Mario N. Ishikawa has a solo exhibition at the Almeida & Dale booth at ArPa 2024

Experimenting with emerging technologies since the 1970s, Mario N. Ishikawa has developed his own visual lexicon, working with techniques such as serigraphy and lithography, as well as more contemporary methods like digital printing and computer image manipulation. Through this body of work, the artist questions access policies and distribution economies in the art circuit. However, his formal research also led him to draw inspiration from Sumi-e, developing techniques using soot and manipulating fire and smoke on paper. 

This contrast and the breadth of Ishikawa's production are presented at ArPa by Almeida & Dale, showcasing works mostly out of circulation for about 30 years. The series Lituras, Black-out, Amarfalhados, Manu/tensão, Fumaça, and Operação Quenquém, among other works, are on display at the booth. This selection provides insight into the creative processes based on technologies over the last 40 years and offers a view of Ishikawa's trajectory. 

Yudi Rafael, a gallery partner and researcher of Ishikawa's work, comments that the series titled Lituras, displayed at the booth, “mobilizes a broad repertoire of analogous gestures – such as crumpling, shredding, and burning – to recharacterize and render illegible the document of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through different forms of interference. Started in 1981 and completed only in 1989, the series connects two distinct moments of his work with commercial reproduction methods: a first, longer and better-known phase that inscribes in his work the transgressive character of resistance to the civil-military dictatorship; and a second, which records the artist's brief return to xerography after the country’s democratization process.” 

In 2023, Almeida & Dale organized the exhibition “Archaeological Site” by Ishikawa as part of the research and exhibition program focused on artistic production in the Asian diaspora, conceived and coordinated by Yudi Rafael in partnership with the gallery. To learn more about Ishikawa's work, access here the exhibition catalog.

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Almeida & Dale at ArPa 2024
Booth B6
Preview for guests only:
June 26th, Wednesday, 1PM–9PM
Open to public:
June 27th-29th, Thursday to Saturday, 1PM–9PM   
June 30th, Sunday, 11AM–7PM 
Praça Charles Miller, Pacaembu, São Paulo, Brazil