The Museum of Art of São Paulo (Masp) inaugurated this Friday (24) three new temporary exhibitions. They all focus on indigenous stories, a theme chosen for the museum’s program throughout 2023 and which intends to present the diversity and complexity of these cultures, in addition to discussing the silence of the official history of art in relation to this production. artistic. “The year 2023 is dedicated [no Masp] indigenous peoples and indigenous arts. In particular, I consider it to be a very big step towards the recognition of indigenous arts and knowledge, which historically were excluded and were on the margins of museums, and today are being invited to participate in these institutions, particularly at Masp”, said Edson Kayapó, assistant curator of indigenous art at MASP, in an interview with Agência Brasil. One of the open shows is Carmézia Emiliano: the Tree of Life, with paintings that portray the everyday life of the indigenous artist Macuxi’s community. The second, and largest, is Mahku: Mirações, which features paintings, drawings and sculptures produced by the Huni Kuin ethnic group. In the museum’s video room, short films by the Bepunu Mebengokré collective are shown. “These are exhibitions that inaugurate the year of indigenous stories [no Masp]. They approach different media, supports and languages of this production, revealing the diversity that is contained in indigenous stories, stories that Brazil failed to look at consistently for a long time”, said Amanda Carneiro, assistant curator. São Paulo (SP), 03/24/2023 – The São Paulo Museum of Art (Masp) hosts the exhibition Mirações, by the Huni Kuin Artists Movement – MAHKU, in the annual program dedicated to indigenous stories. Photo: Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil – Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil This is not the first time that indigenous cultures have occupied the museum’s spaces. Throughout its history, Masp has organized several exhibitions with objects and records from communities located in Brazilian territory, such as the Indigenous Art Exhibition (1949), Some Indians (1983), Karajá Art (1984), Yanomami Indians (1985) and Kaxinawa indigenous art (1987). In 2019, Masp also had its first indigenous curator, Sandra Benites. “In the 1970s, the museum hosted a series of exhibitions of indigenous art. But now is a new moment. This is a whole year dedicated to indigenous stories, but much more focused on the production of contemporary indigenous art, based on other markers. Now we are looking at actors and agents who have their own identity and style,” said Guilherme Giufrida, curator at MASP. Carmézia Emiliano Called Carmézia Emiliano: the Tree of Life, the exhibition presents 35 paintings on canvas produced by the artist, eight of them unpublished and developed especially for the exhibition. The paintings feature and reflect landscapes and the daily life of the community of the indigenous artist Macuxi, a people located mainly in Maloca do Japó, Normandy, in the state of Roraima. The curatorship is by Amanda Carneiro. “The tree of life, also called wazaká, is a very significant theme in Carmézia’s production, it is linked to Macunaíma, a novel well known to us, and talks about a myth in which a leafy tree was felled and its trunk transformed into Mount Roraima. This became the motto of the exhibition and speaks of this capacity for renewal and perpetuation of indigenous knowledge and experiences”, said the curator. Self-taught, Carmézia was born in 1960 and started painting motivated by the impact she had when visiting an art exhibition in Boa Vista. “Carmézia Emiliano is a Macuxi artist who began her production in the 90s and who produces paintings, above all, always linked to themes of community life and that relationship of deep respect between the Macuxi and nature”, explained the curator. Her painting brings bright colors, a lot of movement and elements of Macuxi myths and knowledge. São Paulo (SP), 03/24/2023 – The São Paulo Museum of Art (Masp) hosts the exhibition Mirações, by the Huni Kuin Artists Movement – MAHKU, in the annual program dedicated to indigenous stories. Photo: Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil – Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil The exhibition begins with a self-portrait made by the artist, in which she appears painting Mount Roraima. This painting makes up the first of the seven nuclei with which Carmézia’s works are being presented in the exhibition. There are also nuclei dedicated to dances, recreational manifestations, the community, representations of fauna and flora, rivers and the transmission of knowledge. “They [quadros] they were divided into themes that are more worked on by the artist, such as, for example, the figuration of Mount Roraima; the parixara dance, a celebration that takes place in commemoration of the cassava harvest; games related to cultivation; the forms of transmission of knowledge; and the relationship of community life, among others”, said the curator. Masp will also publish a catalog with reproductions of works produced by the artist, in addition to essays developed especially for this exhibition, which will be on display until June 11th. Coletivo Bepunu Mebengokré The production of graphics in body painting rituals is portrayed in two short films shown in the Masp video room. Produced by the Bepunu Mebengokré collective, the short films cover everything from pigment extraction to the symbolic and ancestral meanings of these practices. The videos will be presented until the 18th of June, in the second basement of the museum. The curatorship is by Edson Kayapó, who is also the assistant curator of indigenous art at Masp. The collective is led by the young filmmaker Bepunu Kayapó, who has taken a leading role in presenting the stories and ancestry of the Mebengokré people and is a trainer of new filmmakers. Bepunu is the son of chief Bepkaeti and lives in Moikarakô village, located in the municipality of São Félix do Xingu, south of Pará. “The collective is generated in this movement of training indigenous filmmakers to think about the issues of the Mebengokré people”, said the curator, who is also a Mebengokré. “Our art has a lot of this purpose of showing who we are, what we do, what languages we speak, how many we are and how we live,” he said. The first short film, Menire djê: grafismo das Mulheres Mebengokré-Kayapó (2019), narrates the production process of genipap ink, showing from harvesting to mixing with ground charcoal to give the appropriate pigmentation and consistency to be applied to the body . The second short film, Mê’ok: Nosso Pintura (2014), features a series of interviews and recordings with people who grew up with genipap and annatto painting by their mothers. “Women are, par excellence, the producers of genipap and annatto dyes and are the ones who produce body paint”, said the curator. “One of the films shown is shorter and focused on the role of women in this movement to produce paints and paints. The other brings more elements linked to traditions, ancestry and cosmologies”. Mahku Until the 4th of June, the second basement of the museum presents the largest exhibition dedicated to the Mahku indigenous collective, a Huni Kuin ethnic group that lives in the state of Acre, on the border with Peru. Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, Guilherme Giufrida and Ibã Huni Kuin. “This is the first major individual retrospective of this collective”, said Giufrida, in an interview with Agência Brasil. The exhibition celebrates the ten years of the group, which officially appeared in 2013, although it started its work much earlier, in the early 2000s, in the indigenous degree courses at the Federal University of Acre. “At that moment, through university workshops, many practices that are oral by the Huni Kuin people began to be translated into paper and drawings, as if they were scores”, explained the curator. The Mahku: Mirações exhibition presents around 110 paintings, drawings and sculptures, which express the translations of chants, myths, history of ancestry and visions of the group. “The raw material of Mahku’s work are the mirações – as they call them and which gives the exhibition its name – that they experience and visualize in the ayahuasca rituals, called nixi pae”, he added. São Paulo (SP), 03/24/2023 – The São Paulo Museum of Art (Masp) hosts the exhibition Mirações, by the Huni Kuin Artists Movement – MAHKU, in the annual program dedicated to indigenous stories. Photo: Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil – Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil Nixi pae are the sacred drinks that arise from the myth of the boa constrictor, an animal that is very present in the paintings made by the group and that is considered the being of transformation. The myth narrates the meeting of Yube Inu, an indigenous man, with Yube Shanu, the boa constrictor woman. The indigenous man falls in love with her and starts to live with the people of the boa constrictor. There, he ingests the sacred drink and experiences visions. For a moment of jealousy of his father-in-law, due to the knowledge acquired, Yube Inu was bitten by the boa constrictor and ended up getting sick, but, before dying, he returns to the people of origin and teaches the recipe for the drink. “In fact, this is the moment when humans crossed into the universe of the boa constrictor and got to know its world, learned the recipe for the drink and how to visualize the world from this paradigm”, stated the curator. The works presented in this exhibition are large in size and have saturated colors, always in vibrant and intense tones. The color refers to the psychedelic universe witnessed by the artists during the rituals with the ayahuasca drink. The images are richly loaded with elements, with boa constrictors and alligators appearing very constantly on each screen. There are also works made especially for Masp, dedicated to representing Avenida Paulista in a very colorful way, seen from above and with buildings and cars lying down. A view of indigenous peoples on the urban world. Another highlight of this exhibition is a mural painted in vibrant colors on the sides of the museum’s red ramp, which connects the first and second basement levels. “It is very common for them to also present a mural painting, made especially for the architecture of that gallery, something that is later undone”, said Giufrida. “We had the idea of inviting them to paint their own ramp. Approvals were made at Iphan [Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional] and in Condephaat [Conselho de Defesa do Patrimônio Histórico, Arqueológico, Artístico e Turístico] and this provisional intervention of one year was allowed. It is a mural painting of 200 square meters, including all sides of the ramp. The whole group came from Acre to do this painting. It was a lot of hard work and I think it will be very impactful for the visitor”. In addition to paintings, sculptures, drawings and the mural painted on the ramp, the exhibition will also feature some Huni Khuin songs, recorded and translated into Portuguese and English. More information about the exhibitions can be obtained on the museum’s website. Masp has free admission on Tuesdays.
Agência Brasil
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