Júlio Villani

I met Julio in Paris, but I confess I do not remember in what year.
While visiting his studio I came across his beautiful geometric paintings and his brilliant pictures. But all of a sudden I saw some birds floating in the room hanging from strings. They were a ladle and a kitchen skimmer, common household objects that, hanging from the ceiling and carrying small wings, gave this fun and playful effect.
I was amazed and felt right away that Galeria Estação needed to show that work in Brazil.
We have since been to several fairs in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, always with great success!
Now, in partnership with the Raquel Arnaud Gallery, which also today, June 15, 2019, opens an exhibition of Julio’s paintings, we open ours of objects.
Julio's work helps us return to our own childhood.
Such delicious nostalgia!
Shall we have fun?

Vilma Eid

Exhibition: Júlio Villani - By a Thread Opening: Saturday, June 15, 2019 at 11am Closing: July 31, 2019

Júlio Villani - By a Thread

From the bestiary of Artur Pereira to the animals of Lygia Clark, from the Whale of Graciliano Ramos to the Burrito Pedrês of Guimarães Rosa, there is no shortage of prodigious animals in Brazilian art. It is now necessary to integrate Júlio Villani’s creatures into this fauna but care must be taken to preserve his uniqueness in the bosom of this imaginary family. His uniqueness or rather his fundamental hybridity occurs in many layers. They are objets trouvés in the Duchamp mode but they are also a laughing exercise of the gifts of metamorphosis that are characteristic of art. They are heirs of a certain Parisian surrealism, but they seem to refer us to the sensory memories of a boy from the country, who observes from his own perspective the objects of the house, the kitchen and the farm. Being three-dimensional, they are sculptures that do not engage those who contemplate the spectacle of the sculptor who strikes the gross gangue and extracts the form from the report; instead of chisel, the pliers, the hammer, the wire, and the discrete welding, in order to bend, fasten, tie and hang. In the latter sense, many of them are mobiles in the Calder motif – that is, they are and are not. For we continue to see the heteroclite parts that constitute them, as in a rabbit-and-hare drawing. And in this, by the way, they are very Brazilian. They are daughters of a swing and a quick-fix elevated to the condition of art endowed with that ethereal and awkward grace that the shuttlecocks have. If they arise from some simple, manual operations, they are not foolish at all. In each of them the long plastic reflection, the diving into the memory of children, and the subtle malice that amuses itself with the alteration of proportions or the deviation of functions and the original uses of the objects that serve as raw material. There is no doubt we are at the heart of the modern artistic field, but we are also at a delightful turn, in the Americas: master of the gentle sprain, Villani prolongs, smilingly, the old trickster tradition, that trickster deity, often of animal form (coyote, crow or fox) which, in so many mythologies of the New World, is pleased to deceive the other gods, to subvert their fixed destiny and to make room for life and transformation.

By Samuel Titan

Galeria Estação
Presents: Júlio Villani - By a Thread
Opening: June 15, 2019 at 11:00 am to July 31, 2019

"From the bestiary of Artur Pereira to the animals of Lygia Clark, from the Whale of Graciliano Ramos to Burrinho Pedrês of Guimarães Rosa, there is no shortage of prodigious animals in Brazilian art. It is now necessary to integrate Júlio Villani's creatures into this fauna, but care must be taken to preserve its uniqueness in the bosom of this imaginary family," writes Samuel Titan about this exhibition at Galeria Estação, Galeria Estação, whose mais cast is composed by great masters of the root art from all corners of Brazil.
By a thread, which happens simultaneously to Alinhavai, another individual of Júlio Villani in São Paulo, at Raquel Arnaud Gallery, brings together a set of sculptures, fundamentally hybrid, that takes place in several layers "They are objets trouvés, to Duchamp, but they are also a laughing exercise for the gift of metamorphosis that are characteristic of art," says Titan. According to him, they are heirs to a certain Parisian surrealism, but they seem to refer us to the sensory memories of a boy from the country, who observes from his own perspective the objects of the house, the kitchen and the farm.
Instead of chisel, the artist uses pliers, hammer, wire, discrete soldering in order to bend, fasten, tie and hang. "... many of them are mobiles in the motif of Calder-that is, they are and are not. For we continue to see the heteroclite parts that constitute them, as in a rabbit-and-hare drawing. And in this, in fact, they are very Brazilian. They are daughters of the swing and quick-fix elevated to the condition of art, endowed with that ethereal and awkward grace that the shuttlecocks have." Titan points out that the works made of some simple manual operations provoke a long plastic reflection, "the diving in the child memory and the subtle malice that is amused by the alteration of the proportions or the deviation of the functions and the original uses of the objects that serve as raw material".

Julio Villani (Marilia, 1956) lives and works between Paris and São Paulo. He studied Fine Arts at FAAP, at the Watford School of Arts in London and at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Paris. His work was presented at exhibitions at the MAM in Paris, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador; Sesc; Reina Sofia Art Center, Madrid, Museo del Barrio, New York. Among his solo exhibits: Musée des Beaux-Arts of Agen, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Center d'Art Contemporain 10 Neuf of Montbéliard; Musée de Dieppe; Casa França Brazil and Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro; Musée Zadkine, Paris. Present in the collections of the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain / Ministère de la Culture; Musées de la Ville de Paris; Maison de l'Amérique Latine, Paris; Fondation Daniella Chappard, Venezuela; SESC; Manufacture des Gobelins / Mobilier National, Paris.

Samuel Titan Jr. was born in Belém in 1970. He studied philosophy at the University of São Paulo, where he’s been teaching Literary Theory and Comparative Literature since 2005. He wrote with David Arrigucci Jr. an anthology of Erich Auerbach (Essays on Western Literature, 2007), and signed Portuguese versions of authors such as Adolfo Bioy Casares (The Invention of Morel), Gustave Flaubert (Three Stories in Collaboration with Milton Hatoum), Jean Giono (The Man Who Planted Trees, 2018, in collaboration with Cecília Ciscato), Voltaire (Candide or Optimism, 2013), Prosper Merimee (Carmen, 2015) and Eliot Weinberger (The Stars, 2019).

Exhibition: Júlio Villani - By a Thread
Opening: Saturday, June 15, 2019 at 11am
Daily: Monday to Friday, from 11am to 7pm, Saturdays from 11am to 3pm
Closing: July 31, 2019
Admission is free

Galeria Estação
Rua Ferreira de Araújo, 625 – Pinheiros SP
Phone: +55 11.3813-7253
www.galeriaestacao.com.br

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