José Antonio da Silva
Jose Antonio da Silva's exhibition, a journey back in time, showcased the artist's rich artistic journey, highlighting his ability to capture rural life that was destined to vanish. His works, genuine historical documents, immortalized the simplicity and poetry of rural life in past Brazil.
Paulo Kuczynski's Imaginary Collection
In honor of Paulo Kuczynski‘s more than 50 year long career as art dealer. The Instituto Tomie Ohtake invites curator Jacopo Crivelli Visconti to propose an engaging journey through the "Imaginary Collection" of Paulo Kuczynski, bringing together some of the most extraordinary works traded by the gallerist in the last five decades. With over two hundred exhibited works, including names like Alfredo Volpi, José Pancetti, Lasar Segall, Ismael Nery, Frans Krajcberg, Lygia Clark, Wesley Duke Lee, lone Saldanha, Adriana Varejão, Mira Schendel, and Maria Martins, the Imaginary Collection of Paulo Kuczynski aligns different periods and expressions of Brazilian art, allowing unexpected and highly fruitful connections and approximations.
Tarsila do Amaral
We are about to celebrate 100 years of the Modern Art Week and 200 years of Independence. Are we really modern and independent? This exhibition, which does not intend to answer any of the questions, wants to observe closely, through two works, a moment, this one indeed, decisive and transforming, between the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s. and in Tarsila's own life did she change the look of our greatest modernist artist? From the bucolic memory of childhood in Landscape with Two Little Pigs to the human suffering depicted in Second Class, only 3 years have passed, and now the vision of the world is different, another painting, by the same artist.
Oswaldo Goeldi
The Goeldi exhibition, held in 2019, presented a collection of 62 original works by the artist, including woodcuts, drawings and watercolors that reveal the themes typical of his poetic—fishermen, storms, wastelands—, and works from the series A Morte (Death) and A Guerra (War). The collection was put together by Günther and Lygia Pape, and, given their close personal relationship with Goeldi, the choice of works comes layered with meanings and feelings which we can only intuit. In recent decades, many pieces from the collection have been exhibited at museums and biennials, including the “Brazil 500 Years” exhibition. Some of the woodcuts are one-off prints, so there are no other copies of them out there. One such piece is the engraving for which Goeldi won the International Print Prize at the 2nd International Biennial of Mexico. The Oswaldo Goeldi originals acquired by his good friend while the ink was still wet on the Japanese paper, or the India ink on the cotton sheet, reflect the near-miraculous result of the artist’s absolute constancy and dedication to his art.
Frans Krajcberg
The show Frans Krajcberg: Nature as Studio consisted of 25 works produced between the early 1960s and late 80s, including a painting and sculpture in burnt wood exhibited at the 2016 São Paulo Bienal. There was also a solitary “Ballerina” surrounded by exceedingly rare works from lesser-known phases of his career, such as the “Relevos” (Reliefs), specifically those in minerals glued on plywood panels produced in Ibiza, Spain, in 1961, when the artist was still living between Rio de Janeiro and Paris, and those in pigment and sand on craft paper produced in the 70s, when he decided to settle once and for all in Nova Viçosa, Bahia. Concerning the reliefs in beach sand and minerals on palm leaves, the Rio-based critic Frederico Morais remarked: “Krajcberg didn’t invent the relief, but he was the first to create reliefs out of a direct relationship with nature.”
Alfredo Volpi
In 2022, we commemorate the centennial of the Modern Art Week and the bicentennial of Independence. But are we really modern or independent? This exhibition, which does not purport to answer either question, aims to examine, through close examination of two works of art, that moment both decisive and transformative that was the end of the 1920s, beginning of the 1930s. How did the turmoil in the world, Brazil and inTarsila’s own life change our greatest modernist artist’s outlook? Only three years separate the bucolic childhood memory captured in Paisagem com dois porquinhos (Landscape with two little pigs) and the human suffering that is stamped all over Segunda Classe (Second-Class), yet the worldview is entirely different, as is the painting and, indeed, the artist.
Di Cavalcanti
The exhibition showed nine works Di Cavalcanti produced between the 1920s and 40s, all handpicked by Kuczynski over the course of three years combing private collections. While all the chosen works pertain to the most significant period of the painter’s career, which pretty much began with the famous Modern Art Week in São Paulo in 1922, some of them had never been exhibited in public before. The oil painting “Descanso dos Pescadores” (Fishermen at Rest), which the artist gifted to the novelist José Lins do Rego, is a case in point, as was “Bordel” (Brothel), pastel on card, which stands out for its geometric forms. The watercolor “Poeta com Flor” (Poet with Flower), produced as an illustration for an Oswald de Andrade poem published in a magazine, remains something of a mystery. The scenography was by the architect Pedro Mendes da Rocha and the catalogue presentation by the poet Ferreira Gullar.
Cildo Meireles
Instant enigmas, produced in 2018 by Escritório de Arte Paulo Kuczynski, exhibited previously unseen work by Cildo Meireles, an icon of contemporary Brazilian art, alongside other pieces from the 1970s and 80s, all true to his characteristic blend of the political and the jocular. The catalogue text was by the critic Paulo Venâncio Filho and the exhibition design by the architect Pedro Mendes da Rocha.
Hélio Oiticica
Em 2006, a galeria realizou a individual HO, de Hélio Oiticica, exibindo dez Parangolés Capa criados em 1979 para o Festival de Recife, quando Oiticica apresentou sua última performance. Paralelamente à exposição, a galeria promoveu o lançamento do catálogo que contou com um texto inédito do crítico britânico Guy Brett: "Buscando inspiração tanto no aristocrático quanto no popular, as Capas do Parangolé são, ao mesmo tempo, mantos e farrapos", escreveu.
Oswaldo Goeldi
This book is the result of a meticulous study conducted by Noemi Ribeiro, an independent history of art researcher. Here, Noemi pores over the Oswaldo Goeldi works in the Günther and Lygia Pape collection. Günther and Goeldi were close friends, and that friendship echoed in the pieces he chose to buy—a process coated in layers of meaning and feeling at which we can only guess. The artist’s originals, which Pape purchased while the paint was still wet on the Japanese paper, or the India ink on the cotton sheets, reflect the near-miraculous result of Goeldi’s unwavering constancy and dedication to his art.