For the Armory Show 2022, Millan proposes a dialogue between artists who have contributed to defining a legacy for contemporary Brazilian art through their unique practices - such as Tunga and Anna Maria Maiolino - and artists such as Jaider Esbell, Vanderlei Lopes and Vivian Caccuri, who present a multiplicity of visions and challenge Brazilian history told from only one standpoint.
Among the highlights of the selection is a set of 23 pieces by Jaider Esbell dated from 2017 to 2021. With this, Millan presents to the Armory audience a portion of the work produced by the indigenous Macuxi artist, whose legacy has been consolidated within Brazil and abroad with his participation in exhibitions such as The milk of dreams, 59th Venice Biennale, Italy, (2022); Mondo Reale, Milan Triennial, Italy (2022); Living Worlds and Le Serpent Cosmique, organized by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Lille, France (2022); and the 34th São Paulo International Biennial (2021). Esbell’s work contributes to rethinking the representation of Brazilian cultures throughout our history and the many aesthetic thoughts and worldviews that constitute the country.
Brazilian cultural diversity is further highlighted in the presentation of works by Rubem Valentim, a self-taught artist whose birth centenary is celebrated in 2022. Valentim was a pioneer in associating the geometry of modern art with the symbols and emblems of the African diaspora religions – typically geometric. His production is also an important highlight of art produced outside the southeastern region of Brazil - in Bahia - and an interesting counterpoint to the formalism paradigms that guided Modern Art in Europe and in the United States.
Tunga, who developed a unique artistic practice that contributed to raising the profile of Brazilian art on the international art scene, is also represented, with works such as the series Morfológicas and From La Voie Humide. In the first one, the erotic character of Tunga’s alchemy is seen in the large sculptures of fingers, ears, and eyelids that fold in on themselves, forming hybrids of body parts. Sensuality also appears in the installation of the series From La Voie Humide (2014), in the organic forms and rosy colors of the ceramics, which evoke the skin - the light colors are a distinguishing characteristic of this series compared to the rest of the artist’s production.
By conjugating references from Art History, Christianity, eroticism, and psychoanalysis, Tunga’s work not only transmutes materials - like a true alchemist does - but seems to freeze objects precisely at the moment when this transformation occurs - establishing in his installations and sculptures a delicate and bewildering balance.
Anna Maria Maiolino, from the same generation as Tunga, is the author of a work that spreads across several languages, such as painting, engraving, sculpture, and embroidery, besides being a pioneer in performance and video art. With a critical and politically engaged work, Maiolino has become one of the main artists of her generation. This year the artist held a retrospective show at Instituto Tomie Ohtake, in São Paulo.
Radicality is also a characteristic of the works by Ana Amorim, an artist who has registered her daily routes using drawing and embroidery for decades, as part of long-term performance. With a performance practice that stands out in the history of Brazilian art, Amorim’s work relates to the first generation of conceptual and minimalist artists, such as On Kawara, Tehching Hsieh, and Vito Acconci. However, her work, as a Brazilian woman artist, creates frictions that raise the issues of gender, class, and access to urban space that has been overlooked by those historical artistic movements. Thus, Ana Amorim’s work - which has only recently gained greater circulation and recognition in the Brazilian art system, given the radical nature of her performances - points out gaps in art history narratives and establishes unsuspected dialogues between national art and the international Neovanguards.
In addition to these, prominent artists at different points in their careers such as Vivian Caccuri and Vanderlei Lopes are also featured. These artists combine debates on form and media with discussions on the formation of Brazil and colonialism: Caccuri, in her recent pieces, reflects on the processes of colonization, scientific production, and value judgments between cultures, referring to mosquitoes – insects that have proliferated since the colonialist occupations in the Americas – as the subject of her work. The artist presents the outcome of this research in her new solo show Mosquito Revenge, at Kunsthal 44Møen, Denmark.
On the other hand, Vanderlei Lopes raises debates regarding mimesis and representation, fiction, and temporality in works of art, while also discussing the role of monuments and museums in the maintenance of the discourses of power.