Emancipated Modernities" exhibition

Danielian Gallery presents "Emancipated Modernities"

With 80 works by 38 Brazilian artists or artists based in Brazil, the exhibition proposes a critical and expanded reflection on the idea of modernity in light of the socio-political and economic context that spans the period from the mid-19th century to the first half of the 20th century. The curators Marcos de Lontra Costa and Rafael Peixoto also included productions by artists who remained on the fringes of the "official" history of modernism. The exhibition is divided into four central themes: "Landscape as transformation"; "Being modern - an identity aesthetic"; "Modernity under construction" and "Territories of Re-existence", and at the end there is a documental nucleus with vinyl record covers, photographs, magazines and newspapers, showing artists and personalities who built different ways of surviving in this modern environment.

Danielian Gallery, Gávea, Rio de Janeiro
Opening: July 7, 2022, from 6pm to 8pm
Until August 13, 2022
Curators: Marcus de Lontra Costa and Rafael Fortes Peixoto
Free entry

The Danielian Gallery presents from July 7, 2022 onwards the exhibition "Emancipated Modernities", which brings together more than 80 works by 38 artists, tracing a historical and expanded panorama of what is conventionally called "modernity". A century after the Week of Modern Art of 1922, curators Marcus de Lontra Costa and Rafael Fortes Peixoto propose an expanded look, starting from the idea of modernism as a "broad movement of political, social, cultural and economic transformation, and observing how these vectors influence Brazilian artistic production beyond what the history of traditional Brazilian art presents".

The route of the exhibition, which will occupy the gallery's two floors of exhibition space, is chronological, and the works, produced between the mid-19th century and the 1960s, will be articulated along four central axes: "Landscape as transformation";" The modern being - an identity aesthetic"; "Modernity in construction ", and "Territories of Re-existence".

Each of these nuclei will be accompanied by curatorial texts on the wall, as well as critical comments and historical contextualisations, to "stimulate the public's reflection on this exhibition that proposes the broadening of traditional notions of modernity in Brazilian art".

The works in "Emancipated Modernities" are by the artists: Alberto da Veiga Guignard (1896-1962), Alvim Correia (1876-1910), Anita Malfatti (1889-1964), Antônio Parreiras (1860-1937), Arthur Timótheo da Costa (1882-1922), Belmiro de Almeida (1858-1935), Candido Portinari (1903-1962), Carlos Bippus (18? - 19?), Chico da Silva (1910-1985), Cícero Dias (1907-2003), Eliseu Visconti (1866-1944 ),Emiliano Di Cavalcanti (1897-1976), Estevão Silva (1844-1891), Eugenio de Proença Sigaud (1899-1979), Georg Grimm (1846-1887), Georgina de Albuquerque (1885-1962), Giovanni Battista Felice Castagneto ( 1851-1900), Gustavo Dall'ara (1865-1923), Heitor dos Prazeres (1898-1966), Henrique Bernardelli (1858-1936), Iracema Orosco Freire ( ?), Ismael Nery (1900-1934), J. Carlos (1884-1950), Jose Ferraz de Almeida Jr. (1850-1899), Lasar Segall (1889-1957), LTM photographic studio, Manoel Santiago (1897-1987), Manuel Teixeira da Rocha (1863-1941), Mestre Vitalino (1909-1963), Oscar Pereira da Silva (1867-1939), Pedro Peres (1850-1923) Pedro Weingartner (1853-1929), Presciliano Silva (1883-1965), Rodolfo Amoedo (1857-1941), Rodolfo Bernardelli (1852-1931), Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973), Vicente do Rego Monteiro (1899-1970) and Victor Brecheret (1894-1955).

FOUR CENTRAL AXES OF EMANCIPATED MODERNITIES

Marcus de Lontra Costa and Rafael Peixoto explain the four axes of the exhibition.

1. LANDSCAPE AS TRANSFORMATION [24 works]

From the industrial revolutions throughout the 19th century and the technological advent of photography, the need arose to build new relationships with the representation of landscape. Both the naturalist movements and impressionist research denote a process of direct observation of nature in counterpoint to the painting carried out in studios. This transformation reflects a search for experimentation in detriment of the canons of tradition and formalisation. This creative freedom and the search for a broader understanding of our place in this new world are hallmarks of the modern individual that is being formed.

In Brazil, there were the experiences of the Grimm Group (1884-1886), in which young artists gathered to paint in the open air under the guidance of the German naturalist painter Georg Grimm (1846-1887). In addition, the transformations that took place in art education after the Proclamation of the Republic, in 1889, allowed several artists to have contact with the European avant-garde and bring with them this broader look at the landscape, with emphasis on the great influence of the investigation of colours and lights that characterizes the Impressionist movements.

Highlights in this nucleus are the works:

● Antônio Parreiras (1860-1937)

"Sertanejas" (1916), oil on canvas, 63x113cm - Until then, the chromatic treatment in landscapes followed a European-influenced colour palette, which was not adapted to tropical lights. Sertanejas" are among the most important canvases painted by Antônio Parreiras, and represent this search for our local greenery, in its broad spectrums, from an impressionistic approach. Works such as this one, in large format, are part of the collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Antônio Parreiras Museum.

● Presciliano Silva (1883-1965)

"Square in Concarneau, Brittany, France" (1913), oil on canvas, 45x61cm - The official teaching of art in Brazil had its foundations in the awards for trips abroad, which directed artists to the main European Academies, which then brought back here the influences received. From 1889, with the advent of the Republic, these awards allowed artists greater freedom in choosing their schools and masters, enabling more direct contact with avant-garde productions, stimulating eclecticism throughout the production of this period. Bahian artist, Presciliano Silva was one of those who enjoyed this greater freedom through a travel award, and had closer contact with Impressionism. "Square in Concarneau" was painted in France, and is an experiment in pointillist nature.

● Belmiro de Almeida (1858-1935)

"Park of the Castello of the Duke Deluynes, Dampierre" (1921), oil on canvas pasted on wood, 54 x 72 cm - One of the artists who most represents the eclecticism of the turn of the 20th century, Belmiro de Almeida produced everything from cartoons to realist, futurist and impressionist paintings, based on a pointillist technique, as is the case with this painting made in France.

Also worth noting in this segment are the works of Georg Grimm, Giovanni Baptista Castagneto and Eliseu Visconti.

2. THE MODERN BEING - AN IDENTITY AESTHETIC

The profound transformations in the social, political and economic structures of the modern era have as their main character the bourgeois class. From a logic of productivity, the financial capital becomes the element of qualification of individuals, and the bourgeoisie occupies the spaces that previously belonged to the clergy and nobility. To reaffirm this new social position, the creation of a public image was necessary. In these works, which decorated the houses and palaces of the period, the luxury and sophistication of an emerging class is represented.

On the Brazilian scene, this reaffirmation became even more imminent with the end of the monarchy. Identified as bourgeois realism, these paintings reflect an urban lifestyle, characterized by"taste"as an aesthetic sense of sophistication. They are easel paintings that depict interior and everyday scenes of a bourgeois family. Moreover, the interest in the "exoticism" of different cultures is also one of the elements that define this bourgeois taste.

Beyond the political and sociological implications, these movements reflect more broadly the search for a sense of belonging and identity.

Works and artists featured in this nucleus:

● Manoel Santiago (1897-1987)

"Yaras" (1925), oil on canvas, 148x135cm - Little seen by the public, this painting will be at the entrance of this nucleus, next to the curatorial text, functioning as a conceptual link between the exhibition rooms. One of the great Brazilian artists with Impressionism as his artistic base, Manoel Santiago was born in Manaus, but went to Rio de Janeiro for his artistic training. He unites the tradition of French painting with the regional matrices that make up his origin, and, eschewing exoticism, brings myths and characters of indigenous origin to his canvases, as in the canvas "Yaras". From a young age, Santiago was already gaining prominence, and competed to do the paintings at the Theatro Municipal with renowned artists such as Eliseu Visconti, who won the contest.

● Henrique Bernardelli (1858-1936)

"The Messalina or Dicteriad" (1870/1880), oil on canvas, 207x115cm - Like his brother Rodolfo, sculptor, Henrique Bernardelli was fundamental in the more libertarian teaching of fine arts in Brazil, transforming the canons of the Academy. The fruit of historians' questions about its title and the date of its execution, "A Messalina" or "Dicteríade" has caused different reactions since its first exhibitions in the 1890s, alternating between critical success and surprise at its erotic atmosphere. Painted in Rome, the work illustrates the historical fact that until the turn of the century the living model was not well regarded by Brazilian society, and many of the most important paintings of the period were made outside Brazil because of this need. In addition to having participated in important exhibitions in the United States and France, a second version of this canvas is part of the collection of the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, and is an example of the orientalism that influenced bourgeois taste at the turn of the century.

● Georgina de Albuquerque (1885-1962)

"Woman with Hydrangeas,oil on canvas, 71x54cm - Artist of the turn of the century, she had a large production, and was active in the salons, although eclipsed by her husband Lucílio de Albuquerque (1877-1939), an important painter and teacher. Georgina de Albuquerque departs from the impressionist reference to paint the environments of the new emerging class, the bourgeoisie, and is highlighted in the movement called bourgeois realism.

● Arthur Thimoteo da Costa (1882-1922)

"Figure of a Boy", oil on cardboard, 40x33cm - One of the few black artists born in the 19th century who achieved success, Thimoteo, through travel awards, did part of his training in Paris, as did his brother, also an artist, João Thimoteo da Costa. In this work, a black boy takes on the role of the main character, an unusual practice, since in a slave society it was unusual to paint portraits of black people. Arthur Thimoteo da Costa died at the age of 41, admitted to the Hospice of the Alienated in Rio de Janeiro with a diagnosis of paralytic dementia. The Afro Brasil Museum has a large collection of the artist's work.

It is also worth noting the work of Rodolfo Bernardelli, Eliseu Visconti, and Oscar Pereira da Silva.

3. MODERNITY UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Metropolises are the material construction of all modern complexity. In their spaces are physically established the dynamics of power, belonging and identity that constitute a modern way of living.

In this curatorial axis, we articulate three looks from an idea of directed construction, both in terms of civil construction and in terms of the organisation of an aesthetic discourse of identity.

In the first of these, we freely punctuate the utopias and dystopias that permeated the turn of the 20th century. On the international scene, a libertarian optimism comes up against the horror of two world wars. In Brazil, hand in hand with the ufanistic hope of a democratic society, there are experiences that take upon themselves the construction of an idea of nationhood, but which today, with historical distance, bear the indelible marks of totalitarian principles.

This planned modernity became real through numerous urbanistic projects that transformed the appearance and lifestyle of the city's inhabitants . This new layout, which incorporates a concept of art applied to routine, influenced by European art nouveau and art deco movements, seeks to bring Brazil's large cities closer to an aesthetic standard that reflects the country's development. As a contradiction and the result of a verticalised city project, the vast majority of the population is not included in this "modernisation" of the city, being pushed, literally, to peripheral areas, building its own modern logic of existence in these new urban spaces, as we shall see in the fourth curatorial axis.

But if in the urban reforms this reality was excluded, in a project of artistic reformulation it played a central role. The Week of Modern Art of 1922 and the publication of the Anthropophagic Manifesto in 1929 are two iconic actions that demonstrate the historical break intended by these artists and their appropriation of the term "modern" to define their productions. With the intention of creating an essentially Brazilian art that reflected and represented our plurality, the modernist artists focused on the practices of these excluded social groups as the subject of their paintings. If, from a historical perspective, this type of movement echoes Eurocentric visions and carries at its ideological core a totalitarian principle, it is undeniable that the thematic openness they represent is of fundamental importance for the transformations that are still occurring today in Brazilian artistic achievement.

Works in focus:

● J. Carlos (1884-1950)

"Receive the Enclosing Affection - Order and Progress", watercolor and ink on paper, 40x33cm - The work reflects the flag as an element of national integration, but at the same time represents the warlike ideal that supports this thought. Also present the utopian concept of the turn of the century, and a positivist thought that is structural in the idea of nation that emerges in this period, which brings a hygienic principle as an ideal of progress, reinforcing the meritocratic and segmented logic. Modernity as a project. Next to the work will be the video by Oskar Metsavaht, based on images of Christ the Redeemer. An iconic figure, the statue of Christ the Redeemer, at the same time as it redeems our old colonial structures - and celebrates the technological and artistic modernity of this society that is being formed - it also represents the affirmation of a Christian and Eurocentric standard that is above everything and everyone.

● Vicente do Rego Monteiro (1899-1970)

"Cambiteiro" (c.1936), oil on silk, 57x70cm - The painting shows the practice of modernist artists in using workers and the underprivileged classes as the subject of their works. As one of the great contributions of these movements, this thematic transformation is fundamental for the conquest of protagonism that would occur later. Vicente do Rego Monteiro lived between Pernambuco, São Paulo and Paris, and "Cambiteiro", which is part of a series of paintings by the artist about rural workers, shows an art-déco influence.

● Cícero Dias (1907-2003)

"S. Title" (1928), oil on canvas, 67x150cm - Created during the period of production of his celebrated work "I saw the world... it began in Recife", this painting is oneone of the few oils on canvas of this phase of the artist with a oneiric approach, in which we can see an influence of surrealism, especially of Marc-Chagall (1887-1985). In deep contact with the European avant-garde, Cicero spent part of his life between Brazil and France, keeping studios in both countries.

● Candido Portinari (1903-1962)

"Orphan" - War and Peace Panel, UN, New York (c.1955), oil on canvas, 100x80cm - The painting shows one of the figures that make up the War and Peace panel, produced in the same period. Although within the Estado Novo regime, Portinari identified with the communist ideal, and was interested in social issues, one of his trademarks.

It is also worth noting the works of Emiliano Di Cavalcanti.

4 - TERRITORIES OF RE-EXISTENCE

In this reflection, which proposes an emancipation from the canonical concepts of modernity, it is fundamental that we also look at ways of living and coexisting that were obliterated by the hegemonic discourses that wrote the official history. The modern experience is much broader and more complex than the projects and projections in its name intended.

In the Brazilian case, the socio-political context of the end of the 19th century was drastically transformed. The changes in the form of government, while altering the economic and administrative system, continue to serve the particular interests of the agrarian and urban elites who occupy the top of the social pyramid of the capitalist structures. At the bottom, a huge contingent of the population is unassisted by the abolition of slavery without any social project to make it actually happen. In practice, pushed to the margins of a modern ideal, these people developed their ways of existing, and resisting, within this modernity. In contrast to the individualistic logic of accumulation of goods and property, these experiences erupted into manifestations of groupings and socializations that brought about a concept of community, which has been observed sociologically over the last 20 years. This period sees the formation of the first favelas, the creation of the Samba Schools, the relative social acceptance of the Candomblé and Umbanda terreiros, the gradual decriminalisation of Capoeira, the political and economic organisation of the Jogo do Bicho (Game of the Beast), as well as a number of other expressions that affirm the idea of gathering to resist.

For this curatorial axis of the exhibition we will bring obliterated artistic productions that found, within the challenges of an unequal society, ways to manifest themselves artistically as subjects of their time. Displacing them from the labels of popular or naïf, we see their production as an expression of a modernity that has been ignored by traditional historiography. In addition, we will also bring a historical panel, with documentary materials such as period magazines, vinyls and tracked photos of personalities who illustrate by their trajectory the plurality of individualities that build this idea of community that seems to be one of the fundamental paths for understanding our contemporary society.

Works in focus:

● Gustavo Dall'ara (1865-1923)

"Praça XV - Rio de Janeiro" (1901), oil on wood, 57x34cm - This work is inserted for its symbolic character in this fourth curatorial axis, which will occupy the last room on the second floor of the Danielian Galeria. Although it follows patterns of European painting, in this work the three historical times that make up that modality are represented. In the background, the colonial baroque of the Church of Nossa Senhora do Carmo, the former mother church. In the background, advertising posters represent this emerging city of the 20th century, and, in the foreground, a shoeshine reflects the paradoxes that arise in this environment and bear the marks of slavery.

● Lasar Segall (1889-1957)

"Favela" (1957), oil on canvas, 130x90cm - The expressionist gaze, fleeing Europe at war, shows the favela in a geometrized painting, in which people and buildings merge into a single feeling.

● Heitor dos Prazeres (1898-1966)

"Samba in the Favela (1964), oil on canvas, 80x100cm - A multi-tasking artist, Heitor dos Prazeres, in addition to painting and composing, designed clothes, made scenery and painted in community environments. Coming from a very poor social structure, he was one of the few who could also live from his artistic production. This representation of the favela shows the rural environment of its beginnings, where people excluded from urban reforms and migrants from the interior and from the north and north-east of Brazil, who came in search of better living conditions, lived.

● Chico da Silva (1910-1985)

"S. Title"gouache on paper, 60x82cm - Mestiço, of indigenous origin, born in Acre, Chico da Silva led a nomadic life, painting on walls and walls until the 1960s when he came into contact with the painter and art critic Jean-Pierre Chabloz (1910-1984), who began to commission canvases and drawings from him. Through a family atelier structure, Chico da Silva also represents a small part that managed to subsist on his artistic production. Both in his imagery, with fantastic animals and characters, and in the techniques he used to paint, Chico da Silva is one of the first artists to represent indigenous matrices in Brazilian art, opening up space for later manifestations.

DOCUMENTAL PART WITH PHOTOGRAPHS, MAGAZINE, LPs COVERS OF:

Mestre Pastinha (1889-1981), Maria Carolina de Jesus (1914-1977),Grande Otelo (1915-1993),Natal da Portela (1905-1975),Ismael Silva (1905-1978),Joãozinho da Gomeia(1914-1971),Mãe Menininha do Gantois(1894-1986),Bide(1902-1975),Ze Kéti (1921-1999),Mãe Senhora, Mestre Bimba, Mercedes BaptistaMano Elói, Maria Firmino dos Reis, Lima Barreto, Machado de Assis, João do Rio, Antônio Conselheiro, Lampião, Maria Bonita, Tia Ciata(1854-1924),João Candido(1880-1969),Benjamin de Oliveira (1870-1954),Hermenegildo de Barros (1866-1955),José Ezelino da Costa (1889-1952),Juliano Moreira (1873-1933),Mother Biú (1914-1993),Mario de Andrade, Solano Trindade, Tata Tancredo, Tia Maria do Jongo,

SERVICE: Exhibition "Emancipated Modernities

Danielian Gallery, Gávea, Rio de Janeiro

Opening: 7 July 2022, from 4pm to 8pm

Until 13 August 2022

Free entry

Danielian Gallery, Gávea, Rio de Janeiro

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