Tarsila do Amaral
Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973) was born in Capivari, a small town in the countryside of the State of São Paulo. She grew up in a wealthy family of farmers and landowners who grew coffee and was encouraged to pursue higher education despite being a woman. As a teenager, she traveled to Spain with her parents and was noticed to have talent reproducing artworks she was exposed to.
In 1916, she studied sculpture in São Paulo with Zadig and Montavani and later drawing and painting with Alexandrino, all respected conservative teachers. In 1920, she moved to Paris and studied at the
Académie Julian and with Emile Renard. Returning to São Paulo in 1922, she joined
Anita Malfatti,
Menotti Del Picchia,
Mário de Andrade, and
Oswald de Andrade modernist artists who had just organized the
Semana de Arte Moderna ("Week of Modern Art"). They became the
Grupo dos Cinco and their goal was to integrate Brazilian culture into modern art. Now known simply as Tarsila, the artist was described as "the Brazilian painter who best achieved Brazilian aspirations for nationalistic expression in a modern style."
During a brief return to Paris in 1923, Tarsila was exposed to
Cubism,
Futurism, and
Expressionism while studying with
André Lhote,
Fernand Léger, and
Albert Gleizes. European artists were also finding inspiration in African
and primitive cultures and Tarsila applied the same model in her practice, integrating her
own country's indigenous forms with modern styles. While in Paris, she painted one of her most
famous works,
A Negra (1923). The painting marks the beginning of her synthesis of avant-garde aesthetics and Brazilian subject matter. She returned to Brazil at the end of 1923, traveled with the poet Oswald de Andrade and illustrated his book of poems entitled
Pau Brasil published in 1924. She also made drawings of the various places they visited gathering ideas for future paintings. During that same period, she rediscovered the colors she "had adored as a child" and the hues became more vibrant on her canvas. Her initial painting from this period was
E.C.F.B.(Estrada de Ferro Central do Brasil), (1924) which is a reflection of her interest in industrialization and its impact on society.
Tarsila married Andrade in 1926 and they traveled throughout Europe. She also had her first exhibition in Paris and the positive reviews highlighted her use of bright colors
and tropical images.
While in Paris, she was exposed to
Surrealism and upon her return to
Brazil, Tarsila began a new period where she began incorporating surrealist themes into her nationalistic art. She was in sync with the artistic movement in Brazil which strove to appropriate European styles and influences and developped an art typical of Brazil. Collaborating closely with Andrade, her first painting representative of this period
Abaporu
(1928), "Man Who Eats" was featured on the cover of Andrade's manifesto
Anthropophagite Manifesto,
which called Brazilians to create their own style and
culture. Another famous work,
Antropofagia made the following year was in the same vein. In 1929, the artist had her first solo exhibition in Brazil and in 1930, she participated in exhibitions in New
York and Paris. That same year saw the end of Tarsila's marriage and her collaboration with Andrade.
In 1931, she traveled to the Soviet Union where her works were exhibited at the Museum of Occidental Art in Moscow. There, she discovered the poverty of the Russian people and their struggle to survive and upon her return in Brazil in 1932, incorporated social themes in her work like in
Segundo Class (1931) which features impoverished Russian men, women and children. She was even emprisoned for a month, suspected of communist sympathies.
In 1938,Tarsila finally settled permanently in São Paulo where she
spent the remainder of her career painting Brazilian people and
landscapes. She also wrote a weekly arts and culture column for the
Diario de São Paulo, which continued until 1952.
Her legacy includes 230 paintings, hundreds of drawings,
illustrations, prints, murals, and five sculptures, but more important is her influence on the direction of Latin American art.The
Amaral Crater on Mercury is named after her."
Lucia Koch
link to Prospect.3 blog
link to the artist's website
link to Artsy
link to biography (Christopher Grimes Gallery)
link to statement
Remy Jungerman
Remy Jungerman (1959) was born in Suriname of mixed parents with roots in Europe and Africa. He first studied art at the Academy for Higher Arts and Cultural Studies, Paramaribo (Suriname) then after moving to Amsterdam in 1990, at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. He presently lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Going back to his Afro-Surinamese-Dutch roots has brought him to find inspiration in his trans-cultural experience which he is expressing through his collages, sculptures and installations and art has become his "vehicle for considering what it
means to be a global citizen, someone believing in the potential of art
to raise social consciousness and inspire cultural awareness".
Staging traditional materials and
objects in different contexts, he challenges the established
notions of their representation within Western society. "By
using the three-dimensional cube, grids and other geometric forms and
combining them with traditional objects, this gives me the opportunity
to question modernism from a different angle. By doing this, I create a
reference to the traditional and the modern."
Since his first group exhibition
in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Jungerman has participated in
several solo and group exhibitions worldwide.
His work has been acquired by various institutions and private
collectors worldwide among which: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, MMKA
Arnhem, Museum Het Domein Sittard, Zeeuws Museum Middelburg, ARC
Collection Amsterdam, Droog, NY USA, the Rennies Collection Vancouver.
Private Collections in the USA, Canada, Suriname, Cuba, Brazil, Great
Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium and The Netherlands.
link to
website
link to
interview
The
objects/elements never die, symbolically, in the artwork. By using
these elements in contemporary art, they do change from their religious
meaning but the new context might serve to enrich the way we look at
them – allowing us to see them from a different perspective. Even
traditional religious forms are changing over time because of their
flexibility, especially Diaspora Afro-traditional religions and their
attributes. - See more at:
http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2014/05/inspired-from-within-an-interview-with-remy-jungerman/#sthash.ogGz0iFs.dpuf
The
online exhibition I curated for the March 2014 edition of the Dutch art
magazine Mister Motley gave me the opportunity to see that not much has
shifted in my ties to my rich Surinamese heritage, in the aesthetics I
gained from the surroundings in which I grew up and in what I have
learned at art schools. - See more at:
http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2014/05/inspired-from-within-an-interview-with-remy-jungerman/#sthash.ogGz0iFs.dpuf
With
creating artworks I have the possibility and freedom to use objects and
materials from a traditional context – mixing them to give other
aesthetic meanings. By using the three-dimensional cube, grids and other
geometric forms and combining them with traditional objects, this gives
me the opportunity to question modernism from a different angle. By
doing this, I create a reference to the traditional and the modern. -
See more at:
http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2014/05/inspired-from-within-an-interview-with-remy-jungerman/#sthash.ogGz0iFs.dpuf
In 2005 I returned to Suriname to bury my father. While there, I
visited the ancestor altar of the Maroon heritage of my mother – I was
born from mixed parents with roots in Europe and Africa. At that moment I
realized the richness of my African roots and made the decision to do
further research into that spiritual context. From that day, I knew my
work would change. I knew it would take a more spiritual and religious
direction, with a connection to Winti, which is an Afro-Surinamese
traditional religion. I realized that there was so much aesthetic
material from the practice of Winti, which I could connect to the
knowledge I have gained from contemporary art, especially Modernism. All
of the residue from the rituals seem like finished art pieces. The only
thing I was missing was the “how” – how to make the link with
contemporary art practice. - See more at:
http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2014/05/inspired-from-within-an-interview-with-remy-jungerman/#sthash.ogGz0iFs.dpuf
Visual
artist Remy Jungerman was born in Moengo Suriname and his lived in
Amsterdam since 1990. Through his collages, sculptures and installations
he brings various materials, symbols, socio-historical contexts and
locations in the world into communication with each other in order to
address ideas of the local and the global. Jungerman’s work draws on
Maroon culture in Suriname and the Diaspora, specifically
Winti, which is an Afro-Surinamese religion.
His latest piece entitled “FODU: Ultimate Resistance” demonstrates
his sustained engagement with the intersections of traditional religious
practices and current trends in art. The work is now on display as part
of the group exhibition Bezield: Seven Artists on Religion, Rituals and
Death, which opened on May 10, 2014 at
CBK Zuidoost,
Amsterdam. The word “bezield” translates to “inspired” in English. I
used this term as an entry point for talking with Jungerman about his
art. In the interview, he pinpoints traditional and modern inspirations
but he also identifies an inner stimulus – a source within him that acts
as a ground on which his art is built.
- See more at:
http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2014/05/inspired-from-within-an-interview-with-remy-jungerman/#sthash.ogGz0iFs.dpuf
The
online exhibition I curated for the March 2014 edition of the Dutch art
magazine Mister Motley gave me the opportunity to see that not much has
shifted in my ties to my rich Surinamese heritage, in the aesthetics I
gained from the surroundings in which I grew up and in what I have
learned at art schools. - See more at:
http://arcthemagazine.com/arc/2014/05/inspired-from-within-an-interview-with-remy-jungerman/#sthash.ogGz0iFs.dpulink to
websitelink to
interview
Be ready to spend a few hours at the Contemporary Arts Center to discover or rediscover twenty-four artists from far places like China, South Africa or closer to home Louisiana, gathered for Prospect.3: Notes for Now. The works were selected by Frank Sirmans, the Artistic Director of the biennial (now officially a triennial), due to their power to incite a reflection on "the everydayness and the strangeness of the world around us, to bridge fissures in the past-present and to imagine the possibilities of an interconnected future".
Tank, 2014, Glenn Kaino's installation is attracting visitors with corals in clear water glowing in a bluish light. A lengthy wall text describes the work and provides a cue to the title. The cumbersome technology required to keep the corals alive undermines the project which is focused on the oceans' pollution, especially by the military, a subject somewhat off the exhibition's theme. The show gets back on track with Joe Ray's work, a thought provoking juxtaposition of symbols followed by the images from Thomas Joshua Cooper, a photographer of light.
