Exhibition 'The Ways of Form' brings works by artist Mary Carmen with reinterpretations by people with disabilities at the Museum of Image and Sound

Project developed in partnership with Olga Kos Institute will be exhibited from June 8

When we walk, in the countryside or in urban areas, it is very common to observe raw materials such as stones, steel, iron, marble and aluminium. Hard and cold materials, with no apparent use. The sculptor Mary Carmen Matias brings us the reflection: why not give life to these materials and transform them into messages of beauty?

As of 2021, in partnership with the Olga Kos Institute (IOK), the sculptor develops the project 'The art of lightness', composed of art workshops. The beneficiaries reproduce the artist's concepts in practice, awakening creativity through sculptures and paintings.

The apex of this project will be the exhibition that will start, from June 8th, at the Image and Sound Museum of São Paulo (MIS). In it, there will be exhibited works by Mary Carmen, besides the reinterpretations made by participants of the art workshops of IOK, in which the artistic and poetical look of people with disabilities is the protagonist. On that day, there will be the launch of the book 'The Ways of Form', by the art critic Jacob Klintowitz, which will bring the record of the artist's trajectory and reflections on the activities of the project developed by Mary Carmen with IOK.

"It was a fantastic experience. I was touched and moved to see my work being reproduced and the way they captured my feeling. Their joy in presenting the work is wonderful," Mary highlights. "It is challenging but possible to transform raw materials into something lighter and softer. Something that can really reflect life and the moment we live in. The artist has to show their art to the people. We all have a gift. We just need to awaken it," adds the sculptor.

The opening of the exhibition and the book launch for guests and press will take place on June 8. From the 9th, the exhibition period will start for the public, free of charge, during the opening hours of MIS. The works will be on display until June 22, from Tuesday to Sunday, from 11am to 8pm, with the last entry at 7pm, including holidays.

BOOK LAUNCH

The lightness of Mary Carmen Matias' work, forged in metal and marble, is the subject of a book about her trajectory

The paths of form is the title of the book written by art critic and curator Jacob Klintowitz, which goes through the artistic universe of the sculptress. It will be launched on the same day of the opening of the exhibition that presents 12 of her works, among sculptures and paintings, at the Museu da Imagem e do Som (Image and Sound Museum). The exhibition is enlarged by other five works made by disabled people, result of a workshop she held at Olga Kos Institute.

More than 160 pages welcome the reader who delves into The Ways of Form, a bilingual book (English-Portuguese), written by Jacob Klintowitz, published by the Olga Kos Institute (IOK). The work follows the career of sculptor Mary Carmen Matias. The launch will be on June 8 (Wednesday), at 7pm, at the Museu da Imagem e do Som (MIS). On the occasion will also be opened the exhibition of the same name in an event for guests. The exhibition opens to the public the following day and will remain on show until the 22nd of this month.

Mary Carmen, as she herself and the book's author point out, is a late artist. A history teacher, sociology specialist and business consultant, she entered the world of sculptural art almost without realising it. Encouraged by artists such as Caciporé Torres and Nicolas Vlavianos and curators such as Klintowitz himself and Denise Mattar, she dived into this universe to create her own constellations. Since 2008, she has been building a solid work that has already conquered space in solo and group exhibitions and awards.

More recently, encouraged by Paulo Pasta, the artist has also immersed herself in painting - among paints and metals, which assume the role of support and pictorial element.

In the first part of the book, the author outlines a reflective and retrospective anthology of her work. "Mary Carmen poses us questions about form in our civilization, the renewal of the symbol, the relations between the concrete and the imaginary, the construction and structure of the psyche," he writes. "By inquiring, she tells us about what constitutes the language of our time," he concludes.

She navigates between different materials such as steel, aluminium, resin and marble, forging her forms in order to break the rigidity of the raw material. Ripples and mixtures of textures give way to light figures imbued with a poetic aura. The pieces become wings, or the stylization of a mother welcoming her child, or even a Spanish woman wrapped in her chale, among others.

To accompany and dissect the path taken by Mary Carmen, Klintowitz flies between the thoughts and works of other artists, such as Tarsila do

Amaral, Portinari, Bruno Giorgi or Constantin Brancusi. He evokes musicians like Beethoven, lands among writers and poets like Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Drummond de Andrade, and also touches on Friedrich Engels and others. The author closes the book with a concise profile of the artist.

Mary Carmen's works speak for themselves in the second part of The Ways of Form. They reach the reader through images by photographers Christina Ruffato, Cláudio Wakahara, Fábio Zanzeri, Hélvio Romero, Ivson Miranda, Sheila Oliveira and from the artist's own archive. The works run through the book among forms that prove the lightness and harmony carved by her in these heavy metals. For example, the sculpture Libertação (Liberation), from 2018. In this piece, she brings together and provokes the union of steel and marble to invoke, finally, the lightness of freedom that opens itself to the observer.

Klintowitz: "the balance and elegance of Mary Carmen Matias' sculptures thrill because they are able to show the magnificent development of line and its transformation into volume, the creation of space and our involvement in this suddenly invented universe."

Observing nature and transforming it into a work of art is Mary Carmen Matias' leitmotif . This sculptor, who has immersed herself in the world of art as if she wanted nothing, is like an alchemist capable of subverting the natural solidity of matter into something light and soft.

During the pandemic, isolated with her family on her property in Itu, she began to look at her surroundings in a new way and discovered, in nature itself, other shapes and textures that she had previously not noticed in detail. Finally, her gaze and interest turned to stones. It is with this natural raw material that she continues in her experimentations and researches to develop her sculptural poetry.

Project

This book is part of The art of lightness, a project of the artist in partnership with IOK. Started in 2021 it consists of art workshops for people with disabilities of different ages. In these meetings, participants reproduced, in practice, Mary Carmen's concepts and elaborated their own readings of her work, through sculptures and paintings.

"It struck me that many of them, without my telling them, developed their works in the same way I usually do: first the drawing, then the wire and finally the heavier materials," she says "I saw a lot of sensitivity there and it was a great learning experience for me." Five of these works join 12 others by the artist to make up the exhibition The Paths of Form at MIS.

About IOK

Founded in 2007, the Instituto Olga Kos de Inclusão Cultural (IOK) is a non-profit association that develops artistic and sports projects approved by tax incentive laws to assist, as a priority, children, young people and adults with disabilities.

In addition, part of the vacancies in our projects is intended for people without disabilities, who are in a situation of social vulnerability and live in regions close to where the workshops are held. This way, we intend to enable a greater interaction between people with and without disabilities. 

Service

Exhibition: The Paths of Form
Opening: June 8, at 7pm
Place: Sound and Image Museum (MIS)
Address: Avenida Europa, nº158, Jardim Europa