Descripción de la Exposición
Brumadinho, Minas Gerais – Instituto Inhotim is opening two temporary exhibitions on Saturday, May 27, at Galeria Praça. Mestre Didi - “os iniciados no mistério não morrem” [Mestre Didi - “The Initiated Into The Mystery Do Not Die”], curated by guest curator Igor Simões, along with Inhotim's curatorial team, and A noite suspensa ou o que posso aprender com o silêncio [The Suspended Night Or What I Can Learn From The Silence], by Mônica Ventura; they have a dialogue with matters of ancestry and religiosity among Afro-Indigenous peoples. The exhibitions are sponsored by Shell, at the Master level, through the Federal Law of Incentive to Culture.
A noite suspensa ou o que posso aprender com o silêncio was commissioned by Inhotim to occupy the central space of Galeria Praça, one of the most visited galleries in the museum and botanical garden. The work stands out, at first glance, for its scale: it is approximately 4 meters high and 9 meters wide. Mônica Ventura (São Paulo, 1985) presents as a proposal to look at the surroundings and the local power, making use of the soil from the area in the construction of the work – the wall, the base and the sculpture are made of this material. A noite suspensa ou o que posso aprender com o silêncio is of a scale that is not human and at the same time is not architecture, yet it confronts us. The proposal is to contemplate this installation which looks at us. “Who is observing whom?” asks the artist.
In this work, Mônica Ventura alludes to different religious practices of ancestral matrices, and the public is invited to unveil the layers of the installation, whose form is associated with the zangbetos, ancestral spirits worshipped in some religions in the Gulf of Benin, responsible for the protection and warding off evil, and also with the praiás, fundamental elements of Pankararu cosmology, an originary Brazilian people whose traditional territory is near the São Francisco River. For the Pankararu, the praiás mark the presence of the Encantados (the Enchanted), living entities directly linked to the spiritual plane. Both are manifested through dance and the use of a type of full-body mask made of straw. In both cases whoever occupies that body remains unknown; they observe but cannot be observed.
Like an enclosure made of straw, the installation has a blue colored dome and its earth base affixed to the floor resembles a Yoni, a shape that alludes to the feminine and whose meaning in Sanskrit refers to the notions of “divine passage” or “source of life”. The sculpture itself refers to the Lingam, a phallic symbol that refers to the masculine. The combination of the two forms, seen from above, refers to Shiva Lingam, the synthesis of the energies of the universe. “The central part of Galeria Praça is an extremely challenging space to work with. It is not a white cube, but it is not an outdoor area either. And Mônica sought a composition that articulates and mobilizes both the architectural space and the surrounding garden”, explains Lucas Menezes, Inhotim assistant curator.
About Mônica Ventura
Mônica Ventura was born in 1985 in São Paulo, where she lives and works. She is a visual artist and designer with a bachelor's degree in Industrial Design from Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP), São Paulo. She is also a master's student in Visual Poetics (PPGAV) at ECA-USP, São Paulo. Currently, she researches philosophies and constructive processes of pre-colonial architecture and crafts (African Continent - Amerindian Peoples - Vedic Philosophy). She uses this research to produce artistic practices created from personal experiences. Her works talk about the feminine and raciality in narratives that seek to understand the psychosocial complexity of Afro descendant women inserted in different contexts. A Black woman, she steers her body memory by rubbing it against her ancestry through stories of her life and research. Her artistic production also leads her body to occupy spaces that are socially closed off. In her works there is a special interest in Afro-Amerindian cosmology and cosmogony beyond the use of their objects, symbols and rituals.
About the Abdias Nascimento and the Black Art Museum Program
Poet, writer, playwright, visual artist, curator, university professor, pan-Africanist, politician, the trajectory of Abdias Nascimento (1914-2011) followed activism and the struggle against racism. Among his many achievements, Nascimento led two important initiatives: Teatro Experimental do Negro (Black Experimental Theater) (TEN) (1944-1968) and Museu de Arte Negra (Black Art Museum) (MAN) (1950). The former was an entity focused on the practice of Black dramaturgy. He turned theatrical activity into a medium capable of influencing a new generation of Black citizens through racial awareness, criticism of European ethnocentrism and valorization of African cultural heritage. The Black Art Museum, a pioneering initiative at the time, brought together works by national and international artists with the mission of disseminating African influence in Western modern art and representing the plurality of artistic production of the Black diaspora. In 2021, the year that marked ten years since the loss of this important Brazilian intellectual, Inhotim invited Instituto de Pesquisas e Estudos Afro-Brasileiros (Institute for Afro-Brazilian Research and Studies) (IPEAFRO) for a joint action: occupy Galeria Mata, until 2024, with the Black Art Museum collection. Abdias Nascimento and Elisa Larkin Nascimento created IPEAFRO in 1981, with the mission of safeguarding the artistic and documentary collection of Abdias and the organizations he founded. With the aim of addressing the multiple legacies of Abdias Nascimento and the fundamental issues that his work and his thought raise, Inhotim hosts another museum within itself, putting into perspective the notions of museum, collections and the networks of coexistence in which they are immersed. The series of exhibitions Abdias Nascimento and the Museum of Black Art highlights the permanence of this legacy. The project unfolds in four acts, drawing on the Black Art Museum collection and IPEAFRO documentary collection. Sortilégio (Sortilege), the third act of the project, focuses on Abdias' production as a painter, and the centrality gained by Afrodiasporic religions in his production. With the TEN's activities in decline, as a consequence of the country's political situation with the establishment of the Civil-Military Dictatorship in 1964, the intellectual faced difficulties to make his ideas resonate. Also in 1968, by recommendation of Judith Gleason, a researcher specializing in African culture, Nascimento earned a two-month grant, awarded by the Fairfield Foundation, to meet with Black artists, intellectuals and activists of the United States. In Brazil, the promulgation of Institutional Act No. 5 forced Abdias into exile, who spends 13 years between the US and Nigeria. The third act focuses in this period, the years of Abdias' exile, where most of his paintings were produced, and MAN's collection gained strength and grew with works by artists from the networks of contacts he made throughout his travels through different countries to promote the unity of African peoples across the world.
Exposición. 14 nov de 2024 - 08 dic de 2024 / Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía (C3A) / Córdoba, España
Formación. 23 nov de 2024 - 29 nov de 2024 / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) / Madrid, España
