On October 6, Millan will open Vanderlei Lopes’ (1973, Terra Boa, Brazil) new solo exhibition Intimate Visit [Visita íntima]. It features a set of bronze sculptures along with a sound installation, and is presented in a critical essay by Heloisa Espada. To accommodate the show, which includes heavy, large-scale sculptures, the gallery underwent a renovation, debuting a new facade and exhibition space on this occasion.
As the title suggests, Intimate Visit explores the contrasts between private and public spaces, the unsaid and the Freudian slip, and between ordinary and extraordinary, thus addressing the close relationship between aesthetic creation and desire. The latter takes shape in the works shown as seductive, shiny objects or as erotic representations and suggestions.
Eroticism is most explicit in Espelho [Mirror], a large bronze relief weighing five tons installed on the gallery’s ceiling. The piece depicts a scene in which bodies become indistinguishable amid a bacchanal. Adorned with rocailles, the piece alludes to the Baroque tradition. Its oval and polished shape resembles that of an eye and allows the audience to see themselves reflected within it. In fact, Olho [Eye] is the title of another work in the exhibition.
As stated by the artist, Espelho emerges as a fragment of architecture whose form and weight reference Baroque, a tradition that relates to the dualities, tensions, or contradictions we have experienced recently. It acts like a collage in physical space, resembling a cathedral or mirrored ceiling that, through constant reflection, takes on the shape of what it reflects.
As they approach the gallery, the audience is immediately faced with the starting point for the discussions that permeate Intimate Visit. The sound installation Funk-fuck-funck, installed on the sidewalk, consists of speakers playing recordings of sounds that breached into the artist’s studio during the period of social distancing imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Made up of fragments of confessions, howls, sirens, helicopters, and music, the sound waves emitted by the installation blend with the noise of Fradique Coutinho Street, reckoning the flow of personal and trivial information that permeates everyone’s life.
By engaging with the sculptural tradition through the use of bronze, Lopes challenges the value attributed to the material and to the art object. An example of this is the installation Transbrasiliana. Its pieces are laid out on the floor, mimicking waste such as cigarette butts, hair ties, bitten apples, and chewed gum. All of them were cast in bronze and then painted to recover their original appearance.
This process emphasizes the indexical, almost photographic, nature of much of Lopes’s work, which suggests a prior presence also perceivable in works such as Ato [Act], Roupão [Bathrobe], and Presente [Present].
Also on October 6, Millan will inaugurate the exhibition A pintura como verbo [The Painting as a Verb] by Mariana Palma, curated by Ivo Mesquita. The gallery’s installations span two buildings on Fradique Coutinho. While Palma’s solo show will take place at number 1,430, Lopes’s exhibition will be inaugurated at the gallery’s newly redesigned headquarters at number 1,360.
