Exhibition: Cícero Alves dos Santos [Véio] - Becoming Marni - Venice (Italy)
Venue: Abbazia di San Gregorio
Dorsoduro, 172 - 30123
Venice - Italy
Opening: 8 May
Runs through to 22 November 2015
Exhibition: Cícero Alves dos Santos [Véio] - Becoming Marni - Venice (Italy) Venue: Abbazia di San Gregorio Dorsoduro, 172 - 30123 Venice - Italy Opening: 8 May Runs through to 22 November 2015
Cícero Alves dos Santos [Véio] to have a solo exhibition in Venice
Under the curatorship of Stefano Rabolli Pansera, the wood sculptures by the artist Véio from the Brazilian state of Sergipe (born in the city of Nossa Senhora da Glória, 12 May 1947) are to be featured in the St Gregory Abbey (Abbazia di San Gregorio) in Venice. In 2013, Stefano Rabolli Pansera co-curated the Angola at the 55th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. The pavilion won the Golden Lion for "best national participation”.
Opening: 8 May – through 22 November
After several Brazilian critics, such as Rodrigo Naves, Lorenzo Mammì, Paulo Sérgio Duarte and others, broke down the barriers separating folk art from contemporary art; this movement has been expanding onto the international scene. This particular exhibition in Venice has become a significant manifestation of the changing perspective.
Having showcased his work since its foundation, Galeria Estação chose Véio in 2014 to commemorate its tenth anniversary. Curated by Rodrigo Naves, the exhibition and the launching of a book issued by WMF Martins Fontes marked the event and paid special homage to Véio who had just returned from Paris after participating in a show celebrating the Cartier Foundation’s 30th anniversary.
It was in Paris that Stefano Rabolli Pansera had contact with Véio’s work for the first time. Together with the managers of Marni, he came to Galeria Estação to get better acquainted with the work of the sculptor. After significant research of global production, the curator chose the Brazilian artist, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Marni brand in Venice, together with the Venice Biennial. Stefano Rabolli Pansera, director of the Open Air Gallery of Mangiaberche, in Sicily, and also a founding member of Beyond Entropy, together with Paula Nascimento was the curator of the Angola Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennial in 2013. With “Luanda, Encyclopaedic City”, this pavilion clinched the Golden Lion for the “best national participation”, taking up the Cini Palace.
Véio’s exhibition in Venice at St Gregory’s Abbey will bring together 104 sculptures, including those of large (54) and small (50) sizes. In the larger pieces, tree trunks, branches and roots have a significant presence while Véio only makes occasional interventions, by either sculpting or painting. The figures and shapes that he sees in those natural elements, which he calls “open woods” are more explicit. The smaller shapes are carved with penknives in small or very small pieces of wood, which are known as “closed woods”. The artist transforms them, so that the figure may take up the whole base material and new shapes, without letting the original wood appear.
“In Cícero’s work – he being a country bumpkin who managed to buy a small forest reserve, exclusively for preservationist reasons -, the devastating effects of domination over nature can be seen in the very scale of the objects: the greater the human intervention, the less the power and the strength of the beings resulting therefrom; even though this aspect also stresses their aesthetic grandeur”, states Rodrigo Naves.
Like many people from his neck of the woods, this sculptor was given his name in honour of Father Cícero, a Brazilian Catholic leader, while the nickname came about because the young Cícero would listen to the conversations of older people. A self-learner, Véio admired popular culture since he was a young boy, when he started to craft his first works using beeswax. His intense relationship with his medium made the artist establish a “Museum of the Back Lands”, right next to his studio in the countryside of the Brazilian state of Sergipe. Many of the objects that were collected and brought together in the museum bear witness to the battle between the rural dweller and nature. These include leather hats, domestic appliances, rustic machinery, clothes, and accessories that are part of the life of the sertanejo, the Brazilian country bumpkin.
Stefano Rabolli Pansera (9 August 1980), Italian architect, theorist, city planner and curator, studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, in London, England, where he graduated with honours in 2005 and where he also taught as a Master Unit of Intermediate Unit 5, between 2007 and 2011. He is the founder member of the non-profit organisation Beyond Entropy, as well as the director of the Open Air Gallery of Mangiaberche. Beyond Entropy was originally developed by Stefano Rabolli Pansera in 2009 with transdisciplinar research at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, in London. Beyond Entropy Ltd is now an independent collaborative practice, which operates at a world level, together with government organisations, private institutions and government agencies. Beyond Entropy Ltd lies on the border between art, architecture and geopolitics, for the development of several projects: based on curatorship activities for art installations, architectural interventions for domination of planes, and public debates for publications. Beyond Entropy Ltd operates as a holding, bearer of shares in each affiliated company, which is managed by a local partner. http://www.beyondentropy.com/
Exhibition: Cícero Alves dos Santos [Véio] - Becoming Marni - Venice (Italy)
Venue: Abbazia di San Gregorio
Dorsoduro, 172 - 30123
Venice - Italy
Opening: 8 May
Runs through to 22 November 2015
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