Luciana Brito - NY Project: Selected Works

After its highly appraised debut exhibition “Ruptura”, Luciana Brito – NY Project presents until February 24th, 2018 a selection of works from the collection by artists from different nationalities and generations, ranging from key figures of Brazil’s Concrete movement to young artists of international acclaim. As per the concept of the Tribeca exhibition space—a joint venture of Brazilian galleries Luciana Brito Galeria and Espasso—, the artworks are exhibited side by side with rare vintage limited-edition design pieces by Oscar Niemeyer, Joaquim Tenreiro, and José Zanine Caldas, among others, presented by Espasso Annex. By joining forces, the galleries create a complex, immersive opportunity for those interested in contemporary and historic Brazilian art and design, which are deeply intertwined. 

The first floor of the Tribeca’s gallery is almost entirely occupied by historical artworks by Waldemar Cordeiro (1925, Italy – 1973, Brazil), Luiz Sacilotto (1924 – 2003, Brazil), Geraldo de Barros (1923 – 1998, Brazil), Lothar Charoux (1912, Austria – 1987, Brazil), Anatol Wladyslaw (1913, Poland – 2004, Brazil), and Judith Lauand (1922, Brazil). Dated from the 1950s and early 1960s, these works were part of a period of groundbreaking aesthetic innovation in Brazil, when the foundations for Concrete art were established by the creation of the Ruptura group in 1952, which is still highly influential for Latin America’s art history and visual sensibility up to this day.

Representing the gallery’s intergenerational vocation, next to such pieces are presented two large scale photographs by Caio Reisewitz (1967, Brazil) of Brazilian architectures, one that depicts a 19th century church ceiling painting by one of the masters of Brazilian Baroque, Mestre Ataíde, while the other portraits Niemeyer’s Itamaraty Palace’s elegant and minimalist curve lines. The latter is presented next to a table designed by Polish born Jorge Zalszupin, a setting that highlights aesthetic similarities in avant-garde Brazilian architecture and design from the time. Works by Paula Garcia (1975, Brazil), a Brazilian performer based in New York, and by São Paulo based painter Tiago Tebet (1986, Brazil) complete the first-floor exhibition.

The gallery’s basement—which maintains certain quirks of the building’s previous occupancy as a restaurant, such as the large metal doors guarding the entrance of formerly refrigerated rooms—is occupied by a selection of works by Geraldo de Barros, Waldemar Cordeiro, Caio Reisewitz, Héctor Zamora, and Tobias Putrih. While Geraldo de Barros is represented there by his furniture designs and by works from his Concrete phase, Waldemar Cordeiro’s drawings of landscape design are presented side by side with vintage photographs of the realized projects, where he applied his rational and constructivist aesthetic to the flamboyance of tropical nature. Similarly, four works by Caio Reisewitz—one architectonic photograph, two landscapes and one photographic collage—represent the full scope of the artist’s body of work, motivated on the one hand by the history of architecture and the Modernist heritage and, on the other, by the chaotic exuberance of tropical nature. The show is completed with an installation by Slovenian Tobias Putrih (1972), who works with traditional architectonic construction technics to create ephemeral installations with materials such as cardboard, MDF and plaster, and a drawing on photograph by Héctor Zamora (1974, Mexico), whose ambitious performances and installations designed for public spaces break with the traditional dynamics of the cities where they are presented.

About Luciana Brito – NY Project / Espasso Annex

Launched in 2017, Luciana Brito NY Project / Espasso Annex, is an original collaboration between Luciana Brito and Carlos Junqueira aiming to explore the convergence of design and art through a Brazilian perspective. This collaboration will present curated exhibitions from Luciana Brito-NY Project while Espasso Annex will be showcasing rare vintage and limited-edition Brazilian furniture at their new Tribeca space. The galleries will present three curated exhibitions throughout 2017/2018.