Galerie Max Hetzler shows
Beatriz Milhazes


10 September - 5 November 2011
Preview: Saturday, 10 September 2011, 6-8 pm


Dear Editors,

Galerie Max Hetzler is pleased to present the third exhibition of Beatriz Milhazes featuring four large scale paintings and a mobile, which were the subject of her solo show at Fondation Beyeler in Basel earlier this year, as well as recent collages.

Central to the exhibition are four monumental canvases of different sizes on the theme of the four seasons. They are composed of stylized, ornamental floral motifs and geometric forms which are symptomatic of Beatriz Milhazes' oeuvre, as is the transfer technique deriving from collage that she developed. Influenced by the tropical climate and vegetation of her home country Brazil, her work, rhythmically constructed, features unique exuberant colours.
While the motifs of her paintings are applied on the canvas by decal transfer, the collages primarily consist of printed materials as candy or chocolate wrappers. These are assembled in compositions based on a graphic organisation reminiscent of pop art through the brand names that appear quite prominently.
Showing the mobile alongside the paintings and collages gives the exhibition a further dimension. The mobile combines elements which are used to embellish floats in Rio's Carnival parade like mirroring balls, chains and flowers. This sculptural work, the first she ever did, originates from a stage set Milhazes designed for her sister's dance company and was subsequently expanded.


Milhazes plays cultural cliché and tropicalist kitsch against the unyielding rationalism of hard lines, surrounding chaos with cool areas of unfettered colour. It's an approach which lends her paintings a tension and dynamism that steers familiar iconography into less obviously charted territory. Geometric abstraction lurks behind flourishes of an unfettered brightness, wrote Jennifer Higgie in Frieze Magazine.

Beatriz Milhazes' work calls to mind cross-cultural references ranging from local flora, Rio's urban verve to Brazilian Baroque. Equally present are echoes of Henri Matisse's papiers découpés, Bridget Riley's early paintings or Brazilian Modernism artists such as Tarsila do Amaral who in the late 20s reworked and renewed external stimuli by incorporating them into the context of local history and culture.

Beatriz Milhazes was born 1960 in Rio de Janeiro, where she lives and works. Her recent exhibitions include the Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2011); Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris (2010); Pinacoteca Estação, São Paulo (2008); MOT Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2008); Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2008); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007) and the 50th Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2003). Her work is featured in the permanent collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sophia, Madrid and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

The exhibition will travel to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2012).

A fully illustrated catalogue published by Holzwarth Publications will accompany the exhibition.

For further questions please contact Silke Neumann at silke.neumann@bureau-n.de


Galerie Max Hetzler
Oudenarder Straße 16-20
13347 Berlin, Germany

Phone +49. (0)30 459 77 42-0
www.maxhetzler.com
open Tue-Sat, 11 am - 6 pm
website www.maxhetzler.com.

Upcoming exhibition at Galerie Max Hetzler: Günther Förg (12 November 2011 - 28 January 2012).
art berlin contemporary (abc) about painting: André Butzer (7-11 September 2011).