Narrativas Poéticas – Coleção Santander no Brasil

After being exhibited in eight Brazilian capitals, Narrativas Poéticas – Coleção Santander no Brasil [Poetical Narratives – Santander Collection in Brazil] has reached its final destination in Rio de Janeiro, where it’s part of the celebrations for the city’s 450th anniversary. Curated by Helena Severo, the show establishes connections and parallels between visual arts and poetry. To achieve that goal, she counted with the assistance of the philosopher and writer Antonio Cicero and the poet Eucanaã Ferraz, who were responsible for the selection of 48 fragments by 26 great Brazilian poets, like Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Vinicius de Moraes, Ferreira Gullar, Alice Ruiz, and João Cabral de Melo Neto.

After years of work on the collection, involving cataloguing, renovation and research, this is the first traveling show of the Santander Collection in Brazil, which holds an expressive sector of modern Brazilian art. Amongst the 54 pieces by 36 artists that compose the exhibit, we can mention the exponents of Modernism Candido Portinari (1903 – 1962, Brazil),  Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, (1887 – 1976, Brazil), Alfredo Volpi (1896, Italy – 1988, Brazil), and Cícero Dias (1907, Brazil – 2003, France), other than names like Tomie Ohtake (1913, Japan – 2015, Brazil), Arcangelo Ianelli (b. 1922, São Paulo), and recent pieces from Tuca Reinés (b. 1956, São Paulo), Flavia Metzler (b. 1974, Rio de Janeiro), Fernanda Rappa (b. 1981, Jundiaí, Brazil) and Renata De Bonis (b. 1984, São Paulo).

As an inclusion measure, five works were reproduced in high relief and are available as tactical experiences for the visually impaired. They are: “Baile no Campo”, by Cícero Dias; “Figura”, by Milton Dacosta (b. 1915, Niterói, Brazil); “Paisagem”, by Francisco Rebolo (1902 – 1980, Brazil); “Barcos”, by Arcangelo Ianelli; and “Série Amazônica”, by Ivan Serpa(1923 – 1973, Brazil).