Skip to content
pt
Home
Reading time 3 min

New Orchid Greenhouse at Inhotim

Redação Inhotim

Next Saturday, March 22, Inhotim Botanical Garden opens another thematic space. The new Vanda Orchid Greenhouse will gather about 350 orchids from the Vanda group, originating from Southeast Asia and Australia, and it will be the only greenhouse of the kind open to the public in Brazil. The event will be the ideal opportunity to see about 50% of these plants flowering at the same time.

 

The creation of an area dedicated to these rare orchids is part of a conservation project carried out by the Institute and intended to collaborate with the maintenance of these vulnerable species. Those visiting the Vanda Orchid Greenhouse on its opening day will have the chance to talk with orchid specialist Delfina de Araújo and discover interesting facts about these plants. The Blog do Inhotim chatted with the scholar, who gave some tips on how to cultivate this species. Check it out!

 

– The flowering of the Vandaceous lasts 40 days on average. A good tip to extend this period is to keep the plant away from lamps. The heat they emit causes flowers to dry and wither;

 

– Sun and excessive heat are also harmful because they lead to plant water loss. So keep the flowers in a cool place;

 

– The vandaceous should be watered every day, always in the morning. Use preferably a spray bottle and water them until the roots turn green and lose the pearlescent appearance;

 

– After the loss of flowers, water the plant daily and apply specific fertilizers for this species. They should be kept in a bright place, but away from direct sunlight.

 

Click here to learn more about the new Vanda Orchid Greenhouse.

Reading time 2 min

Natureza-Morta X Still Life

Jochen Volz

It is intriguing that the Still life in all Northern European languages is so evidently linked to life, even if motionless, whereas in all Latin languages the same artistic practice is described as dead nature. Despite the fact that naturally an equation can be made between inert life and death, the same category of depiction is described from so opposite angles of view.  It is through nuances, subtle contradictions and poetic irritation that the Still life holds such a central role in art history. Image of everyday objects like fruits and vegetables, pots, glasses, tools and other household objects have always been more than sheer exercises of observation, but instead developed into an autonomous art form from the 16th century onwards and simultaneously into a philosophical statement, describing the finitude of being and the equality of existence of things, organic or inorganic. In contemporary art, by arranging and re-arranging objects, by contrasting order and disorder, emptiness and fullness, presence and absence, artists encourage us to question the mental and physical space in which we live and the values attributed to our knowledge about things. The works presented in the exhibition entitled “Still life” at Galeria Fonte question the measures with which we describe the world we live in and the objects we define as art. Time standing still, as suggested in Jorge Macchi’s work, opens chances for the discovery of new systems of meaning and unexpected procedures.

 

 

* Jochen Volz is a curator at Inhotim

Reading time 3 min

The look as a form of action

Júlia Rebouças

When I entered the room where Babette Mangolte’s work is being displayed at Galeria Mata, the image of a male face in a TV set caught my attention. Richard Serra, shot over a blue background – one of the few color elements in the room – seems to be staring at the viewer. His features are serious, still, he observes that which looks at him, the lens. The nearby black & white TV set displays the image of Yvone Rainer, who is more carefree, with a headband and playing around with some tape in her lips. But her portrait also stares at the camera. Both pieces of equipment, placed in the center of the room, converge towards me in a beautiful metonymy about the artist’s work and research processes, which is shown in a monographic way in that space. When she looks at others, Babette Mangolte shows us her own subjective matter.

 

Babette is French and lives in the US. She experienced and registered in film, video and photography the important dance, theater and art scene that flourished especially in New York City in the 70s. The reflection of the experimentations made at that time ultimately impacted the paths taken by art. The generous and diversified archive created by the artist does more than simply document a historical period, it rather proposes an inflection and criticism that makes up the memory of that time. 

 

Babette Mangolte - Touching III with collage III, 2013Babette registered in film, video and photography the dance, theater and art scene, especially in New York City in the 70s Photo: Rossana Magri

 

 

During a conversation that took place when the exhibit was being assembled, the artist talked about the first showings of the film Water Motor (1978), in which choreographer Trisha Brown appears dancing for seven minutes. No costumes, no scenario, no music, just the body in motion, representing the decelerated pace of slow motion. In Babette’s own words, that image was so abstract and removed from any narrative support that it seemed to be impossible for it to be appreciated in the 70s. Genres like the video clip had to become more popular in the following decades before these manifestations were more deeply comprehended. The look was so daring that it was equivalent to the extremeness of the dance itself.

 

 

* Júlia Rebouças has been a curator at Inhotim since 2007.

Reading time 2 min

Numbers in words

Redação Inhotim

2013 marks the largest exchange of artistic collection in Inhotim, which currently totals 170 works on display. In other numbers, there were 86 new works by 18 artists from 9 different nationalities. For the first time, temporary galleries Mata, Praça, Lago and Fonte had their spaces renovated in the same year. Another innovation was the inauguration of thematic exhibitions such as “amor lugar comum“, by Luiz Zerbini, “Mineiriana“, by Juan Araujo and “Babette Mangolte”, by the artist herself. Still Life was another topic that received great prominence, more precisely, an entire gallery. In all, 14 names, as Rivane Neuenschwander, Sarah Branch and Tacita Dean, exhibit over 40 works at Galeria Fonte.

 

No one better than Inhotim curators to translate these numbers into words. Watch the video!

 

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