Quarta-feira de Cinzas

Curated by Luisa Duarta, Quarta-feira de Cinzas [Ash Wednesday] is the third exhibition of the program Visiting Curator, inaugurated in 2015. Invited by Lisette Lagnado, director of EAV Parque Lage, the curator brought to the institution her research about themes like the consequences of post-utopian times; the acceleration of time and loss of experience; the ruin both as symbol of an inconclusive epoch and as a potent image for new constructions.

To reflect the spirit of the Ash Wednesday, this moment after the Carnaval, when the party is over and gives space to feeling of melancholy and hopelessness, the curator gathered about 40 works by 22 artists and by five students of EAV Parque Lage (a condition of the program). The title of the show comes from an homonymous film from 2006 by Cao Guimarães (b. 1965, Belo Horizonte) and Rivane Neuenschwander (b. 1967, Belo Horizonte), that, despite being absent from the show, it’s in the origin of the reflection developed there – the artists are, however, present in the exhibition with other individual works.

The displayed works were chosen during a series of studio visits, except for a few pieces that the curator had already had in mind: “Construção de Brasília”, a 1965 photograph by Claudia Andujar (b. 1931, Neuchâtel, Switzerland); a new installation by Matheus Rocha Pitta (b. 1980, Tiradentes) created with news clipping he collects; and a video installation by filmmakers Karim Aïnouz (b. 1966, Fortaleza) and Armando Praça (b. 1978, Aracati).

For the curator, all the works in the show present a delicate aspect as response to the brutality and the barbarism that are present in everyday life. They also point to questions researched by the curator, such as the idea of a circular time, present in the 2015 video “Água Suja”, by André Komatsu (b. 1978, São Paulo), which she relates to the “frenetic immobility” commented by Octavio Paz. The idea of new constructions from the ruins of modernism is present in two photos by Carlos Garaicoa (b. 1967, Havana), “Hospital baleado” (1996) and “Hueco con cielo” (1996). Adriano Costa’s (b. 1975, São Paulo) work, “Progress Regress / Cidade Rapadura” (2014), with bricks and sand, is also a delicate reminder of the possibilities of such constructions.

On October 30th, at 7 pm, the writer and psychoanalyst Maria Rita Kehl will discuss “Acceleration and depression” at EAV Parque Lage’s Salão Nobre. A newspaper in tabloid format, with an interview to the curator by Lisette Lagnado, accompanies the exhibition.