Photo: Felipe Berndt
Photo: Felipe Berndt
Photo: Felipe Berndt
Photo: Felipe Berndt
For the 2024 edition of SP-Arte Rotas Brasileiras, Almeida & Dale presents an unprecedented project that brings together Emmanuel Nassar from Pará, Miriam Inez da Silva from Goiás, and Antonio Dias from Paraíba. The exhibition is motivated by the desire to provoke new readings of the production of these three artists, who come from different origins and practices. It highlights what they have in common: the practice of woodcut adopted at the beginning of their careers, as seen in the cases of Miriam and Dias, and the enigmatic and critical traits in the works of Dias and Nassar, which resonate with the irony and transgression in Miriam Inez da Silva’s works. The exhibition also seeks to underscore the ways in which their productions are informed by various manifestations of popular culture: cordel literature, ex-votos [votive objects], and popular music in Miriam’s paintings; comic strips in Dias’ work from the 1960s; or the suburban visual culture characteristic of popular markets and amusement parks in Nassar’s works.
The exhibition features pieces from two periods of Antonio Dias’s production: the body of work produced between 1964 and 1968, characterized by a style of figuration informed
by the narrative structure of comic books, and the following phase, in which graphic elements are radically reduced. About his early works, Dias said that he painted “automatically, one image pulling on another. It was a free association of the symbolic.” During this period, his paintings combined graphic precision and formal uncertainty in compositions that suggest themes such as violence, sexuality, and death, as indicated by the strongly narrative titles. On Antonio Dias’ second solo exhibition, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1964, his work was the subject of an essay by Pierre Restany, who highlighted the way in which the images created by the artist “escape unitary symbolism, immediate and direct conceptualization”.
The same could be said about the later phase, in which he articulates mysterious statements and ambiguous images. A similar enigmatic atmosphere pervades the works of Emmanuel Nassar, especially in the paintings that combine severed hands or arms, strange assemblages of various objects, and figures that stand against monochrome backgrounds that recall the darkness of night or, as in the case of Altar (1992), suggest the settings of large stages or small puppet theaters. Nassar’s work is also full of references to the history of Brazilian art, Calder’s sculpture, Mondrian’s neoplasticism, and the Surrealist cadavre exquis, animated by an ironic and critical energy. The selection includes iconic works such as the painting Mulher (1989), presented at the 20th Bienal de São Paulo, and A Luz (1993), which was part of Nassar’s solo show at the Brazilian Pavilion at the 45th Venice Biennale.
While Nassar’s works transport the visual culture from the streets of Belém to the contemporary art scene, Miriam Inez da Silva’s paintings wander through references to the provincial culture of Trindade, where the artist was born, and the urban environment of freedom and extravagance she found in Rio de Janeiro, where she lived, studied, and worked from the 1960s onwards. Her works feature a repertoire of winged beings, scenes of celebration, music and dance performances, soccer matches, as well as iconic characters from Brazilian literature. One of the works that sums up her interests is O pouso do pavão misterioso… (1985), based on one of Brazil’s most popular and oldest cordel stories, which also inspired the composition of the song Pavão Mysteriozo in the 1970s. The influence of popular culture on Miriam’s work also manifests in the frequent presence of religious images, a theme linked to her origins in Trindade, a town founded around reports of miracles.
Almeida & Dale’s exhibition at SP-Arte Rotas Brasileiras 2024 offers a unique opportunity to revisit and recontextualize the works of Emmanuel Nassar, Miriam Inez da Silva, and Antonio Dias. By exploring the connections between their artistic productions, the show not only celebrates the cultural and regional diversity that shaped these artists, but also highlights how elements of Brazilian popular culture intertwine with contemporary and universal issues. The selection of works, permeated by symbolic and critical narratives, invites thepublic to reflect on the richness and complexity of Brazilian art, emphasizing the continued relevance of their practices in today’s art scene.
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