Provoking a tension between humour and political issues and exposing the nuances of cultural value systems over the object, Adriano Costa choreographed his works so that they achieve a kind of movement. They do not point a rule or define ideas, performing a sort of neutrality. The artist relates unlikely varieties of materials such as concrete, paper, bronze, cloth, wire, wood, among countless others and diverse formats and scales. He references periods in the history of Brazilian art-culture, suburban or elitist-not ignoring the influence of the North hemisphere on it.
Read MoreMuch more about reality, relying on tragic irony than on originality within the process of its creation, Costa tensioned a reflection on the real value of the work of art, addressing the question of how ordinary materials or even noble materials can be transmuted into an art object and vice versa.
Adriano Costa (1975, São Paulo) lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.
His solo exhibitions include wetANDsomeOLDstuffVANDALIZEDbyTHEartist, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2018); B A I L E, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2018); DearMeatCutsDevilMayCry, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2016); Every Camel Tells a Story, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2015).Additionally, his work has been included in institutional group exhibitions as Everyday Poetics, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle (2017); Frucht & Faulheit, Lothringer13 Halle, Munich (2017); IMAGINE BRAZIL, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo & Musee D'Art Contemporain de Lyon, France (2014).
Text courtesy Mendes Wood DM.
