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Reading time 2 min

The right place

Redação Inhotim

Today Brumadinho has its 75th anniversary and has become one of the Brazilian cities that are most talked about in the national and international press. In addition to hosting Inhotim, which has brought the city the title of one of the great tourism destinations in Brazil, the city has a rich cultural and natural heritage.

 

The population of about 35 thousand inhabitants is made up of generous, welcoming people. The religious and cultural tradition of the quilombola (former slaves) communities are experienced with the energy of those who are proud of their African roots in their daily lives. The musical vocation of the city shows its rhythms in the instruments of its century old bands and in the voices of the several choirs that gather together children, teenagers and adults.

 

Nature has also been very generous with the town. Two important world biomes, the Atlantic Rainforest and the cerrado, or Brazilian Savanna, meet at the ocean of mountains in the Brumadinho territory.  During most of the year the mountains and the city are covered in fog and the days start off with a fresh, light air.

 

So, where else could Inhotim be located? Nowhere else in the world. That is why we are proud of being a part of this history.

 

This is a homage of Instituto Inhotim to the 75th anniversary of Brumadinho.

Reading time 3 min

Lab for art

Redação Inhotim

The environment is light. Through the round window, the late afternoon light and the urban atmosphere invade the room. The noise of horns makes the visitors’ whispers almost disappear. They carefully evaluate the photos hanging on the walls. In the center, supports show parts of the exhibition. In common they have one of the oldest knowledge aids emerged in the Middle Ages: the book.

 

Entitled Sublevações do Livro: Objeto – Espaço – Matéria, the show held in early December brings productions from participants of Laboratório Inhotim, an educational project of the Institute, developed with students from Brumadinho/MG. Throughout 2013, kids investigated different aspects of this ancient technical innovation, which now awaits the moment to become obsolete – or not.

 

Among the 17 experiments, there are two by  Rafaela Hermenegilda. “When I started my work, my first thought was to find a subject or key object. Among many, I chose the tree, since it is a very important plant for the world and produces two essential things in my life: oxygen and the sheets that make up books “, says the girl, from the top of her 14 years of age. To build one of her proposals, Rafaela used the book literally as fertile ground. “The piece plays with role shifting, as the tree became the receiver of writing, and the book had to accommodate the tree”. A poetic metaphor of how knowledge and reading can make beautiful ideas blossom.

 

Laboratório Inhotim - Obra em exposiçãoWhen planting the species in the book, Rafaela gave new meaning to literature and nature Photo: Rossana Magri
 

 

In her series of photographs, the tree is the mainstay for storytelling. “People write in trees, recording special moments, hurting them with words that summarize important memories. I started to photograph all these writings I could find. Developed the idea that they are book-objects”. On her participation in the project, she summarizes: “It was very rewarding to learn a bit about art and, perhaps, even discover a profession”.

 

Reading time 2 min

2013 Mercosul Biennial

Luiza Verdolin

The 2013 Mercosul Biennial was amazing! Warm Porto Alegre lived up to the event’s 9th edition title: Weather Permitting. If the title is seen as a question, the answer is yes. Seen as a statement, it was as coherent as possible. And, yet, seen as a condition, it justifies the incredible resulting experience. Going through the museums, institutions and spaces sheltering artworks and where performances took place, the thin line between art and nature was reinforced, delightfully confusing us as to where one starts and the other one ends.  The confluence of materials, methods, myths and rituals confirmed the promise of an environment intended to make you face natural resources in a new light, speculating about the bases that mark distinctions between discovery and invention.

 

 

Here I share one of the treasures of the Mercosul Biennial, for those who haven´t been able to experience it: Tradução da resina. Resins are secretions produced by plants, which have specific purposes and contents. They became potential materials used in the production of several consumption goods such as waxes and latex. Lucy Skaer used resin as raw material for 25-kilo precious stones. Celulose Irani factory produced the work by extracting resin from pine. The piece subverts industrial and cultural production logic. In this context, as it happens in many other works in the 9th Mercosul Biennial, Skaer’s work explains how art poetically and excitingly “re”forms what nature produces.

Reading time 3 min

Risk and poetry

Rodrigo Moura

The arrival of Luiz Zerbini’s paintings at Inhotim, which happened at the same time the Juan Araujo room was opened, together with an exhibit on still life, show the desire to show and talk about painting.  Since the Adriana Varejão pavilion was opened back in 2008, painting hasn´t been in the foreground in our exhibits as much as it is now.  With intricate compositions and complex cultural references, Zerbini’s figurative works could be considered the focal point of his presentation at Galeria Praça, a reinvention of narrative painting – I think of the line that goes through Renaissance religious painting to the Brazilian historical painting of the 19th century.

 

The relationship with nature, which is understood as the construction of man, becomes especially relevant at Inhotim, where the boundaries between what is cultivated and what is natural are always present.  In Mamão Manilha (2012), a papaya tree resists at a construction site that includes a painting by Hélio Oiticica.  In Mar do Japão (2010), it is the opposite:  human traces remain in an entropic seascape. The geometric paintings and sculpture-collages that complete the room show the artist’s restlessness during the last ten years of his production.  Due to his solar tropical and exuberant painting, at the same time Zerbini is a legend among Brazilian painters from the 1980s, he gathers 30 years of art showing that there is no poetry without risk.

 

Obras de Luiz Zerbini na Galeria praça. Foto: Ricardo Mallaco
Luiz Zerbini’s works can be seen on the Galeria Praça. Photo: Ricardo Mallaco

 

Reading time 5 min

Musical partnership

Redação Inhotim

Next Saturday (07), two young artists from Belo Horizonte, Alexander Andrés and Rafael Martini, will perform in the closing of the 2013 musical programming at Inhotim. Both artists have an intense musical production, acting as composers, musicians and performers. One after the other, they will perform on stage at Inhotim theater, at 2:30 pm and 4:00 pm. In the interview below, Andrés tells a little bit about his career, influences on his work and partnership with Martini, who he considers to be “a complete musician”.

 

You began composing when you were only 15 years old. How has your career in music been since then?

 

I grew up in a musical home. My mother is a pianist, a professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and my father is a flutist and also a professor at UFMG and a member of the Uakti group. Since I was a child, I had contact with good music from Minas Gerais as well as with classical music, played by my parents in a flute-piano duo, in which, by the way, they still play together nowadays. I studied music from an early age, and when I was 15 I became interested in composition. In 2008, at age 18, I recorded my first album, “Agualuz“, in partnership with poet Bernardo Maranhão.

 

Do you consider yourself more of a singer or composer?

 

I consider myself a musician, who appreciates the search as an interpreter, flutist, guitarist, singer, as much as the search as a composer.

In a few moments of my life I see myself more as a composer, usually when I am experiencing the compositional process, creating arrangements and everything else. On the other hand, at other times I feel more like an interpreter, usually when I’m on tour, releasing an album, a new project. That is, in fact these two aspects are very strong in me, perhaps they have the same strength.

 

How do your home state roots influence your work?

 

The fact that Minas Gerais music is present in my work is inevitable. I’ve followed artists like the Uakti Group, Clube da Esquina, among others, ever since I was little. I got a lot of musical baggage by listening to good music from Minas Gerais. So naturally, there’s a lot of music from Minas in my work.

 

What relationship do you establish with the work of musician Rafael Martini, who will perform the same day you will at Inhotim?

 

Rafael is a complete musician, a pianist and one of the leading composers and arrangers in Minas Gerais, representing the new generation of musicians. I met Rafael in 2008 and, at that time, his work with the “Quebra Pedra” group started to influence me a lot in terms of music. Today I consider him one of my best friends and one of my greatest musical partners. We have been playing together since 2010, when he invited me to perform with “Quebra Pedra”. Since then, we have played together quite often. In his album  “Motivos”, I participated in the recording and all the release shows and he took part in the recording and release shows of my “Macaxeira Fields” album. This is the second time this year we will be together on stage, performing both shows. We did this in July during the São João Del Rei Winter Festival. It will be very nice to make these two beautiful concerts in a space as special as Inhotim.