Galeria Nara Roesler | São Paulo is pleased to present Perambulante , Marcos Chaves’ fourth solo show in the São Paulo venue, curated by Luisa Duarte. The exhibition features 27 photographs taken between 1996 and 2016, and three videos from 2016.
The show’s title describes an aimless, idle stroll through the city, photo chronicles of everyday life seen through the lenses of the artist’s camera, from which he extracts common objects from their logical context and replaces them with mental associations of humor and chance. Marcos Chaves’ works reveal themselves in different dimensions. Through explicit objectivity, as a first source of aesthetic work, afterwards metamorphosed, then made more implicit, through context or the given context of words that he allies to images, objects, and photographs. His object choices are always familiar, concealed in unusual alliances, and he uses the everyday world as a counterpoint to the trite discourses about life and art for the audience to create a unique narrative.
Chaves also employs humor as a catalyst for his works, drawing from a variety of visual registers to criticize the blindness with which ordinary things are seen with the influence of socialcultural conventions. The process of creating a work of art for him may be to take a common object out of its functional environment, combine it with other objects or context or references and then present it with captions different from what the object would usually appear with.
According to Luisa Duarte, one could claim that the guiding compass to the artist’s work is deviation, and through appropriation or intervention, Marcos Chaves dislocates current, commonplace significance, causing previously-unheard-of meanings to surface. “It is about the sharp gaze that departs from the habitual, reflects and produces the new in language, driven by a piercing mix of humor and irony. That choice of resources is not casual, but consistent, since they carry a high degree of deviant potency: humor and irony are devices that hit the target through the least obvious path.”
In discussing
Perambulante , the curator also recalls an excerpt from Drummond, according to whom all words are, at first, in their “dictionary state.” What the poet does is withdraw them from that mute initial status and combine them in such a way that, together, they become poetry. “ Peramb ulante can be seen as one big movement of articulation that pulls the more prosaic entities of urban living out of their ‘dictionary state.’ In doing so, Marcos Chaves’ work reminds us of the unique gesture of the eye, more and more obliterated by the image and information overload. Against the dulling caused by habit, his oeuvre constitutes a powerful antidote.”
The exhibition will unfold into another one, at the gallery’s New York venue, opening on February 29, 2017.
about the artist
Marcos Chaves (n. 1961, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil) vive no Rio de Janeiro. Chaves começou sua carreira artística no início de 1960 e como um artista conceitual, suas fotografias, videos, assemblages e instalações de grande escala, transformam experiencias e materiais cotidianas negligenciados em objetos de arte. Seus trabalhos paródicos e espirituosos usam o humor para obscurecer uma sensibilidade trágica e poética. “O humor abre caminhos. Às vezes você pode rir de alguma coisa, mas pode não ser algo tão engraçado. O humor pode nos fazer parar e pensar”. Chaves sobrepõe o texto a fotografias, documenta suas próprias intervenções artísticas em fotografias e vídeos, e instala objetos “não-arte” pré-existentes em contextos artísticos de uma maneira que lembra Marcel Duchamp. Em seu trabalho Academia, o artista criou uma academia a céu aberto onde pessoas da cidade do Rio de Janeiro podiam usar os objetos da exposição para se exercitar. A instalação incluía cimento, tubos de ferro, madeira e varas. O próprio título é um trocadilho com a importância do samba e das academias na vida cotidiana dos Cariocas. Exposições recentes incluem: ARBOLABOR (Centro de Arte de la Caja de Burgos, Espanha, 2015); Academia (Galeria Nara Roesler, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 2014); Narciso (Oi Futuro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 2013); I only have eyes for you (Fundação Eva Klabin, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 2013); Pieces (Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brasil, 2011).Participou da 1a e da 5a edição da Bienal do Mercosul, em Porto Alegre (1997 e 2005), todas no Brasil. Da 17a Bienal de Cerveira, em Portugal (2013), e da 54a Bienal de Veneza, Itália (2011), entre outras.
about the curator
Luisa Duarte lives and works between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. She is and art critic and independent curator. Master in philosophy from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP), she’s been an art critic at Jornal O Globo since 2010. She was member of the Consulting Board of MAM-SP for five years and the coordinator of the 28th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo’s lecture series “A Bienal de São Paulo e o Meio Artístico Brasileiro –Memória e Projeção”(The São Paulo Biennial and The Brazilian Artistic Scene – Memory and Projection). She was the curator of Rumos Artes Visuais, Instituto Itaú Cultural, edition 2005/2006, and the editor of ABC – Arte Contemporânea”, Cosac & Naify, 2014, in partnership with Adriano Pedrosa.
about the gallery
Galeria Nara Roesler is a leading Brazilian contemporary art gallery, representing seminal Brazilian and international artists who emerged in the 1950’s as well as preeminent mid-career and emerging artists who dialog with the currents put forth by these historical figures. Founded by Nara Roesler in 1989, the gallery has consistently fomented curatorial practice while preserving the utmost quality in art production. This has actively been put into practice through a select and rigorous exhibitions program created in close collaboration with its artists; the implementation and fostering of the Roesler Hotel program, a platform for curatorial projects; and continued support of artists beyond the gallery space, working with institutions and curators in offsite shows. In 2012 the gallery doubled its São Paulo exhibition space, in 2014 expanded to Rio, and in 2015 opened in New York City, continuing its mission to provide the best platform for its artists to show their work.
Press release courtesy Galeria Nara Roesler.