José Bezerra and Rivane Neuenschwander at auroras / São Paulo

José Bezerra and Rivane Neuenschwander
Acauã and the Ghost

curated by Gisela Domschke

March 14th - August 31st


auroras

Av. São Valério, 426
São Paulo, Brazil

Exhibition overview


Exhibition overview

José Bezerra 
Sem título, 2011 
60 x 15 x 30 cm
José Bezerra 
Sem título, 2019 
53 x 73 x 26 cm
José Bezerra 
A primeira cobra, 2019 
64 x 123 x 65 cm
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
Rivane Neuenschwander 
Caça ao Fantasma I, 2018 
Poliptico | 89 x 187,5 cm
Rivane Neuenschwander
Diários de Pangaea, 2008
Diários de Pangaea
All images courtesy of the artists and space.
Photos by Ding Musa (Installation views and José Bezerra's works) and Eduardo Ortega (Rivane Neuenschwader's works)

auroras is pleased to present the exhibition “Acauã and the Ghost”, a relationship between the work of Rivane Neuenschwander and José Bezerra. Neuenschwander shows for the first time in Brazil the complete series of Caça ao Fantasma (2018) while Bezerra displays sculptures around the space. 

In a set of five works made up of six-part polyptychs, Caça ao Fantasma shows attempts to reveal the word “ghost” on maps hidden by white paint. Six different people were invited by the artist to scrape with the stylus the same drawing made by a child. In these works we see the registration of different sensibilities in access to a veiled form, like in a scratch-off. This groping drawing also refers to the slug trail that drew the series of works A Aturdita developed by Neuenschwander in 2014. 

Similarly, José Bezerra's sculptures also seem to reveal a drawing hinted in the founded wood, giving shapes that are part of the artist's imagination. Bezerra sees images of animals he ate on the trunks, branches and roots. With the gouge, he carves the wood to make the figure appear, which still does not lose its link with the vegetable matter. 

Curated by Gisela Domschke, the exhibition opens a dialogue between two distinct practices, which address desire as the production of the real, whether in Neuenschwander's ghost with psychoanalytic contours or in Bezerra's pulsating form. Both can be seen as different perspectives on being in this world, its external and internal distances, its variations that relate, its differences that reveal the multiple views of the point.  

In the opening, it is foreseen the screening of the film on film Pangaea’s Diaries (2008) by Neuenschwander, where ants interact with a world map made of thin slices of meat in the form of the supercontinent, which existed 300 million years ago.



José Bezerra (1952, Buíque) lives in the Catimbau Valley, where he worked most of his life as a farmer. In 2005 he started his artistic practice sculpting animals, blessed women and other creatures of his imagination in woods found in the region. Since then, the artist held solo exhibitions at Galeria Estação (São Paulo, 2015 and 2009); Celma Albuquerque Gallery (Belo Horizonte, 2010); SESC (Bauru and São Carlos, 2010), in addition to participating in exhibitions at institutions such as the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain (Paris, 2014 and 2012); MAM - Museum of Modern Art (Rio de Janeiro, 2013); Instituto Tomie Ohtake (2012) and SESC Paulista (São Paulo, 2007). His work is part of important collections such as the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain (Paris); MAM - Museum of Modern Art (Rio de Janeiro); AfroBrasil Museum (São Paulo); Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; SESC Belenzinho (São Paulo) and Tropenmuseum junior (Amsterdam). 

Rivane Neuenschwander (1967, Belo Horizonte) graduated from the Federal University of Minas Gerais in 1993 and took an extension course at the Sculpture Department of the Royal College of Art in London. Neuenschwander's work has been the subject of individual exhibitions in places such as the Rio Art Museum - MAR (2017); Museum of Modern Art (São Paulo, 2014); New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, 2010); Malmö Konsthall (Malmo, 2010); Tokyo Palais (Paris, 2003) and Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, 2002). She also participated in the Istanbul Biennial (1997); São Paulo Biennial (1998, 2006 and 2008); Venice Biennale (2003 and 2005); and the Carnegie International, in Pittsburgh (2008). In 2004, she was selected for the Hugo Boss Award at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and in 2013 she was awarded the Yanghyun Award by the Yanghyun Foundation in South Korea. Her work is in the most important art collections such as MoMA's - Museum of Modern Art (New York); Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City); Tate Modern (London); TBA-ThyssenBornemisza Art Contemporary (Vienna); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); Inhotim Institute (Brumadinho).

Gisela Domschke (São Paulo) graduated in philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy Letters and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo (FFLCH / USP) in 1987 and now is a PhD student at the same institution. Domschke also holds a master's degree at the Central Saint Martins College of Arts. Her work comprises different media: cinema, video, web art, installations and performances. She was coordinator of MA Digital Culture at Goldsmiths University, London. She was curator of 01SJ BIENNIAL (San Jose, CA, 2012), Radical Fictions at the IV 3M Exhibition of Digital Art, Tomie Ohtake Institute (São Paulo, 2013), Basement, Red Bull Station (São Paulo, 2015), Beleza Still Vital, Glory Hole (Jaqueline Martins Gallery, São Paulo 2015 - 2016), Round N Around (Het Niewe Instituut, Rotterdam, HVA Citizen Data Lab, Amsterdam, 2016). Her works were exhibited in institutions such as Whitney Biennial (NY), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), ICA (London), FILE (São Paulo), Johnson Museum of Art (Ithaca), Center d 'Art Contemporain (Geneve), Videobrasil (São Paulo), 24 Biennial of São Paulo (SP), Museum of Art of São Paulo (SP). Since 2016, she has been the project director for the auroras space, where she also coordinates the educational program Arte Na Casa.

Special thanks for “Caça ao fantasma” Adriano Pedrosa, Amanda Rodrigues Alves, Ava Miranda Mata Machado, Hannah Volz, Isa Galan, Isadora Vasques Aldado, Jochen Volz, Juliana Pongitor, Laura Volpe, Laura Gimenez, Lucas Oliveira, Luisa Morettin, Marco Antônio Mota, Marcius Galan, Maria da Penha Brant, Miguel Galan, Pedro Andrada, Pedro Ursini, Rachel Brant Leroy, Theo Volz and Tomás Toledo.