Maddox Arts is proud to present A Séance for Geometry curated by Kiki Mazzucchelli, a group show bringing together new works by four young artists alongside a short film by Roberto Evangelista (Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, 1946).

The exhibition takes Evangelista’s film as the starting point for a reflection on the possibilities of locating geometry in the visual arts. Mater Dolorosa – In Memorian II (Of the Creation and Survival of Forms) presents a mystical conception of geometry that sets it apart from the widely spread tradition of 20th century geometric abstraction. Shot in the Rio Negro region in the Amazonian forest in 1978, this poetic audiovisual essay is punctuated by a free-flowing narrative establishing the relationship between geometry and the cosmogony of the Tukano Indians. Dozens of perfectly round bowls (cuias) are seen floating on the dark waters of a lagoon against a backdrop of thick Amazonian forest as our narrator recounts the oral history of the Tukanos, for whom the circle is the originating form of the universe.

Daniel Steegmann Mangrané incorporates the geometrical motifs of the Tupi Indians in his collages and objects and his work is charged with a symbolic meaning that transcends the pure materiality of the surface. A Catalan who has been based in Brazil for some ten years, Mangrané’s work evokes the encounter with nature and with models of native knowledge – something that forcibly calls for a phenomenological approach, as it cannot be fully apprehended by Cartesian thought.

In their first collaborative work, Ana Cvorovic and Rodrigo Matheus present us with a floor installation combining a series of industrial and natural elements in order to create sculptural arrangements simultaneously suggesting architectural landscapes and natural phenomena; three empty, office cabinets are aligned and filled with sand, stones and plaster cast objects, topped with lamps projecting a series of ascending light circles in an arrangement that oscillates between the rigidity of industry and the character of nature. The installation extends along the floor into a Constructivist assemblage of mirrors, metal trestles, frames, stones and cast objects. By combining everyday objects taken from the urban environment with natural elements, Cvorovic and Matheus create a piece that comprises disparate moments of extreme formal restraint and freedom.

Gabriel Lima works primarily in paint and for A Séance for Geometry he is producing a new site-specific work that will create a dialogue with the architecture of the gallery and the other works in the show. His large unframed canvases hang on the wall like banners, often incorporating folds that reinforce the desire to break with the two- dimensionality of painting. Black dominates the surface, laboriously worked in order to evoke a sense of depth. Therefore, at the same time as occupying the space around them, these works do not deny the surface of painting. In the environmental composition presented here, Lima employs a series of elements related to the idea of ‘temporary architectures’ and ‘provisional monumentality’.

Daniel Steegmann Mangrané was a participant of 2012 São Paulo Biennial. He was born in Spain in 1977 but currently resides in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He has received grants and prizes from Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, MUSAC, Ciutat d'Olot, CoNCA, ABC Prize, Miquel Casablancas, José García Jiménez Foundation, Akademie der Kunste. Upcoming shows include Galeria Nuno Centeno, Porto; Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, Madrid; Museo Experimental el Eco, Mexico DF; Werkleitz 2013, Halle; or Panorama 33, Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo. Besides his artistic practice Daniel Steegmann Mangrané runs the experimental school Universidade de Verão at Capacete, Rio de Janeiro.

Gabriel Lima was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1984. He is an MA student at Royal College of Art and has participated in Tsunami Volido, New York, USA and “How to Lose Control”, a commission for performance with Pedro Wirz, SP-Arte, São Paulo, Brazil. In 2011 he was artist in residence at SPARC/Mendes Wood.

Ana Cvorovic was born in the former Yugoslavia and migrated to the UK in 1989, she is an MA student at the Royal College of Art and is the recipient of the 2012 Leathersellers Scholarship. Her work has been included as part of The Saatchi Collection.

Rodrigo Matheus was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1974. He is an MA student at Royal College of Art. He has held solo exhibitions at Colisão de Sonhos Reais em Universos Paralelos, Fundação Manuel Antonio da Mota, Porto, Portugal in 2013 and Handle with Care, Galpão Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo, Brasil in 2010, amongst others. He is included in public collections at Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea, Minas Gerais, Brasil and at MAM - Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil.

Roberto Evangelista was born in Cruzeiro do Sul, a small town within the Northern state of Acre, Brazil, in 1946. Besides the São Paulo Biennial, Evangelista has exhibited widely, both inside and outside Brazil. Examples include Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949-1979, at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, 1998 and Amazônia, Ciclos de Modernidade, at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB), Rio de Janeiro, 2012. In addition, he has published two poetry books to the moment: O Crisântemo de Cem Pétalas (roughly, The Chrysanthemums of a Hundred Petals), in collaboration with poet Luiz Bacellar, (1985), and more recently, in 2012, Mínimas Orações.