The Museum of Art of São Paulo (Masp) opens this Friday (30) three exhibitions to mark the year of Indigenous Stories, a theme that the museum chose to present and discuss the diversity and complexity of these cultures. The first of these exhibitions brings together 721 archaeological art objects produced by Amerindian peoples between the 2nd and 16th centuries. Called Masp Landmann Commodate – pre-Columbian ceramics and metals, the exhibition occupies the second basement of the museum and is curated by Marcia Arcuri and assisted by Leandro Muniz. It is the second exhibition dedicated to the lending of Edith and Oscar Landmann’s collection, loaned to the museum in 2016 for a period of ten years. The first exhibition of this collection presented a set of fabrics that were part of the museum’s 2019 program, dedicated to Women’s Stories, feminist stories. Masp Landmann lending show – pre-Columbian ceramics and metals, at the São Paulo Museum of Art – Photo: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil To Agência Brasil, the curator informed that in this second lending show there will be on display objects attributed to 35 archaeological cultures from American continent, including Nasca, Inca, Mochica, Inchu, Paracas and even Marajoara pieces from the Brazilian Amazon. These artifacts constitute a historical and scientific legacy and were built by the ancient populations of regions that today belong to the territories of Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, Brazil and the Caribbean countries. “In this type of work on collections, we start from collections of objects to what we know about the history of the continent in the period that preceded the European invasion. But we cannot attribute the pieces to a certain ethnic group or people. So we worked with the concept of archaeological cultures. In this case, the exhibition brings together pieces from 35 archaeological cultures, which is the name we give to these stylistic sets”, explained Marcia Arcuri, assistant curator of Pre-Columbian Art at Masp. “The collection really brings together a very significant repertoire of what we know about this pre-Columbian past from around 1600 BC to the 16th century”. According to the curator, most of the pieces are ceramic and come from funerary contexts or ritual offerings. “But there are also artifacts made of metals like gold and golden copper. And there are some objects in bones, shells and, of course, pieces that integrate more than one material”. The exhibition, according to Marcia Arcuri, takes place at a time when the museum is dedicated to indigenous histories and the country is discussing the temporal framework, a project that is being discussed in Congress and has a direct impact on the processes of demarcation of indigenous territories. “It is a very mature museum movement, which has been presenting a series of exhibitions related to this diversity of protagonists, components and notions from which we have to understand this social fabric that is culture. This discussion comes at a good time,” she explained. “An institution like Masp, offering the Brazilian public, who know very little about this universe, the opportunity to learn a little about this past and how much it talks about themes that are so present, is something unique”, she highlighted. The exhibition Comodato Masp Landmann – pre-Columbian ceramics and metals is on display until September 3rd. Shows Comodato Masp Landmann – pre-Columbian ceramics and metals, at the São Paulo Museum of Art – Photo: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe The second exhibition opened this Friday features works by the Venezuelan Yanomami artist Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, including drawings, monotypes and paintings produced on handmade paper, manufactured by him using native fibers. The show, entitled Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe: all of this is us, will be presented to the public until September 24 in the museum’s first basement and is curated by André Mesquita and curatorial assistant David Ribeiro. The subtitle of the exhibition Ihi hei komi thepe kamie yamaki [Tudo isso somos nós] it was a suggestion by the artist himself to incorporate the diversity of elements that make up his community and surroundings. Exhibition Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe: all of this is us, at the São Paulo Museum of Art – Photo: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil In total, the exhibition features a set of 48 works, many of them large. One of these works, for example, called Oni Komi Thepe or Group of Drawings, is composed of 62 monotypes, which were arranged side by side and occupy the final wall of the exhibition. “This is closely related to the title that the artist himself chose to name the exhibition, All of this is us, which is a notion of a set and of a production that is fully articulated and that expresses everything that is part of the Yanomami identity, especially related to the environment and the space in which these people live”, explained David Ribeiro, to Agência Brasil. “Hakihiiwe has been expressing himself artistically since the 1990s, after he took a handmade papermaking workshop with a Mexican artist named Laura Anderson Barbata. In this workshop, he and other people from the community learned how to make papers from different fibers such as sugarcane, corn and cotton and native fibers such as mulberry and, with that, they began to produce materials to disseminate things about the Yanomami culture”, reported the curator. Ribeiro pointed out that the artist’s craft production understands paper “as something alive”, which ends up dialoguing with the way his people understand art. “Not only for the Yanomami, but for the indigenous population in general, art has always been related to the body, never as something external,” he explained. “The occupation of this surface of the living handmade paper is related to this art, which was originally transposed onto the skin”, he added. This is one of the reasons why the artist chooses to occupy all of the spaces on the sheet, said the curator, “just as with body painting that occupies the entire surface of the skin”. To compose his works, Hakihiiwe spends about six months in the forest, observing the fauna, flora and indigenous communities. “He draws this in a notebook, studies these shapes and then transfers them to material supports, in general, handmade paper. So, it’s a long, very continuous job, which we understand as a true inventory of the Yanomami intangible heritage,” said Ribeiro. Exhibition Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe: all of this is us, at the São Paulo Art Museum – Photo: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil This artist’s work is marked by oral memory and rescues the ancestral traditions and cosmological knowledge of his community, located in the city of Upper Orinoco, in the Venezuelan Amazon. Because it is produced on handmade paper, the work faces time and discusses, at the same time, the role of preserving materials and also indigenous culture. “I think that the main discussion that exists, based on this materiality of the support he uses, is related to a provocation for non-indigenous society in relation to the care that must be taken with what is part of the identity of this indigenous people and the peoples indigenous people in general. It is a very sophisticated reflection on perishability”. Sky Hopinka In the Masp video room, two works by Sky Hopinka are shown, which discuss contemporary indigenous identity in the United States. The curatorship is by María Inés Rodríguez, assistant curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at MASP. Sky Hopinka is a visual artist who, through his video, photo and text work, expresses his opinion about the landscape and the indigenous land, using personal, documentary and non-fictional means of communication. “Sky Hopinka is a very young artist who started making films. It is very important for him to talk about his identity, about contemporary indigenous identity, about the traditions of his community and, at the same time, about how these traditions have evolved and changed over time. So he wants to talk about the contemporary world in which he grew up and in which he lives and which is manifested through his films”, explained the curator. The first video is Kicking the clouds, where the artist reflects on his descendants and ancestors, guided by a 50-year-old audio recording of his grandmother learning the Pechanga language with his mother. The second video is Mnemonics of Shape and Reason, which travels through the memory of a place visited by the artist. He overlays and reassembles rocky desert landscapes with a soundtrack composed of texts and music, creating a rhythmic account of the spiritual implications of colonization. According to the curator, both works are based on landscape, music and language, and translate ancestral traditions and practices that survived oppression systems. “In his films you can see how important the presence of music is and also how it represents contemporary struggles for territory and the defense of nature. The music is ever-present not only telling a particular story, but also accompanying the stories Sky wants to share with the public,” he said. Shows Comodato Masp Landmann – pre-Columbian ceramics and metals, at the São Paulo Museum of Art – Photo: Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil In his videos, the filmmaker tells stories that refer to his identity and indigenous ways of life, diving deeply into questions of their origin through autobiographical narratives that communicate directly with the native audience, without the obligation to explain the meaning to non-native spectators. His work is based on ethnopoetics, explained the curator. “Ethnopoetics is a reference taken from the writer and translator Eliot Weinberger. This concept evokes the idea of the subject who is filmed and decides to take the camera to film, expressing and saying what he wants others to know about him. That is, the subject decides to be the one who speaks for himself, ”she said. “Both films have a very special aesthetic for working with landscape and color and combining them with sound and music. That struck me as very poetic and behind it there is also an important political commitment because he tells his story and the story of the community to which he belongs and which is situated in the context of oppression and repression of indigenous communities in the United States,” he added. The Video Room: Sky Hopinka exhibition is on display until August 13, in the second basement of the museum. Masp has free admission every Tuesday and every first Thursday of the month. Further information about the exhibitions can be found on the museum’s website.
Agência Brasil
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