2007

Apr. 19th to May 24th - A Critic Look | Gallery Artists
Selective affinities

To select works for an exhibition from a pre-determined group of artists, in spite of being the common practice, naturally involves some limitations that dampens the predominant authorship when curating a show. On the other hand, the challenge to establish these links and to find connecting points in these works, choosing from a relatively restrict array of possibilities, is all too stimulating.
 
Having said this, when I am faced with the group of artists working with Galeria Eduardo Fernandes – from which the selection here represented was defined -, my option was to adopt a working line based less on the establishment a priori of a concept or central theme, than in selecting a sampling of works representative of the group. Thus, some pieces were selected and to bet on, supported on some intuition and subjectivity – dissociated from personal taste, as we know –, a series of elements, which provides some unity to the production chosen, and, at the same time, not to disrespect the intrinsic singularity of each production. In this way, works from artists active in poetic platforms, with different styles and procedures, comprising paintings, drawings, objects, photography and video were selected.

Some groups were spontaneously formed from common aspects noticed in dissimilar productions, such as the treatment of nature that brings them closer, even if full of nuances, photographic images by Alberto Lefévre, Renata Padovan, Ana Amélia Genioli and Vicente de Mello. Nature that at times provides a theme for the compositions, elegantly stripped, realized by Alberto and Renata, insinuating visual games of ambiguous scale, at times offered as a scenario to set the action/visual essay registered by Ana; or even, imposing as a subject traditionally dear to language itself and photographic tradition, as is the case of Vicente. 2 minutes, a video work by Padovan, is an invitation to an intimate experience, almost hypnotic in its temporality, in its unpretentiousness, deliciously indolent. The paintings by Cristina Sá and Newman Schutze may be perceived almost as anti-ethic to a certain extent: its more sober expressiveness, contained in the recent production by Newman, of “full gestures” however controlled, with small and thick fields of color looking for a place on another field of color – that coincides with the support in its raw state, the linen – interposes with the quasi-landscape by Cristina, full of delicate interventions, collages with a strong graphic sense and ornamental hues, in which arabesque forms seem to fluctuate on a sea of cloudy planes. Eduardo Climachauska brings some healthy intervention to the whole with his two groups of sculptures, a recent installation of intense presence, follow up on “Esquerdo”. These works with their somehow imprecise formalization, and for this very reason very instigating, are found half way between drawing and tri-dimensional vocation that end up embracing. Providing an interesting counterpoint is Renata Barros’s crystalline asepsis with her book-object, concept and matter united on transparency.

In art, as in life, many are the possibilities to detect and consolidate affinities, whether emotional, esthetic or ideological. Even if one chooses a “harder” or more specific repertoire to determine them, as was the case here, it does not discard the fact that it is a pleasant exercise.
Guy Amado, April 2007.