Fernanda Gomes: Pinacoteca de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil

A graduate of the Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial (ESDI), in Rio de Janeiro, Fernanda is among the most internationally renowned contemporary artists in Brazil. Her practice is characterized by the use of ordinary materials - such as plaster, wood, and glass - subjected to manual operations such as tying, joining, or simply positioning and spreading in space. These items are collected from the artist's domestic life and during her wanderings through the streets, galleries, and institutions where she exhibits her production.

 

The exhibition at the Pinacoteca, which is sponsored by Itaú, comes about two years after the institution's invitation. Throughout this period, Gomes developed a plan for occupying the spaces, which included both determinations and openings for improvisation, designing specific expographic solutions for each environment. "Hence the manifestation of a demanding, meticulous process that goes beyond a gathering of works," the curator defines.

 

The final result will emerge after three weeks of mounting work, during which the artist will be continuously active in the seven exhibition rooms, thus installing a kind of temporary studio, not open to the public, a procedure usually adopted by her. The group presented includes works ranging from the best known - such as spheres of carnations and thread, an extension of smoked and juxtaposed cigarette papers, paintings made with ink and paper, and some of her kinetic sculptures - to new works that will be conceived in loco.

 

The total absence of meaning - neither the exhibition nor the works have a name - with pieces painted white ("this color that is all and none at the same time," Ribeiro explains) ends up preserving the undefined and unstable aspect of the set. "The pieces are not identified by the usual museum legends either, which ultimately favors the possibilities of connection between one and the others, between all of them and their surroundings, without dating them or describing common materials or peculiar techniques, which require more skill or labor than method," he adds.

 

The production thus establishes the very conditions for its exhibition: with a strong sense of unity, in order to propose an integral experience with no chance of repeating itself, not in another time or space. Also for these reasons, the famous dichotomy between art and life is a recurrent topic in Fernanda Gomes' reflections. In interviews and texts of her own, the artist's statements on the subject point to an indifferentiation between the two notions. For her, "things are and are mixed", so that "the difference between art objects and common objects still appears as a mystery".

 

Curator: José Augusto Ribeiro