Retrospective: Inclusartiz Cultural Center held four exhibitions in 2022
The year was marked by the definitive opening of the institute’s new headquarters in Gamboa, in the port area of Rio de Janeiro
In 2022, Instituto Inclusartiz celebrated 25 years of history with many new features and reasons to be proud of. As early as May, the organization began a new phase with the definitive inauguration of its cultural center in the Gamboa district, port area of Rio de Janeiro. The space, acquired in 2021 and partially opened to the public in the same year, underwent a period of renovations and reopened its doors this year with the exhibition “Gamboa: Our paths did not cross by chance”.
Exhibition “Gamboa: our paths did not cross by chance” received more than 1,300 visitors / Photo: Wagner Kox
A success with the public, the show, curated by Lucas Albuquerque, received more than 1,300 people in the two months it was on display, presenting around 80 works by 25 artists and collectives emotionally connected to the port area of the city. The main objective of the exhibition was to promote and value local artistic production, as well as to bring the community and its neighborhood closer to the space. Inspired by a manuscript by Tia Lúcia (1933-2018), a painter, sculptor and resident of Morro do Pinto (“Our paths did not cross by chance. The greatest specialists in smiles are here”), the exhibition title echoed the desire to address the crossroads between artists and cultural producers in the region, which is fully growing as a cultural hub in the city.
“The exhibition tried to think about the area based on the proposition of the meeting, fostered by the crossing paths between artists, curatorship, research and institution, using transformations and passages as a driving force to remember the past of the place we occupy today and analyze the practices drawn under their traces,” reflects the curator.
Although it was mostly composed of works by contemporary artists, the selection of paintings, sculptures, photographs and video-performances also included works by notable characters who portrayed and fully lived the port area environment in their trajectories, such as Tia Lúcia herself, Augusto Malta (1864-1957), Heitor dos Prazeres (1898-1966) and Rossini Perez (1932-2020). Multigenerational, the list of living artists included current and former residents of the neighborhood and names that concentrate their productions in the site and its surroundings: Bordô, Bruna Santos, Camila Ribeiro, Coletivo MP, Daniel Murgel, Diego Deus, Douglas Dobby, Gustavo Speridião, Lolly, Laís Amaral, Leandro Barboza, Leandro ICE, Mãe Celina de Xangô, Maurício Hora, Oficina do Prelo, Raphael Couto, Rainha F., Slam das Minas, Teresa Speridião, Thiago Haule, and Yhuri Cruz.
In August, it was the turn of “Quermesse” (Fair), a group exhibition that marked the closing of the 11th edition of the Poetic Immersions program, to occupy Inclusartiz Cultural Center’s first floor. For the first time, Instituto Inclusartiz and Escola Sem Sítio, the project that promotes the course, joined forces to sponsor and disseminate contemporary art and Brazilian culture, values present in both institutions’ DNA.
Exhibition “Quermesse” was held in partnership with Escola Sem Sítio / Photo: Guilherme Tarini
As a result of this partnership, the exhibition, curated by Cadu and Pollyana Quintella, presented works – including drawings, paintings, photographs and video art – developed by ten artists who were part of the training program in the first half of 2022: Ana Bia Novais, Antonio Tebyriçá, Bernardo Liu, Bia Lopes, Carlos Mello Carvalho, Emiliano Freitas, Guilherme Tarini, Juliana Ronchesel, Suelen Lima, and Thaís Iroko. Collectively chosen by the course students, the exhibition title referred to religious festivals, although it has nothing to do with beliefs, but with the tradition in which each individual gives some contribution – in this case, art.
“The works produced talk a lot about memory, childhood and ancestry. It also has an anthropophagic inclination that recalls the [modern art] week of 1922. Based on this concept, of appropriation and incorporation of alterities, in which each one contributes a little, we created together the title ‘Quermesse'”, revealed Cadu.
In September, celebrating its 25th anniversary, Instituto Inclusartiz presented two new exhibitions to the public, in parallel with ArtRio 2022: “Behind the Retina” and “Open-studio: Studies in Transit”. The first one, which runs until January 29, 2023, gathers works by contemporary Brazilian artists, which investigate, in different ways and through various supports, the relationships between physical space and virtuality, while seeking to establish new territories that go beyond the original capacity of human vision.
Exhibition “Behind the retina” is on display at the Inclusartiz Cultural Center until January 29 / Photo: Thales Leite
“We live in an era where the conventional idea of space, for example, seems to have been put in check, expanding to unsuspected dimensions (the metaverse, all right), fields where our ocular apparatuses seem to lack the resources to handle seeing what is right before our eyes,” explains curator Victor Gorgulho about the exhibition title.
Between videos, installations, paintings, cultures and digital images, the show presents an intergenerational approach, mixing the production of young artists with renowned artists from the Brazilian contemporary art circuit. Names as Adriana Varejão, Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca, Daniel Frota de Abreu, Gabriel Junqueira, Gabriel Massan, Laryssa Machada, Luiz Roque, Ilê Sartuzi, Pedro Victor Brandão, Rafael Bqueer, Rodolpho Parigi, Sofia Caesar, Vitória Cribb, and Vivian Caccuri & Gustavo von Ha.
“Open-Studio – Studies in Transit”, which can be visited until December 29, took as starting point the format of an open studio, showing works and ongoing research by artists, curators and researchers who have gone through the institute’s artistic residency program during 2022: Brígida Campbell, Filomena Mairosse, Luisa Brandelli, Mariana Souza, Mkutaji Wa Nija, Moara Tupinambá, Nay Jinknss, Patfudyda, and Paulete Lindacelva.
“Open-studio: studies in transit” brings together the works of artists, curators and researchers who visited Inclusartiz throughout 2022 / Photo: Thales Leite
Curated by Lucas Albuquerque, program coordinator, the collective show presents a heterogeneous character, mixing works in video, photography, publications, schemes and research methodologies.
“The show intends to present to the public the procedural and highly experimental character that our residency is capable of providing to those who have the opportunity to take part. For this, the exhibition uses the idea of study, considering that the residency is an immersive experience where the resident has the chance to get involved in their research without the need to present a ‘finished product’, as well as the idea of transit, taking into account the richness that the physical and intellectual displacement provided by the residency is able to offer the artist or researcher,” observes Albuquerque.
