Exhibition Artist Films and Videos at the Itaú Cultural Collection - Virtual

Works from the Itaú Cultural's collection of artist films and videos

are presented for the first time in a virtual exhibition

 

After clippings exhibited in person in 10 different Brazilian cities,

the exhibition Artist Films and Videos at the Itaú Cultural Collection is now entering the digital universe. Bringing together 21 experimental works, produced between the decade of the

from the 1970s to the 2000s, addresses memories and socio-political themes of the country

As of December 16 (Thursday), Itaú Cultural presents the exhibition Films and Artist Videos in the Itaú Cultural Collection - Virtual, available on the Superviz platform and with access through the Itaú Cultural website www.itaucultural.org.br. The exhibition brings a selection of audiovisual art works produced in the country in the last six decades and part of the institution's permanent collection. For the first time in virtual format, a selection of this experimental production, which began in the 1970s and remained on the sidelines for about two decades until it was highlighted in major exhibitions and galleries, is presented in thematic nuclei, composed of works by artists such as Regina Silveira, Cao Guimarães, Lia Chaia, Nelson Leirner and Eder Santos.

Curated by Roberto Moreira Cruz and the Itaú Cultural team, the exhibition also explores the possibilities of technology to expand the available content. In addition to some of the works offering accessibility in Libras, they also have credits, audio statements and connect visitors to the Itaú Cultural Encyclopedia, which contains more information about the works and artists.

The public can also check another virtual exhibition made available by Itaú Cultural on Google Arts & Culture. It is Brazilian Modernist Photography, a photographic collection that the institution migrated to this universe in 2020 and can be accessed at https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/fotografia-modernista-brasileira/3gJSVcF9SyfOKg.

 

Cut-outs

The online tour can be done via computer and mobile phone to follow a route formed by four thematic nuclei, set in virtual rooms of different colours, according to the theme.

In The body as metaphor, marked by the lilac setting, six works reflect the idea of the audiovisual as a means of discovery and expansion of the repertoire. Passages #1 (1974), by Anna Bella Geiger, shows the expressiveness of an action made repeatedly. In M 3x3, directed by Analivia Cordeiro in 1973, dancers perform a choreography created based on the Laban method and computer-generated guidelines.

From 1980, A arte de desenhar, by Regina Silveira, presents a game of hands that tries to imitate the silhouette of another hand. From the same year, the animation Xeroperformance is composed of photocopies made by the artist Paulo Bruscky of his own face using a copy machine. More recent, Translado, from 2008 and signed by Sara Ramo, displaces objects taken from a suitcase from their places of origin, and, from 2019, Mil olhos, a creation by Lia Chaia, shows decorative eyes arranged around the artist's head moving frantically.

The core Poetics of Visuality, in a blue hue, houses, in its majority, works created in the last 20 years, in a gathering of works in which image and sound are built from the poetic and oneiric potential of representation. This is the case of Poupatempo, by Aline Motta, in 2015, which discusses issues of invisibility in the contemporary world, and El pintor tira el cine a la basura, directed by Cao Guimarães in 2008, in which a projected image and a painting are mixed on a single surface and transformed into an object.

Also in 2009, in Planeta Fossil, artist Thiago Rocha Pitta recreated the narrative of scientific documentaries shown on television by means of framing and close-ups. In the same year, Eder Santos explored the time itself of a series of objects and situations recorded in the interior of Minas Gerais in Cinema. Older, from 1972, in Triunfo hermético Rubens Gerchman wove a visual poem in movement, elaborated through the language of cinema, non-linear narrative and resources of animation and speed alteration.

Positioning and memory

The green colour guides the Culture and Politics: Identities nucleus, composed of works in which the artists position themselves on Brazilian socio-political themes in an audiovisual discourse.

Among the works is Ordinário, from 2014, where Berna Reale collects bones from the ground in a wheelbarrow pushed through the streets of a suburb of Belém do Pará. This group of works also includes a look at the traditions of Brazilian indigenous peoples in Ymá nhandehetama, 2009, by Armando Queiroz, and criticism of consumer society in Homenagem a Steinberg - variations on a theme by Steinberg: the masks no. 1, signed by Nelson Leirner in 1975. In Cine África e Cine Brasil (2012-2013), Paulo Nazareth remembers the ritual of oblivion performed by enslaved Africans.

Finally, the Memory and Subjectivity nucleus, marked by the colour pink, brings together audiovisual productions that have as substrates of creation themes such as memories, dreams, affection and fantasy. Domingo, from 2010, is a production by Rivane Neuenschwander and Sergio Neuenschwander made around a domestic, familiar environment, a typically Brazilian Sunday. In Partida, from 2005, Alberto Bittar builds a visual narrative from an old photo with people in a train station in Rio de Janeiro.

They are also part of the Amoahiki group, in which, in 2008, Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima developed a holistic interpretation of nature. After a deep sleep (getting out), 1985, in which Rafael França deconstructs the time of naturalist representation through an exercise in editing and discontinuous cuts. Also, Mentiras e humilhações (Lies and humiliations ) in which, in 1988, Eder Santos gave form to the poem Liquidação (Liquidation) by Carlos Drummond de Andrade.

Itaú Cultural Production

In Films and Artist Videos at the Itaú Cultural Collection - Virtual, visitors are also invited to access videos produced by Itaú Cultural with artists and researchers on themes related to those proposed in the exhibition. Among them are the language of video and artist film, its origin and semantic range in the fields of representation and forms of artistic expression. The political bias printed in the concept of the works is also addressed.

About films and videos and the collection

In Brazil, the production of films and videos began in the 1970s, following an international production. Due to the lack of market for this segment and censorship of culture during the civil-military dictatorship, this experimental production remained on the margins for decades.

Only around the 1990s, part of it started to be recognised. With the insertion of audiovisual works in contemporary art, it began to be present in galleries and exhibitions with an international reach

The Itaú Cultural film and video collection is a pioneering contribution to Brazilian culture. Through acquisition, conservation and restoration, the institution has created a permanent collection of audiovisual works produced in the country over the last six decades.

To date, 10 Brazilian cities have already received clippings of this collection, among them São Paulo, where it could be visited at the headquarters of Itaú Cultural. Now, continuing the proposal to democratize the access to the collection, Itaú Cultural makes the first assembly of it in a digital environment, created especially to receive the works.

 

SERVICE:

Exhibition Artist Films and Videos at the Itaú Cultural Collection - Virtual

Available from 16 December (Thursday)

On the Itaú Cultural website www.itaucultural.org.br