The exhibition VUADORA will present for the first time in a Brazilian institution a great overview of the work of Paulo Nazareth, one of the most important artists of his generation. The exhibition, curated by Fernanda Brenner and Diane Lima, will include a combination of approximately 180 iconic works from the last two decades – such as the series Cadernos de África and the collection Produtos do Genocídio – and works specially commissioned for the occasion.
In 2011, Paulo Nazareth left Minas Gerais on a journey of thousands of kilometers to the United States, where he would participate in an exhibition at Art Basel Miami. Instead of “flying” to one of the most important international contemporary art events, Nazareth chose to travel by foot from what is conventionally called Latin America to reach his destination.
Described by the artist as a residence in transit – or perhaps an accidental residence – the project Notícias de América is the result of a year of intense experiences and exchanges with the people he met along the way, recorded in a broad combination of images, diaries, and found objects. In 2022, eleven years after the initial milestone of a working methodology that the artist has been adopting ever since, Pivô invites him to revisit his condition as a wanderer in the face of increasing restrictions on mobility imposed by economic, sociopolitical, and, more recently, health frontiers in the second decade of the 21st century. By traveling long distances, Nazareth investigates and exposes the social, political and affective structures of the territories he travels through.
His personal journey is also a portrait of the contradictions and deleterious effects of colonialism, racism and global capital in Latin America and Africa, where he was born and where his ancestors came from. Upon leaving his hometown, Paulo Nazareth took only five items with him: his life, his passport, a hard drive and some personal items. He reports that he lost everything but his life, his wallet and his optimism. Nazareth is a radical nomad, an artist who takes the binomial art-life to its ultimate consequences, always putting his own body and his experiences at the service of a broad discussion about ancestral injustices and, through art, makes perceptible what would then remain hidden.
Paulo Nazareth, 1977, lives and works in Palmital, Minas Gerais
Born in 1977 in the city of Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais, and living as a global nomad, Paulo Nazareth’s work is often the result of precise and simple gestures, which bring about broader ramifications, raising awareness to the pressing issues of immigration, racialization, globalization colonialism, and its effects in the production and consumption of art in his native Brazil and the Global South. While his work may manifest in video, photography, and found objects, his strongest medium may be cultivating relationships with people he encounters on the road — particularly those who must remain invisible due to their legal status or those who are repressed by governmental authorities. In certain aspects, Nazareth deliberately embodies the romantic ideal of the wandering artist in search of himself and universal truths, to unveil stereotyped assumptions about national identity, cultural history, and human value.
Paulo Nazareth (Governador Valadares, 1977) lives and works throughout the world.
His most recent exhibitions include Paulo Nazareth, ICA Miami, Miami (2019); Faca Cega, Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte (2018); Old Hope, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2017), Genocide in Americas, Meyer Riegger, Berlin (2015), Journal, Institute for Contemporary Arts, London (2014), Premium Bananas, MASP, Museum of Art São Paulo (2013). Recent group exhibitions include Beyond the Black Atlantic, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover (2020); 22nd Sydney Biennial, Sydney (2020); Our Selfie, MO Museum, Vilnius (2019); How to talk with birds, trees, fish, shells, snakes, bulls and lions, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin (2018); EXTREME. NOMADS, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main (2018); The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, Prospect.4 Triennial, New Orleans (2017); Field Gate, Remai Modern, Sasktoon (2017); Soft Power. Arte Brasil, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort (2016); Much wider than a line, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe (2016); New Shamans/Novos Xamãs: Brazilian Artists, Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2016); Indigenous Voices, Latin American Pavilion 56th Venice Biennale, Venice (2015).
Diane Lima, 1986, lives and works in Salvador, Bahia
Diane Lima is an independent curator, critic and researcher. She has an MD in Communication and Semiotics at PUC-SP, her work consists of experimenting with contemporary curatorial practices from a decolonial perspective. She is currently part of the curatorial team of the 3rd edition of Frestas – Trienal de Artes at SESC-SP and since 2018 she has been curating the Valongo Festival. Among her main projects, the idealization of the AfroTranscendence art-education program stands out; the curatorship between 2016 and 2017 of Itaú Cultural Diálogos Ausentes exhibition program and the participation in 2018 in the CCSP Art Critics Group. In 2019 she was co-curator of the PlusAfroT Residence and the group exhibition Lost Body – displacement as choreography, both projects that took place in Munich-Germany. Sworn in by several selections and award commissions, she is a professor at Itaú Cultural’s Specialization in Cultural Management and editorially co-curates two contemporary art publications, one by Act. and the other by French publisher Brook, both in press.