PROPERTY OF THE BRUNO MUSATTI COLLECTION,
SÃO PAULO
A collector in the best sense of the word, Bruno Musatti was predestined to a life involvement with the arts. While his studies of business administration did not fortell his future, his marriage to Jeanete Musatti (born Jeanete Leirner) did. Jeanete's family, fortunately, has had a longstanding commitment to the arts from Brazil. Her brother, Adolph Leirner, is an important collector of constructive Brazilian art and his collection has been frequently exhibited-- most recently at a show in the Museo de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro. Apart from Jeanete's collector brother, the curator Sheila Leirner, the artists Nélson and Jac Leirner and the sculptor Felicia Leirner (all important figures in Brazilian art history) are all related to the Musatti Leirner family.
Musatti's keen taste, talent and timing added to Jeanete's artistic background and resulted in the creation of a selective collection that is considered among the best of its kind. Bruno Musatti's collection began in the 1960s while he frequented artists, collectors, intellectuals and other cultural figures of Brazil. The collection first focused on the artistic production of this decade and today it includes works by the most renowned constructivist, neo-concretist, conceptual, pop and contemporary artists of Brazil and abroad.
Becoming more and more involved with the varied artistic manifestations that were happening in the 1960s and onwards, Musatti became a promoter of the arts frequently organizing international and local exhibitions of Brazilian art. The international character, the high quality, and the futuristic vision that encompassed all of Musatti's projects are also worthy of note.
Musatti's accute involvement in the arts lead him to befriend a well known group of vanguardists who included: Antonio Dias, Rubens Guerchman, Cláudio Tozzi, Wesley Duke Lee, Lygia Clark, Ligia Pape, and Hélio Oiticia in the 60s; José Resende, Tunga, Mira Schendel, and Cildo Meirelles in the 70s; and in the 80s, Musatti became the supporter of the group now known as the Geraçao 80. He has continued to be an important supporter of the arts in the 90s.
The Musatti collection additionally expands to 20th Century decorative arts, making their home environment an amicable, yet baroque setting in which precious objects partake in daily chores. Their home reflects the family's love and respect for the arts while underlining the acute eyes of the collector.
João Pedrosa, São Paulo, April 1999
Contemporary Art in Latin America
As part of the 'return to painting' that dominated the international art scene throughout the Eighties, there was a resurgence of interest in Latin American art which, in turn, provided the impetus for its renewal in the field of painting. The consequence of this resurrection was a series of international shows, culminating in 1992 on the 500 year anniversary that constructed lineage that ran from colonial art through the era of independence in the 19th century and into the first generation of modernism. This became the paradigm that provided painting with a historical framework and ready armature for interpretation. Since that period there has been a seachange in the contemporary art scene throughout Latin America. While painting continues, the impetus has now shifted towards sculptural and conceptual practices. Nonetheless, the greater visibility of sculptural and conceptual work by artist, alongside the growing production by emergent artists, represents either a continuation of an otherwise unspoken tradition and its ongoing vitality as a site for contemporary art practice.
The recent selection of work now on show is representative of both well-established and younger artists. If there is one point around which these artists may be brought together, it is that each of them approach art as a field of exploration they suggest that art offers a way of discovering our relationships to the world. Also within this selection, there is a strong emphasis given to a group of important Brazilian artists, notably Lygia Clark, Lígia Pape, Cildo Meirelles, Waltercio Caldas, Jac Leirner, Ernesto Neto, Valeska Soares and Beatriz Mihazes. With the exception of Lygia Clark who died in 1988, all of these artists are continuing their work that emerged in the 1950s/1960s who belong to a generation that established themselves over the past fifteen years. One of the overarching points of interest that unite almost all these artists is that the construction of the subject and its meaning are given through the materiality of the object and its perception. In particular, the work of Clark and Pape offer insight into the Brazilian Neo-Concretist movement of the Sixties; a movement that emerged out of the heritage of Constructivism. Rather than constructed within a representational field, the practice of painting is redefined within the perceptual field of its viewing. This concern, informed as it was by contemporary phenomenology (led by the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and various Brazilian philosophers), also reveals the work of the succeeding generation of Meirelles and Caldas. Critical to both artists is the relationship between art and everyday experience.
As with the preceding generation of Clark, Pape and Helio Oiticica, the work of these present artists often entail working with everyday objects in a manner that intersected with Pop Art and Arte Povera. Art practice itself had become an intervention into the world of the everyday so as to heighten our perception and appreciation of our experiences. What both Meirelles and Caldas brought to the field, is an increasing attention to the question of space insofar as it defines the form and boundaries of the object and our perception. The objects re-articulate or define space. This form of exploration finds a new balance in the work of Neto and Soares, bringing back into consideration as subject the materiality of the object. While Neto explores how matter contains energy and how it occupies and interacts within the spatial field, much of the work of Soares presents itself as a dialogue with the properties of matter. What we see does not necessarily conform to the material properties of the material, and her work provides different ways of transforming this perception. In radically different ways, the work by Jac Leirner and Beatriz Milhazes take up this intense engagement with the object, but in a manner that emphasizes its symbolicness. Milhazes' paintings become virtual repositories of former styles of painting. They serve an archaeological site through which one is able to read a history of Brazilian painting (especially the baroque) and the constructed nature of Brazilian identity. In contrast, the installations and sculpture of Leirner form a dialogue with the transnational. Collecting mundane, everyday objects often gathered during her working trips to museums throughout the world, she represents them as art objects. Re-elaborated as art objects, Leirner reveals their inherent aesthetic content, but equally displays the close affiliation between art and everyday consumer goods as part of a larger economy of commodity exhcange.
The works of Doris Salcedo, José Antonio Hernandez-Diez, Saint Clair Cemin and Francis Alÿs each represents distinct directions in the renewal of sculptural and conceptual practices. It would be difficult to find more than this that would unite their concerns, except that each practice seems intensely engaged with demonstrating the cultural history of the material used. While we may locate their work within a broader history of recent art, we may also recognize its intense dialogue with the culture in which it was produced.
We are greatful to Charles Merewether for his assistance in writing the essay for the present collection.
Valeska Soares (b. 1957)
Wishes (from Sinners)
Details
Valeska Soares (b. 1957)
Wishes (from Sinners)
white linen box and 15 'wishes'
11 x 40¼ x 31/8in. (28 x 102 x 8cm.)
Executed in 1996
Wishes (from Sinners)
white linen box and 15 'wishes'
11 x 40¼ x 31/8in. (28 x 102 x 8cm.)
Executed in 1996
Provenance
Galeria Camargo Vilaça, Sa Paulo
Exhibited
Sa Paulo, Galeria Camargo Vilaça, Valeska Soares: historias, Nov. 1996, p. 37, n.n. (illustrated in color)