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Indepth Arts News:
"Gambiarra: New Art from Brazil - Efrain Almeida, Ducha, Jarbas Lopes, Marepe, and Capacete Entertainments"
2003-09-19 until 2003-11-09
Gasworks Gallery
London, ,
UK United Kingdom
Gasworks, in association with firstsite, Colchester, is pleased to present Gambiarra - New Art from Brazil, which will include the first UK presentation of artists Ducha, Marepe, Jarbas Lopes, Efrain Almeida and curatorial collective Capacete Entertainments. All of the artists and curators included in Gambiarra draw on the languages of contemporary popular culture of Brazil as sources of inspiration and use their practices to comment on the political and social aspects of a country which has profound economic contradictions and a population that is one of the most ethnically diverse in the world.
Working in a wide range of media, the artists and curators included in Gambiarra are representative of a younger generation of practitioners whose work possess the same originality, richness and diversity that we have come to associate with visual art from this country, combined with a more explicit and overtly political voice.
Gambiarra, or making do when translated from Brazilian Portuguese, refers to a common strategy employed by all of the artists involved, who not only see this as a plausible methodology for fabricating works, but also, and more importantly, it is seen as a powerful and positive metaphor for their reflections on the state of cultural institutions and the complexity of their position as part of and in relation to those institutions.
The conscious decision by the artists and curators in this exhibition to use short-term solutions, low-tech materials and to make do with what is to hand rarely has direct reference to their own personal situation, but variously refers to the multitude of extreme inequalities that have become part of the fabric of Brazilian society, inherently affecting its values and symbols.
Including works from private and public collections from Latin America, the USA and Europe, as well as newly commissioned pieces, the exhibition will also include two three month residencies for Ducha, and Jarbas Lopes who will be invited to make a series of off-site interventions in response to the different exhibition locations. During his residency, Jarbas Lopes will be working with The London Printworks Trust, Brixton to create a public artwork made in collaboration with ten young people who live in South London.
IMAGE
Ducha
Projeto Cristo Redentor, 2001
Red gels placed over the spot-lights at Sugar Loaf Mountain
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