Marina Abramovic | Places of Power

From April 6 through May 16, 2015, Luciana Brito Galeria is presenting the exhibition Places of Power, by Marina Abramovic (Belgrade, Serbia, 1946 – lives in New York), a key figure in the worldwide performance art scene. The show will feature about 30 artworks – including objects, photos, graffiti, drawings, video and recordings of performances – that reveal the strong link with Brazil that the artist has been constructing over the last decades. Since 1989, she has visited the country various times, studying crystals and precious stones and their influences on the human body and mind.

This set of works includes the never-before-shown series after which the exhibition as a whole is entitled, produced as a result of a trip Abramovic took to various Brazilian states, between December 2012 and February 2013. Researching the borderlines between art and spirituality, the artist went to the state of Goiás, where she visited medium João de Deus and sacred places in the Alto Paraíso area. In Bahia, she attended Candomblé rituals and Nosso Senhor do Bomfim Church, and had experiences with shamanism, ayahuasca and Cariri Xocó Indian rituals. In the state of Minas Gerais, she deepened her knowledge concerning the power of Brazilian minerals.

From the Places of Power series, the show will feature portraits of the artist, such as Artist Portrait with a Candle and Artist Portrait with a Rose, along with various photos: Sleeping by the Fire Pit, Marina in Cave and Levitation in the Garden of Maitreya, among others. Her trip to Brazil also resulted in a documentary to be released later this year.

The show at Luciana Brito Galeria – which has been representing Marina Abramovic since 2007 – also includes important artworks produced by the artist in the period spanning from the 1970s through the 1990s, including some being shown in Brazil for the first time. This is the case of the drawing series Brazil Sketchbook Drawings, made between 1991 and 1995, with studies for the making of her “Transitory Objects,” such as Shoes for Departure, made with Brazilian amethyst, which will also be presented in the show. The black-and-white photos that constitute the record of the performance Rhythm 5, from 1975, are moreover featured.

SP-ARTE 2015 – With a solo show by Marina Abramovic, Luciana Brito Galeria is participating in the SP-Arte 2015 art fair, to be held April 9–12 in the Bienal Pavilion, at Ibirapuera Park. The artworks to be featured at this exhibition include the installation 100 Letters (produced from letters that the artist received between 1965 and 1979), two objects, a portrait of the artist, and the video Floating, in which she appears floating in the waters of a river in the Amazon region.