Galeria Karla Osorio presents the solo exhibition
“MEMORY OF THE RIVERS: SACRED PLACES”, by Rômulo Andrade
Galleries 1 , 2 and 3 Pavilion III
Texts by Ailton Krenak and Bené Fonteles
Opening, Saturday, 02 July 2022, brunch, 10am-3pm
Galeria Karla Osorio presents the solo exhibition “MEMÓRIA DOS RIOS, LUGARES SAGRADOS” by the artist Rômulo Andrade, which will open on Saturday, July 2nd, between 10 am and 3 pm, with the presence of the artist. The show brings together more than 30 works, mainly paintings and assemblages created in the last 20 years. All in mixed media, exploring aspects of Brazilian ancestral identity, using forms and processes that dialogue with the imagination of traditional peoples in Latin America.
As Bené Fonteles says, in a text written for this exhibition:
“It is rare for artists in Brazil who, facing the sea, do not have their backs to the interior of the country and the vastness of South America. Rômulo is a rare one of these. Always with a very wide eye, he is a visionary loyal to his utopia and our ancestry-attuned to an “ancestral future” that Ailton Krenak announces to us. Also envisioning Eternity in the now, Rômulo was never afraid of not making the so-called “contemporary art”, at times so opportunistic and dubious. He makes a “cosmopolitical” poetics as Krenak suggested to call the movement that the artists launched in the recent Bienal de SP and in the show at MAM / SP under the name of Contemporary Indigenous Art. For decades, Rômulo has been making the Central Plateau for the real Brazil, a wide art of meanings and expressions, for the love of the Cerrado bioregion and its waters, matrix of so many Brazilian rivers. Crystalline tainted waters, for them it creates a visual manifesto without ever separating art from ecology and spirituality. More than a refined and rigorous esthete, he is a seminal poet in the service of conscience and Light”.
Ailton Krenak also wrote about the artist’s work and the full text of his text, in 2016, follows below.
“An entire generation of artistic thinkers formed in the political struggle in our country, with their sharp antennae, realized early on, in the 70s, that Nature and creation in the arts were matters of the spirit, and soon began a crusade in the cultural environment with a sensitive opening of spaces in the imagination and in the shy means of communication of those times. “Artists for Nature“ was born with this brand of beauty hunters in rivers, forests, savannas and plateaus. Singing songs by Tom Jobim, Águas de Março, Rains, Pedra e Pau; Gilberto Gil, Egberto Gismonti and Bené Fonteles came leading a procession with great Assurini flutes, and launching the Yanomami nets into the spaces of consciousness – Indigenous traps: Cildo Meireles, Athos Bulcão, Rubem Valentim, Lygia Pape, Xico Chaves, Amilcar de Castro, Roberto Mícoli, Marcos Benjamim, Emmanuel Nassar, Siron Franco, Miriam Pires, Marlene Almeida… many others that would not fit here to follow the luminous list, and Rômulo. Earth. Fire. Wind. Air. Romul comes with lichens and twigs in his hair. Like fauns, they dance through the waters, through the forests and their inhabitants, people and animals. Ecology for Rômulo is Art itself in motion, dreamscapes and signs engraved in stone, ancestral symbols.
This is what the series “Memória das Águas” exudes, its Amerindian paintings that resulted from a long journey through the Amazon. Journey of Argonauts, the world of waters and forests visited by the poet’s antennae, spotting the rock marks that date back to ancient civilizations. Inscriptions made in relief on the rocks, found from Central to South America, with hard stone that so much beats that it carves, engraves. Open-air panels that refer to ceremonial rites, hunting and fishing. Traps, such as those that can still be seen in a reinterpretation, dialoguing with artifacts and objects of daily use from the ethnographic collection of the Memorial of Indigenous Peoples, with the works of Rômulo, and a provocative question about the time of these creations. With contemporary indigenous art & Artists for Nature.
More than three decades of expression of engaged art/nature is there, with a vocabulary that can be understood even by children who visit the exhibitions of this Brazilian who became a defender of the Cerrado, of a sertão that insists on existing between fields, paths and buritizais. . Now, Rômulo delivers these “Memories of the Waters”, as a gift to this runaway world of droughts and ruptures, where humans follow like zombies the senseless race to the end of the world. To the world that we inherited from our ancestors, with the mission of handing over to our children and grandchildren, to future generations. There are moments when Rômulo sees seven generations ahead of us, and seeks Amerindian memories in his visions. With the most diverse materials and resources, here are aged canvases restored and reinvented with art, wooden oars and canoes, fire-carved buriti cane sticks. The journey through the sertões and paths is endless, as is the dream of one day art teaching humans the language of trees, birds and stones”.
about the artist
Rômulo Andrade (Niterói 1954) Lives and works in Brasília. He had his artistic initiation in childhood, with his father. Based in Brasília since 1975, where he participated in the Cabeças project. Graduated in Visual Arts from the Institute of Arts of the University of Brasília (1985). He lived with great artists such as Athos Bulcão, Glênio Bianchetti and Bené Fonteles. He uses drawing, in metal engraving and screen printing, and also works as a graphic designer. Active participant in the Artists for Nature Movement, a collective that fights in defense of the Cerrado biome, Brazilian rivers, territories and indigenous rights. He was a guest artist on the Humboldt Expedition – Amazônia 2000. This trip resulted in a new series of works, 3 exhibitions and the editing of 10 educational videos. He participated in numerous local and international shows. He has extensive research on the poetics of Brazil’s sertões, focusing on the Cerrado. He uses materials impregnated by time: noble woods, metal, mineral pigment on handmade paper, canvas and large-format canvas. From his works emanates a certain ancestry that refers to Amerindian myths and archaeological sites. Works that dialogue with a more visionary dimension and approach the aboriginal and savage peoples of the future.
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Service
– “MEMÓRIA DOS RIOS: LUGARES SAGRADOS” individual by Rõmulo Andrade – Galleries 1, 2 and 3 Pavilion I
The show takes place in parallel with two more exhibitions opening on the same day.
– “HIATUS” solo exhibition by Graziela Guardino Curated by Carolina Lauriano – Galleries 4 and 5 Pavilion II
– “AVESSO DO OCASO” solo show by Álvaro de Santana – Gallery 6 Pavilion III
Opening: Saturday, July 2nd, between 11am-6pm Visitation until August 8th.
Visitation: Monday to Friday, 09:00-18:30h
Saturday 9am-2pm, always by appointment by phone, DM on instagram or whatsapp.