East of Eden
For quite some time now, both Millan and ourselves, Roberto and I from Galeria Estação, have harbored the desire to embark on another joint exhibition project, reminiscent of our past collaborations.
This time around, as part of the ongoing celebrations marking Estação's 20th anniversary, our dear friends from Millan, Socorro and André, graciously enlisted the expertise of Antonio Gonçalves Filho as curator. It was Antonio who conceived the marvelous idea for this exhibition!
The exhibition will unfold simultaneously, bridging the space between there, Millan, and here, Estação, showcasing the works of three artists whom we deeply admire: Júlio Martins da Silva, Paulo Pasta, and the Uruguayan Pedro Figari, whose works made it to São Paulo thanks to the generous collaboration of Galería Sur, from Punta del Este.
The sheer beauty and audacity of this endeavor are truly remarkable!
Vilma Eid
LESTE DO ÉDEN [EAST OF EDEN]
Júlio Martins da Silva, Paulo Pasta, and Pedro Figari
The title of this exhibition, Leste do Éden [East of Eden], is a direct reference to the biblical Land of Nod, where Cain lived after killing his brother, Abel. Living in Nod, east of Eden, is, ultimately, a punishment. Without the abundance of the lost paradise, it was up to Cain’s descendants to recreate the order and harmony of the Garden of Eden with all their human limitations. It is worth mentioning that this exile led to literary classics such as East of Eden (1952) by John Steinbeck, which, naturally, was about family conflict.
The idea here, however, is to recover a lost harmony. Facing the violence of exile, these three great painters from different eras did not respond by seeking refuge in the past. Rather, they decided to move onward, creating a world of their own to survive the collapse of paradise as described in the Old Testament.
In order of “appearance” on the east side of Eden, the first in the list is Uruguayan painter Pedro Figari (1861–1938, Montevidéu, Uruguai), followed by Júlio Martins da Silva (1893, Icaraí, RJ – 1978, Rio de Janeiro, RJ), from Rio de Janeiro, and Paulo Pasta (1959, Ariranha ,SP), from São Paulo, represented in these two simultaneous exhibitions by Estação and Millan, in collaboration with Sur gallery.
These three painters all share this sense of exile, evident in the transfigured landscapes in this exhibition, sometimes idyllic, as in Júlio Martins da Silva’s canvases, sometimes allegorical (Pedro Figari), or atmospheric (as in Paulo Pasta’s works). In the modern, multifaceted world, which has been characterized by fragmentation (especially environmental) for over a century, it would be unlikely for any of them to succumb to the temptation of painting naturalistic landscapes.
The landscapes by Figari and Pasta result from an erudite vision formed by the reverent observation of paintings by the masters. It is worth remembering that in 1930s Paris, the Uruguayan painter was a friend of the post-impressionists Bonnard and Vuillard and the Fauvist Marquet. His painting, which recalls the Uruguayan landscape in exile, reflects enough of each of them to attest to that admiration.
Paulo Pasta, today also a master, began his career painting landscapes exactly 40 years ago. In his first solo show, he exhibited sugar cane fields beneath a tempestuous sky, works that would be better described as anti-landscapes, somewhat in the sense that T.S. Eliot established (in The Wasteland) to demolish the false dichotomy between nature and culture. In essence, Pasta’s landscape moves towards Cézanne. It seeks light above all, even if it is hidden under dark clouds.
It may seem paradoxical that this landscape foreshadows a storm or depicts the confinement of the east of Eden in such a seductive and illuminated way. But is that not also true of the cultivated garden in Júlio Martins da Silva’s canvases, a painter without education who learned grammar to read poetry? In both cases, it is about painting something that is no longer there.
Júlio, the grandson of African slaves and son of illiterate parents, was born in Icaraí, Niterói, raised in the countryside, lived in a shack, and only became a painter because of a need to recreate the Garden of Eden. The Lutheran took on this mission, obsessed by the verb “to evolve” (he preferred “to perfect”). And he did it with a landscape of houses that look like temples, all within the most absolute order and symmetry, things that only exist in the afterlife.
If Figari pursued the pastoral, Virgilian scenery of the Uruguayan Pampas in the urban Paris of the 1930s, confronting modernizing violence in his canvases, Júlio escaped to the dreamlike, inexistent garden, denouncing the prejudices between classes that prevented (and still prevent) the socially disinherited from dreaming about “a gift-wrapped world.” In fact, this was the title Pasta chose for the exhibition he curated of the religious Júlio’s work at the Estação gallery in 2012.
The agnostic Pedro Figari, meanwhile, did not see the expanse of Uruguayan Pampas as sacred territory. However, Jorge Castillo, a great student of his work, said that Figari sought in that immensity “the infinite beauty that religions promise after death," and perhaps that is the common denominator that unites these three artists, recovering the Edenic placidity associated with eternal sleep. Or the suspension of time, as suggested in the posts or sugar cane factory chimneys in the desert-like immensity of Pasta’s rural landscapes.
Sometimes, in returning to the pre-historic world, Figari commented on the fiasco of modern rationality. He painted “troglodytes” playing flutes beneath the moon in canvases where there is no distinction between the natural and supernatural worlds. In them, everything seems deformed, out of place, like a Bonnardian sketch of his pantheistic belief in vague, imprecise forms. Ultimately, Figari painted sensations. The ombu, a monumental symbol of the Uruguayan Pampas, does not look like just a tree in his paintings but an entity suggestive of animism.
One could say the same of one of Pasta’s trees: they bear witness to the passage of time in his world of silence and light, a record of the serenity of the finite. It was painting that taught Pasta to see things, to reconnect with a fundamental moment in human history. In the end, perhaps Eden is not a garden replete with tidy flowerbeds, like the delicate Júlio painted, but a land where nature seems just an echo of our loneliness and agony. That is what his landscape is about.
Antonio Gonçalves Filho
"East of Eden," an exhibition that proposes dialogues between the pictorial poetics of Júlio Martins da Silva, Paulo Pasta, and Pedro Figari, renews the partnership between Estação and Millan galleries.
Curated by Antonio Gonçalves Filho and featuring 35 paintings simultaneously presented to the public in both exhibition spaces in São Paulo, the show is one of the highlights of Galeria Estação's 20th-anniversary celebrations.
Beginning on May 7th and running until June 8th, the "East of Eden" exhibition will take place simultaneously at Estação and Millan galleries. Curated by Antonio Gonçalves Filho, it brings together 35 works by three painting icons from different generations: Brazilians Júlio Martins da Silva (1893–1978), Paulo Pasta (1959), and Uruguayan Pedro Figari (1861–1938). At Galeria Estação, 17 paintings will be exhibited: five by Júlio, four by Figari, and eight by Pasta. At Millan, the public will have access to 18 works: five by Júlio, four by Figari, and nine by Pasta.
"Guided by Antonio Gonçalves Filho's perspective, we are presenting this exhibition to celebrate another partnership with Galeria Estação, now commemorating 20 years in the art market. The theme of landscape and exile takes center stage in this remarkable encounter featuring Figari, Júlio, and Paulo Pasta—three painters renowned for their unique ability to capture and interpret the world through the vibrant language of color," says Socorro de Andrade Lima, managing partner of Millan.
For curator Antonio Gonçalves Filho, the new exhibition, "East of Eden," is an invitation to perceive that Júlio, Pasta, and Figari share the feeling of exile symbolized in the title of the exhibition, which refers to a biblical territory called Nod, inhabited by Cain after killing his brother Abel. Living in Nod, "east of Eden," would be a sort of punishment, and surviving the different symbolic forms of exile, the curator explains, is a trait that manifests clearly in the transfigured landscapes that compose the exhibition—sometimes idyllic, as in Júlio's paintings, other times allegorical, as in Figari's paintings, or atmospheric, as in Pasta's creations.
"The project traces its origins to the work of Paulo Pasta, whose journey began exactly 40 years ago with his inaugural solo exhibition showcasing landscapes of the sugar cane fields of his hometown, Ariranha, nestled in the heart of São Paulo's countryside. In a way, these landscapes were remembrances, as if these places were no longer available to be painted. The same happened with Pedro Figari when he went into Parisian exile and tried to paint the landscape of the Uruguayan pampas. Only vague memories of his homeland remained. Regarding Júlio Martins, the issue became even more radical. For someone pursuing perfection, the landscape of the favela was unbearable, which led the painter to seek an idealized world through painting," explains Gonçalves Filho, who is also the cultural director of Millan.
For Vilma Eid, co-founder of Galeria Estação, the realization of this new partnership is one of the highlights of the celebratory events marking two decades of the esteemed space created in late 2004 by her and Roberto Eid Philipp.
"For quite some time, Roberto and I harbored the desire to embark on another joint exhibition project. This time, graciously, our friends from Millan, Socorro and André, enlisted Antonio Gonçalves Filho for curation, and his brilliant concept gave birth to this simultaneous exhibition, both here and there, featuring three beloved artists: Júlio Martins da Silva, Paulo Pasta, and Pedro Figari, the Uruguayan painter whose pieces were generously loaned by Galería Sur, located in Punta del Este. How splendid and audacious!" she exclaims.
The nearly equal division of works exhibited at Galeria Estação and Millan, located just 2km apart, is also an invitation to the public for an experience of complementarity of the poetic and subjective propositions of "East of Eden."
"The exhibitions, held simultaneously, were designed so that each of the aspects mentioned about the painting of the three artists can be checked with the immediate association of the connection between them. In a way, Figari, a brilliant lawyer and writer who was a friend of Bonnard, Marquet, Léger, and Picasso in the 1930s, in search of his Latin identity in Paris, looked to the Uruguayan past for elements to understand the modernizing present of post-impressionist France, as did Pasta, who also had contact with the most brilliant painters, especially Iberê Camargo, and tries to build a contemporary landscape without renouncing the origins and pictorial tradition. Júlio, who started life in the countryside, soon sought out a teacher when he began painting, at the age of 29, adopted the Lutheran faith, and learned to read only to have access to great poetry and to reconstruct paradise in his own way. The connection of the three painters with literature is visible in both exhibitions. Both complement each other with works that form a suite in which each autonomous painting ends up forming this great poetic panel about the landscape," concludes Gonçalves Filho.
Regarding the first joint exhibition of Estação and Millan, "Almost Figure, Almost Form," it took place between August and October 2014. Curated by critic Lorenzo Mammì, the union of the two galleries, representing distinct artists—exponents of recognized popular production and contemporary themes—emphasized possible dialogues between these two strands through names such as Alcides Pereira dos Santos, Amadeo Lorenzato, Ana Prata, Aurelino dos Santos, Cícero Alves dos Santos (Véio), Fabio Miguez, Felipe Cohen, João Cosmo Felix (Nino), João Francisco da Silva, José Bezerra, Marina Rheingantz, Neves Torres, Paulo Monteiro, Paulo Pasta, Sebastião Theodoro Paulino (Ranchinho), Sergio Sister, and Tatiana Blass.
About Galeria Estação
Established in late 2004 by Vilma Eid and Roberto Eid Philipp, Galeria Estação has earned acclaim for its dedication to showcasing and championing non-erudite Brazilian art. The gallery has played a pivotal role in integrating this artistic language into the contemporary art circuit through the publication of curated works and the organization of individual and group exhibitions, overseen by the country's foremost curators and critics. Estação's influence extends globally, with notable participation in exhibitions like "Histoire de Voir" at the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain (France) in 2012 and the Biennial "Between Two Seas – São Paulo | Valencia" in Spain in 2007.
Illustrative of its international engagement was the solo exhibition of Veio – Cícero Alves dos Santos, held in Venice parallel to the Art Biennale in 2013. In Brazil, the gallery's artists are prominently featured in esteemed collections and prestigious institutions such as the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the São Paulo Museum of Art, the Afro Brazil Museum (SP), the Pavilion of Brazilian Cultures (SP), the Itaú Cultural Institute (SP), SESC São Paulo, the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro (MAM), and the MAR museum in the capital.
About Millan
Founded in 1986, Millan has established itself as a national reference for fostering the potency of each artist, positioning them within the international market, and supporting their participation in major exhibitions. The gallery works with artists in active production, including Alex ?ervený, Daiara Tukano, Henrique Oliveira, Maya Weishof, Miguel Rio Branco, Nelson Felix, Paulo Pasta, Peter Halley, Tatiana Blass, and Vivian Caccuri, as well as consolidated estates such as those of Tunga, Jaider Esbell, and Feliciano Centurión. Partners André Millan and Socorro de Andrade Lima lead the space alongside João Marcelo Andrade, Hena Lee, Camila Siqueira, and Antonio Gonçalves Filho. The gallery was expanded in March 2023 with a third exhibition space, also on Fradique Coutinho Street, located at number 1,430.
SERVICE
Exhibition "East of Eden"
From May 7th to June 8th, 2024
Simultaneous opening at Galeria Estação and Millan on Tuesday, May 7th, from 6 pm to 9 pm.
Galeria Estação
Rua Ferreira Araújo, 625 – Pinheiros, São Paulo.
Monday to Friday, from 11 am to 7 pm.
Saturdays, from 11 am to 3 pm.
Free admission
Millan
Monday to Friday, from 10 am to 7 pm.
Saturdays, from 11 am to 3 pm.
Free admission
