Bruscky Paulo: rec/rio

Galeria Nara Roesler | Rio de Janeiro announces the opening of rec/rio featuring more than 90 works by Paulo Bruscky.

For his third show at Galeria Nara Roesler and his first at Rio de Janeiro space, rec/rio will focus on three nuclei: works proposed to the city of Rio but never realized, works created while in Rio, and works produced specifically for the Galeria Nara Roesler | Rio de Janeiro exhibition.

Paulo Bruscky, a pioneer of xerox art, mail, and fax art, emerged on the Brazilian art scene in the late 1960s, one of the nation’s darkest periods of state political oppression. Despite the harsh political climate, he resisted authoritarian structures, pushing the boundaries of experimentation through the employment of humor and wordplay by staging happenings and interventions. As he himself states, he never asked the government for permission to make art. Even when the repercussions of this attitude lead him to be imprisoned. Although many of his projects won important competitions they almost always were censored. Featured in rec/rio are over 50 of these proposals made to the city of Rio. Some have since been realized such as Fogueira de gelo, which was completed during the 2010 Sao Paulo Biennale but the majority remain unfinished. In response to this, Galeria Nara Roesler is producing for the first time the work, Tiro ao alvo. First proposed in 1971 at the I Salão de arte de Electrobras the work consist of light being caught on mirrors, projecting itself and turning on a radio as an end result. This work can only be activated by the public playing the traditional children´s game.

Known for his active involvement in the international mail art movement and for the dynamic re­lationships he forged with international artists including Fluxus and Gutai artists working in New York, Europe, and Japan, he is an artist that has always been communicating with the world. In rec/rio, he brings to the gallery works that were created in the air. While traveling to Rio and while thinking of Rio. A sort of communication to himself. Poema para VoAR, is a poem where two planes are welded together to form one. He will also communicate to the larger population of Rio by posting one of his iconic communications via classified ads which was published on the 1st of July, 2016 in the Jornal O Globo so people will be able to bring them to the gallery to be signed by the artist on the day of the opening.

Always contemporary but never obvious in his process and creation, Bruscky brings to us a twist on the status quo as can be enjoyed in his feet ¨selfies¨ Pés de Bruscky I and II or firecracker paintings. rec/rio brings old memories and new works to Rio creating again a depth and layer to his already existing body of work, spanning over forty-five years, which reflects a simultaneous engagement with a local artistic framework and a global network, and which he fil­tered and documented through artist books, urban interventions, performances, visual poetry, Super 8s, art classifieds, and readymade sculptures. Tra­versing multiple mediums and often employing his surroundings as primary material, it is impossible to speak of his production as a unified body of work. On the contrary, at the core of Bruscky’s practice lies a poetics of experimentation, a versatility of media, and an interest in processes of circulation and distri­bution, which refuses to be bound to one medium, form, or movement.

Paulo Bruscky was born in 1949 in Recife, where he lives and works.
He featured in the 16th, 20th, 26th, and 29th editions of the São Paulo Biennal (1981, 1989, 2004 and 2010); the 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba (2009), among other biennials. Recent solo shows include: Paulo Bruscky (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, 2014); Paulo Bruscky: Artist Books and Films, 1970-2013 (The Mistake Room, Los Angeles, USA, 2015; Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil, 2014); Art is our last hope (The Bronx Museum, New York, USA, 2013); Paulo Bruscky (Plataforma Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia, 2013); Banco de ideias (Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil, 2012); and Arte correio (Centro Cultural dos Correios, Recife, Brazil, 2011). His works are included in the collections of: MoMA, New York, USA; Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; Tate Gallery, London, England; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland; among others.