Paulo and The Bronx Museum (New York ).

Her career began in 1980 when she participated in the historic exhibition “Como Vai Você, Geração 80?” (“How are you, Generation 80?”), at Lage Park, and continues on an upward curve to the present day. Many highlights of this path can now be seen brought together in this exhibition.

In a subtle dialogue between architecture and art, her work takes on even more power here, housed in one of the most iconic buildings designed by the genius Oscar Niemeyer. By vocation, MON dedicates itself to the visual arts, architecture, and design. By holding exhibitions as significant as this one, you are fulfilling its role.

Director-President of Oscar Niemeyer Museum

The exhibition “Elizabeth Jobim – O Tempo das Pedras” (“Elizabeth Jobim – The Time of Stones”), held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, provides visitors with the opportunity to see the work of several decades by one of the most important contemporary visual artists.

In a dialogue with architecture, the use of different materials on the canvases, granite sculptures, and pigmented cement reveal the public's involvement with colors.

There are more than one hundred works that combine different techniques, such as Chinese ink, graphite or acrylic on paper; oil on canvas; fabric and oil on sewn linen; charcoal on paper and pigmented concrete, wood and granite. Curated by Taisa Palhares

The exhibition “Elizabeth Jobim – O Tempo das Pedras” (“Elizabeth Jobim – The Time of Stones”) unites for the first time a significant part of the works of Rio de Janeiro artist Elizabeth Jobim, from drawings made in the 1980s to her most recent production, to highlight the uniqueness of her poetics. In the first room, there are the series Laocoonte (Laocoon) and Rapto das Sabinas (The Rape of the Sabine Women) (1987-1989), which emerge in the context of the “Geração 80” (“80s Generation”) and stand out for their loose gestures combined with the simultaneous movement of construction and deconstruction of the figures, in which the artist captures three-dimensionality through the fragmentation of the body in space. The same perceptual exercise underlies the small drawings and paintings of stones and tubes of paint, as well as the organized assembly of parts or fragments of stones drawn with blue acrylic paint expanding across the wall.

Afterward, the mural painting Aberturas (Openings), which Jobim created at the invitation of the V Mercosul Bienal (2005), is reassembled. A milestone in her trajectory, the installation explores the relationships between perception, graphic line, and the limit of objects in a clash with the architectural space itself. Since then, her work has explicitly dialogued with architecture, often breaking the boundaries between drawing, sculpture, and painting, as in the Blocos set (Blocks) (2013). The fragmented element of perception reappears in the impossibility of retaining a single view of the paintings with volumes that dialogue with the white of the wall, simultaneously suggesting the continuity and discontinuity of the gaze.  

In the last room, the exercise of observation and balance reappears in recent stone and pigmented cement sculptures. As mineral matter, stones are the image of time and chance, since their shapes are never repeated and result from a slow solidification process. Finally, Jobim's latest sewn fabric paintings are exhibited, in which the graphic line becomes the thread that amalgamates dissonant colors and textures.

2001
Chinese ink on paper
163 x 124 x 3,5 cm

1997
Chinese ink on paper
147 x 200 x 5 cm

2006
Chinese ink on paper
80 x 160 x 4 cm

1987 - 1989
Paint stick on paper
140 x 100 cm

MON holds an exhibition of Elizabeth Jobim

The exhibition “Elizabeth Jobim – O Tempo das Pedras” (“Elizabeth Jobim – The Time of Stones”), held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, provides visitors with the opportunity to see the work of several decades by one of the most important contemporary visual artists. 

The exhibition will open on April 25th, in Room 3, curated by Taisa Palhares. There are more than one hundred works with different techniques, such as Chinese ink, graphite or acrylic on paper; oil on canvas; fabric and oil on sewn linen; charcoal on paper and pigmented concrete, wood and granite.

"Elizabeth Jobim is a reference for many generations of artists, and her exhibition at the Oscar Niemeyer Museum will certainly provide a broad overview of her productions throughout an extensive and important trajectory", says Luciana Casagrande Pereira, Secretary of State for Culture. "An unmissable opportunity to get in touch with the work of one of the most important artists on the national and international contemporary scene", she emphasizes.

According to Juliana Vosnika, MON's director-president, “the subjectivity of Elizabeth Jobim's work takes us on a journey that includes drawings, paintings, seams, and three-dimensionality”. “Poetically, without the need for words, she tells us about time and chance; her work evokes deep reflections,” she states.

With dozens of solo exhibitions and participation in group shows, inside and outside Brazil, Elizabeth Jobim has works spread across the world. Her works are in public collections of institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM), the Museum of Art of Rio (MAR), the Pinacotheca of the state of São Paulo and The Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York).

Her career began in 1980 when she participated in the historic exhibition “Como Vai Você, Geração 80?” (“How are you, Generation 80?”), at Lage, Park, and continues on an upward curve to the present day. Many highlights of this path can be seen in the exhibition “O Tempo das Pedras”.

“My interest is oriented around an axis that is the transition from space to the plane and vice versa”, explains the artist. “The work starts, in the 1980s, from the observation of sculptures, which will reverberate in the large installations with paintings in the space, in which the public is enveloped by color,” says Elizabeth Jobim. 

She informs that, in the blocks, the pigment is embodied in the space, in dialogue with the architecture. In the last room, there is a conversation between different materials both in the stitched canvases and in the sculptures in granite and pigmented cement. “‘Tempo das Pedras’ permeates this entire journey, with the right choice of curator Taisa Palhares”, she concludes.

Elizabeth Jobim was born in 1957 in Rio de Janeiro. She graduated in Visual Communication from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) in 1981 and obtained her master's degree in Fine Arts (MFA) from the New York School of Visual Arts. She taught Drawing and Painting at the Parque Lage School of Visual Arts (Rio de Janeiro), in 1994 and 2010. 

Among her group exhibitions, the following stand out: National Salon of Visual Arts, at MAM Rio (Rio de Janeiro, 1982/1983); How are you, Generation 80?, at Lage Park (Rio de Janeiro, 1984); Rio Today, at MAM Rio (Rio de Janeiro, 1989); Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM (São Paulo, 1990); Brazilian Contemporary Art, at the National Gallery of Fine Arts (Beijing, China, 2001); Paths of the Contemporary – 1952/2002, at Imperial Palace (Rio de Janeiro, 2002) and 5th Mercosul Bienal (Porto Alegre, 2005); Art in Brazil 1950-2011 – Europalia 2011, at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, (Brussels, 2011); (de)(re)construct, at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York, 2015); Women in the Collection, at MAR (Rio de Janeiro, 2018). 

Among her solo exhibitions are: Paintings and Drawings, at Raquel Arnaud Gallery (São Paulo, 1997); Openings, at Imperial Palace (Rio de Janeiro, 2006); Endless Lines, at Lehman College Art Gallery (New York, 2008); In Blue, at Pinacoteca Station, (São Paulo, 2010); Blocks, at MAM Rio (Rio de Janeiro, 2013); In This Place, Henrique Faria Fine Art (New York, 2017); Essays, Raquel Arnaud Gallery (São Paulo, 2018); Quarry, Açude Museum (Rio de Janeiro, 2018), Variations, at Imperial Palace (Rio de Janeiro, 2019); Frestas, Lurixs (Rio de Janeiro, 2019).

Elizabeth Jobim - O Tempo das Pedras

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.”

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.

On view exhibition

Before and now, far and here within

German Lorca

Tracks and Traces

The Garden

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