Banalidade

Created by Instituto Tomie Ohtake in 2013, the Arte Atual Program is consolidated as a platform for the researches and new works of young artists and also as a space in which collective shows are built from multiple and heterogeneous perspectives on one single issue. Originally conceived as an annual initiative, its first three editions brought together a total of 10 artists, organized around different themes and in various layouts. In 2015, an associate program was created: the Arte Atual Festival, in which younger artists were invited to participate in a dynamic and experimental exhibition process.

Now in 2016, the program gains new life, fulfilling a series of exhibitions throughout the year, organized from one central theme that will work as a common denominator interpreted through different horizons in each new volume. “The set on banality, in its different volumes, can be understood as a book and its several chapters, organized intermittently with different artists, approaches and interpretations” says Paulo Miyada, Instituto Tomie Ohtake’s Curator.

Borrowing its name from the classic Renaissance treatises from the 15th century, on banality, according to Miyada, works as an essay about common sense, about the surface or subtlety of things, the small things, the banality of evil and the banality of the political. Furthermore, he states that, at each new interpretation new ways to deal with this large subject will be unfolded in the projects developed by the artists invited to participate in this program. 

In this first volume, Ana Elisa Egreja, Julia Kater and Cabelo – in paintings, screen prints, installations and videos – associate and debate frivolity, futility, poor taste, foolishness, tenderness, what goes unnoticed and what is ordinary, in an attempt to bethink about the several kinds of banality. “What interests us here is not to demonstrate how artists can do something special using common materials, on the contrary, it is to follow them in their handling of banality in itself, harnessing its supposed lack of specificity, aura and value in an attempt to reflect upon is most disconcerting meanings”, explains Miyada.

The Arte Atual Program is carried out through partnerships between Instituto Tomie Ohtake and art galleries, who support the execution of the projects and works by the artists they represent. In this edition, Leme Gallery, Marília Razuk Gallery and SIM Gallery endorsed the Arte Atual Program.