Exhibition "CO YBY ORÉ RETAMA [This Land is Our Place]" by Andrey Guaianá Zignnatto

Andrey Guaianá Zignnatto reflects on indigenous ancestry in an exhibition at the Solar da Marquesa de Santos

Series of works equates the artist's memories of urban life and experience as a bricklayer with his ancestral indigenous memories. The project CO YBY ORE RETAMA was awarded the prize for visual arts of PROAC 2020 - State Secretariat of Culture of São Paulo

 

The construction of the home from affective memories is a theme constantly present in the life and work of Andrey Guaianá Zignnatto. For the exhibition CO YBY ORE RETAMA [This Land is Our Place], on show from 25 September at the Museu da Cidade de São Paulo - Solar da Marquesa de Santos, the artist balances forces from different universes - urban life and indigenous ancestry - to rebuild aTekoa [home] of breath in times of suffocation. Curated by Sandra Ará Reté Benites and produced by Ellen Navarro, the exhibition shows works in various media, such as sculpture, installation, performance, video art, objects, painting and photography, which use materials such as concrete, ceramics, cement bags, jenipapo, charcoal and books, mixing urban life with the universe of the villages. 

The choice of Solar da Marquesa was not by chance: the cultural centre is located where, before the colonial period in São Paulo, was Inhapuambaçu, a Tupinaky'ia village of which Zignnatto is a descendant on his father's side and which suffered total erasure of its ancestral universe.

The artist also has indigenous ancestry on his mother's side, from the Guarani Mby'a, people who assist him in a personal process of retaking as aba [man] indigenous. "Supported on these few memories that I have left as an inheritance, in art and its many powers, I strive to develop a process of reforestation of the ancestral universe of my family, where this effort begins in the territory of my own thought and spirit and takes shape in my work," reflects the artist.

The works are the fruit of affective memories of the time when the artist worked as a bricklayer, from the age of 10 to 14, and the ancestral memories of his indigenous Tupinaky'ia and Guarani family. "Art is the possible means I found to equalise the affective memories of my urban life and my experience as a bricklayer participating in the construction of cities with my ancestral indigenous memories," comments Andrey.

About the works

The series ALICERCE exhibits sculptures produced with concrete slabs and pillars supported on indigenous ceramic vases. The large and heavy geometric concrete objects deform the vases that support them, demonstrating the clash between modernity and native peoples.

In ABAPORU #1, the work brings a triptych composed by a sheet of recycled paper dyed black with jenipap, a document of authenticity of a drawing by Tarsila do Amaral and a proof of purchase of an original copy of the Revista de Antropofagia. The sheet of recycled paper is produced by crushing in a blender the drawing by Tarsila and the copy of the magazine. It is then dyed with jenipap, as a sign of perpetual mourning.

"The work of an indigenous artist is a work that comes from an attempt to translate the indigenous struggle for physical territory and the subjective space of thought. This work is very special because of that, because it translates this movement of resistance, survival and expansion in these spaces," points out the curator Sandra Ara Rete Benites.

CO YBY ORE RETAMA proposes, besides a return to the artist's home, an invitation for the public to inhabit this Tekoa in physical, mental and spiritual territory developed by Andrey. Still according to Sandra, "the importance of the collective for the individual and the individual for the collective is essential in indigenous art. The work is materialized by the individual, but the thought is a process that occurs in the collective. Although the work of Andrey speaks of the historical process of his family, it also speaks for all the other indigenous people who were buried in the cities by tons of concrete and indifference.

The show extends to three other spaces in the city of São Paulo: Galeria Janaina Torres, Atelie Alê and Museu Casa Sertanista, complementing the main works of the research at Solar da Marquesa. The exhibition at Janaina Torres, starting October 9th, marks the inauguration of the Galeria's new space in Santa Cecília.

About Andrey Guaianá Zignnatto

Self-taught artist, visual arts teacher and social project activist, he worked as a bricklayer's helper from the age of 10 to 14. Descendant of Tupinaky'ia and Gûarini, he makes these affective and ancestral memories the basis for conceptual development and methods used in his artistic production.

He has participated in exhibitions, including solo and group exhibitions, in museums, cultural centres and art galleries in Brazil, USA, UAE, Colombia, England, Italy, Peru and Argentina. Among some of the most important exhibitions are: 'Forged Territories' Sharjah Art Museum [2016]; 'Forged Territories' Sketch Art Gallery - Colombia [2016]; 'Forged Territories' Paço das Artes SP [2015]; 'Art and Heritage' Paço Imperial RJ [2015]; 'Displacements' Blau Projects art gallery [2015]; 'Studies For New Proposals of Interpretation of the Physical Space' Funarte SP [2015]. Awarded 2 prizes from the Ministry of Culture, 1 by Funarte and 1 by IPHAN [2014 and 2015]; 3 prizes from the State Secretariat of Culture of SP by PROAC [2014, 15 and 17]; 1 prize from the 18th Cultura Inglesa Festival, and nominated for the Jameel Art Prize of the Victoria & Albert Museum in England [2017].

Since 2002, she gives art workshops for humanitarian projects that support people living in situations of social vulnerability, for refugees from the civil war in Syria and Lebanon, refugees from Venezuela, orphan children from the Shelter Nossa Casa, Casa da Fonte, Reference Center for the Elderly, Reference Center for Social Assistance, Center for Psycho-Social Support for adults and children, residents of Helvetia Street [Crackland region of São Paulo], prostitutes and ex-prostitutes assisted by the Association Magdala, Provisional Detention Center Bandeirantes among others.

Services:

Visitas com hora marcada via WhatsApp: + 55 11 98121.7099 ou e-mail galeria@janainatorres.com.br