Thomaz Rosa, Percorso cucito, oil and collage on canvas, 40 x 50 cm, 2021.
Juliana dos Santos, AO, Clitoria flower and watercolor on cotton paper, 76 x 56 cm, 2022.
Bruno Baptistelli, untitled (brown), leather belt, 2011-2023.
Bruno Baptistelli, untitled (brown), leather belt, 2011-2023 (detail).
Juliana dos Santos, clitoria flower and watercolor on cotton paper, 76 x 56 cm, 2022.
Bruno Baptistelli, untitled (series AA), acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 40 x 50 cm, 2023.
Carolina Cordeiro, Time is, Zinc plate and handmade mirror in a steel frame, 76 x 38 x 27 cm, 2023. Photo by: Ding Musa.
Thomaz Rosa, Topography of a staple, oil on canvas, 30 x 37 cm, 2021.
Carolina Cordeiro, Initial Signs, zinc discs and paper, 86.5 x 97 cm, 2023. Photo by: Ding Musa.
Carolina Cordeiro, Initial Signs, zinc discs and paper, 86.5 x 97 cm, 2023 (detail). Photo by: Ding Musa.
All images courtesy and copyright of the artists and gallery. Photos by Ana Pigosso.
‘Black People Are The Silence They Cannot Understand’, whose title is borrowed from the homonymous work by the recently deceased American artist Pope.L (1955-2023), takes as its starting point excerpts from art historian Darby English’s interview* with Folasade Ologundudu:
“For example, you can’t get to the reality of abstract art without engaging the discourse of abstract art, which, ironically, is the most discursive art of the modern era. And you can’t get to the reality of a Black artist doing abstraction without dealing with the abstractness of Blackness as a matrix of identifications and projections, equally real and unreal.
But most everything you can read about Black artists doing abstraction eradicates this complexity to produce a more cohesive, less conflictual narrative about race and representation. I’m afraid Black abstract artists won’t get the viewing and understanding they deserve until we relinquish the very categorial ways we look at things and categorical tones we adopt to produce and share culturally-specific knowledge. The true radicality of that choice needs a facilitating environment which doesn’t exist yet.
…
To me, the worrisome thing about a flood of figuration is the time and resources we aren’t spending on the part of us we can’t image, the part we won’t sell, the mysteries, the fractions, the freaks. So whenever I see a figure, the first thing I need to do is to determine what it is and what it’s for. Is it a good witch or a bad witch?”
Participating in the group show are Bruno Baptistelli, Carolina Cordeiro, Juliana Dos Santos and Thomaz Rosa.
*excerpt from the interview between Darby English with Folasade Ologundudu originally published on Artnet on 01/26/2021.