EN2023

EN2023, a new solo exhibition by Emmanuel Nassar (1949, Capanema, Brazil), opens at Millan on July 8. The show includes about 80 new and earlier works, providing a comprehensive overview of the artist’s career.

In EN2023, the viewer is welcomed by an installation consisting of a 3.60 m high wall that cuts through the exhibition space and reaches the gallery’s plaza. On display are Nassar’s famed metal plates, collected from scrap metal and painted by the artist in vibrant colors and the logos of large companies and brands of global capitalism. With these works, Nassar moves beyond the Brazilian art tradition of the 1980s, which addressed notions of progress and underdevelopment, updating his commentary on technocracy, the culture of mass consumption, and the relations of subordination between the global South and hegemonic centers.

Another series of works presented in the exhibition moves in the same direction. Hovering between painting and object, these works are constructed by assembling pieces of wood collected from discarded materials or negotiated with street vendors, as is the case of Ponteiro (2023) and SerraNegra (2021). Nassar once again resorts to tradition, whether of Brazilian constructivist art —by contrasting it with a certain precariousness and distinctive local solutions —, or of modernism’s prominent names, always relying on humor and irony, as the work Mondrien (2018) explicitly shows.

With an established career that includes historic exhibitions such as the 24th São Paulo Biennale (1998), known as the “Biennial of Anthropophagy”, and the Brazilian representation at the 45th Venice Biennale (1993), Nassar is one of the leading names of Brazilian pop art. His work has pioneered the debate around national images and symbols —taken up once again in many young artists’ current production—, particularly in the numerous iterations of the Brazilian flag that he has created on banners or painted on canvases and metal sheets.

Nassar’s fourth solo show at Millan, EN2023 is introduced by an essay by Antonio Gonçalves Filho and comes after recent retrospective shows at institutions such as the Museu de Arte do Rio, in 2022, and the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, in 2018. His most recent group shows include: Brasil Futuro: As formas da democracia, Museu Nacional da República, Brasília (2023); Desvairar 22, Sesc Pinheiros, São Paulo (2022); Crônicas Cariocas, Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro (2021); Língua Solta, Museu da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo (2021); Potência e Adversidade, Pavilhão Branco e Pavilhão Preto, Campo Grande, Lisbon, Portugal (2017).