Curated by Marcus de Lontra Costa and Rafael Fortes Peixoto, Casa França Brasil opens this Saturday (20th), at 4 pm, the exhibition Navigating is Necessary – Fluminense landscapes, which will be open to the public until July 9th. Entry is free. Tickets can be obtained from the house’s website. Open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 am to 5 pm. There will be exclusive service hours for people with intellectual and mental disabilities on Wednesdays, from 10am to 11am. The site is wheelchair accessible. The exhibition brings together more than 70 works by 35 artists who were born in cities in the state of Rio de Janeiro or who chose the state of Rio de Janeiro as an environment to develop their work. Marcus Lontra told Agência Brasil that the idea is to try to value the state’s production, which has a diversity of landscapes, including beaches, mountains, plains. “Our idea is to value the production, the idea of Rio de Janeiro’s landscapes, as a fundamental structure in the aesthetic construction of Brazilian art since the 19th century”. Exhibition Navigating is accurate – Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil As the capital of the Brazilian Empire and the Republic for many years, Rio de Janeiro received artists from various cities and countries. “All these influences built a kind of cosmopolitanism in Rio that spread throughout the state, generating cultural flows of great importance”, said curator Rafael Fortes Peixoto. Marcus Lontra adds that, in a sense, Guanabara Bay was the main setting for Brazilian art. “And that was throughout modernism,” he said. Country artists, by Antonio Parreiras, in the exhibition Navigating is Necessary – Rio de Janeiro landscapes – Photo: Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil “It is a very eclectic exhibition. It is not an exhibition of figurative art or geometric art. It has everything and passing through time, everything, with the objective of showing the artistic diversity of our state”. Lontra said that the show involves artists who were born in the capital and are living in the countryside; or artists from the countryside residing in the capital. “It has these two functions,” said the curator. Like the artist Luiz Aquila, who was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro and has lived for many years in Petrópolis, in the mountain region. In addition to the production of recent artists, the exhibition pays special attention to the history of the landscape of Rio de Janeiro, bringing to the public iconic paintings by Antonio Parreiras, Georg Grimm, Batista da Costa, Francisco Coculilo, Di Cavalcanti, Carlos Scliar and Newton Rezende. Among paintings, sculptures, installations and videos, the exhibition also features works by Abelardo Zaluar; Alvaro Seixas; Andrea Facchini; Bob Cardim; Chico Tabibuia, Cipriano, Daniel Lannes; Deneir; Edmilson Nunes; Francisco Coculilo, Gonçalo Ivo; Jarbas Lopes, João Carlos Galvão, Jarbas Lopes, Jorge Duarte; Lucia Laguna; Luiz Aquila; Luiz Badia; Marcos Cardoso; Nelson Felix; Osvaldo Carvalho; Paiva Brasil; Pedro Varela, Rafael Alonso; Rafael Vicente; Raimundo Rodriguez; Raquel Saliba; Robson Macedo; Rodrigo Pedrosa; Wilson Piran. Revitalization Navigating is Necessary Exhibition – Fluminense landscapes – Photo: Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil Marcus Lontra said that the exhibition also aims to revitalize Casa França Brasil, the first neoclassical building in the country, which was the first Brazilian customs house. “It’s a difficult space to assemble, but it’s a wonderful place. When the project was presented to the Petrobras Cultural Program for sponsorship, the objective was to prepare a series of exhibitions”. Two new exhibitions are already in preparation. One of them refers to the 1960s and 1970s, encompassing European pop art and its influence on Brazilian art, with plans to occupy Casa França Brasil from the end of July and remaining there for two months. Next, an exhibition by sculptor Franz Weissemann, born in Austria and who emigrated to Brazil at the age of 11, will open. The goal is “to give back to Casa França Brasil the resonance and importance that it deserves and that Rio de Janeiro needs”, said curator Marcus Lontra. Contemplated in the public call for the Petrobras Cultural Múltiplas Expressões program, the exhibition has the support of the Rio de Janeiro State Secretariat for Culture and Creative Economy (SECECRJ). Casa França Brasil is located at Rua Visconde de Itaboraí, 78, in the central region of Rio de Janeiro.
Agência Brasil