Flores e Vasos: curadoria Nessia Pope

Luciana Brito Galeria is pleased to present Flores e Vasos [Flowers and Vases] in the Pavilion. Curated by Nessia Pope, Flores e Vasos features photographs by Rochelle Costi (1961–2022, Brazil), Gaspar Gasparian (1899–1966, Brazil), and Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989, United States), using depictions of flowers and vases as a point of departure for a dialogue among three generations and distinct approaches to photography.

Flores e Vasos – Rochelle Costi, Gaspar Gasparian, Robert Mapplethorpe
Curated by Nessia Pope

Opening – August 22, from 12 p.m to 5 a.m
On view through October 17

Flores e Vasos
Rochelle Costi, Gaspar Gasparian, Robert Mapplethorpe

Long associated with the still-life tradition, flowers and vases are reconfigured here through singular perspectives shaped by different contexts, techniques, and sensibilities. As a subject, they have recurred throughout art history as fertile ground for formal and symbolic experimentation, occupying a central place within still life. Beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries, European artists explored this theme as an exercise in observation and technical virtuosity. With the advent of photography in the 19th century, the motif was revisited and reinterpreted: beyond the aesthetic qualities of the arrangements themselves, questions of framing, light, staging, and seriality also came into play. In this context, flowers and vases moved beyond their role as pictorial motifs to become vehicles for reflection on time, form, sensuality, and everyday experience.

In Gaspar Gasparian’s photographs, flowers and vases seem to arise from silence, held within rigorously composed arrangements where every element appears precisely calibrated. The image reveals more than the arrangement itself: it creates a suspended moment in which time seems to stand still and form, light, and permanence are brought into balance. A defining feature of his work, particularly during the 1940s and 1950s, was his construction of studio settings conceived as spaces for experimentation. There, Gasparian arranged flowers, vases, and other elements with precision, exercising meticulous control over lighting and framing. While these compositions engage with the still-life tradition, they also reveal photography as a field of construction, in which each image emerges from carefully considered formal decisions.

Robert Mapplethorpe, by contrast, brings formal discipline and sensuality together in his treatment of the subject. His celebrated flower photographs from the 1970s and 1980s depict lilies, orchids, and tulips, either isolated or arranged in simple vases against neutral backgrounds. At first glance, their balanced compositions, controlled lighting, pronounced contrasts, and almost sculptural precision place them within the classical tradition. Yet Mapplethorpe moves beyond the decorative and allegorical associations of flowers, presenting them instead as bodies charged with eroticism and sensuality, particularly in his images of orchids.

Rochelle Costi, in her later work produced between 2015 and 2022, approached the same theme of flowers and vases from a relational, everyday perspective, working through desires, memories, and anxieties by drawing on the world around her. She found the objects of her investigation in the domestic sphere and in Pacaembu, the relatively bucolic São Paulo neighborhood where she lived. Unlike Gaspar Gasparian and Robert Mapplethorpe, Costi created vibrant floral arrangements marked by an affective and sensitive quality, using flowers she gathered herself and vases from her own collection, as well as improvised containers such as bottles, jars, and other ordinary objects that acquire presence and meaning within the compositions. Through the interplay of color, excess, and a certain kitsch sensibility, her images reveal ways of life, tastes, and forms of affection.

Flores e Vasos brings Gaspar Gasparian, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Rochelle Costi together around the still-life tradition of flowers and vases, creating a dialogue among three generations and distinct photographic contexts. In Gasparian’s work, carefully staged arrangements reveal an experimental and formal interest rooted in the pioneering work of the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante. Mapplethorpe, in turn, refines and monumentalizes flowers and vases as sculptural forms charged with symbolic and erotic tension. Costi shifts this repertoire toward everyday life and affection, bringing habits and cultural constructions into view. By approaching the genre through staging, idealization, and contingency in different ways, the three artists reshape it as a field of inquiry into form, the body, and social life.