Galeria Millan is pleased to present Acordelados, the first solo exhibition by Lidia Lisbôa (Guaíra, PR, 1970) at the gallery, inaugurating its exhibition program for 2022. The anthological exhibition, curated by Thiago de Paula Souza, traces the artist’s career from the late 1990s to her most recent investigations.
After moving to São Paulo in 1986, Lidia Lisbôa worked in a haute couture studio and, in 1991, began her artistic production. She studied metal engraving at the Lasar Segall Museum, contemporary sculpture and ceramics at Museu Brasileiro de Escultura e Ecologia (MuBE) and at Liceu de Artes e Ofícios. In 1997, she participated in the group exhibition Tridimensional at the MuBE and, that same year, she had her first solo exhibition at the Goethe Institute, in São Paulo. In 1998, the artist received the Prêmio Maimeri - 75 anos, granted by the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios. In 2020, Lisbôa exhibited at the Centro Cultural São Paulo and at the 12th Bienal do Mercosul, in 2021, and was part of the group exhibitions Enciclopédia Negra at Pinacoteca de São Paulo; Carolina Maria de Jesus: um Brasil para brasileiros at Instituto Moreira Salles; and A Substância da Terra: O Sertão, curated by Simon Watson, which took place first at Museu Nacional da República and then at Slag Gallery in New York.
The first exhibition room at Galeria Millan will feature works from the series titled Tetas que deram de mamar ao mundo [Tits that breastfed the world], which she began to produce in 2011. They are large textile sculptures that are hung from the ceiling all the way down to the floor, in a shape that makes reference to female breasts. The exhibition also features drawings by the artist whose forms refer to her sculptural works, especially the series Cupinzeiros [Termite Mounds]. In this series, which is also in the exhibition, the ceramic sculptures establish formal and material relationships with the termite mounds that occupy the landscape of the Brazilian countryside and that refer to Lisbôa’s childhood memories.
The artist works with different materials and techniques, such as drawing, textile art, crochet, performance and sculptures in ceramic, clay, porcelain and buttons. As she states, “My work seeks to evoke the strength and power of the feminine, the power of women as the driving force of the meaning of their own existence in the world.” Her works relate to memory and the experiences that the artist had in her childhood in the countryside. They also touch upon the forms of the female body, the process of motherhood and the relationships that ways of life establish with territoriality. When referring to her production, she states that “(...) In my works, I want to weave and mold in order to unstructure, to undo what must be undone and to give views to ways of life and expressions that many years of concealment hoped to force into oblivion”.