In the gallery’s original space, Emmanuel Nassar creates a sort of game in which he mixes works from different phases and media to reinforce some of the questions that have motivated his investigations for decades. Deeply sardonical and averse to his work being classified by criteria such as date, technique or even authorship, this northern Brazilian artist – currently living partly in São Paulo and partly in Belém do Pará – decided to transform the gallery’s largest wall into a framework for a large, rhythmical collage comprising various elements. This is a clear reference to the artist’s work process, which absorbs, recreates and reconstructs items from his day-to-day life using different techniques and styles of composition. “I wanted to show how apparently separate things can come together under my view of them”, he explains.

While scouring the streets and markets of Pará state in search of material or ideas, collecting and refashioning objects such as toys or the remains of electrical installations, metal plates scored by writing, drawings and the marks of time, pieces of wood, thread and fabrics, Nassar ended up developing a unique creative process, which is tinged with irony and a slightly critical tone. Photographing, regrouping or simply being inspired by these cues – geometric, chromatic or symbolic – has given body to a type of itinerant circus, imprecise yet challenging. Ligia Canongia defines it as an “appropriation of popular signs and techniques” – which in no way stands as an “endorsement of inconsistency or simplicity”.