Ivens Machado: Made in China

In the exhibition space Galeria I, Ivens Machado, an exponent of the 1970s generation of artists in Brazil, reveals an oneiric and singular universe composed of five never-before-shown large-scale sculptures, resulting from an extensive research into modeling that has introduced cardboard into his creations. This is the first time that the artist – who for some time had already been developing artworks with “poor” materials such as cement, iron, stones, wood and glass – is presenting these new forms in public.

Unlike the dryness and rigidity of his previous works that did not beckon for sensorial involvement, this new series of sculptures provokes the senses by exploring the artistic possibilities of cardboard from bicycle boxes, lending lightness to his compositions and creating a unique aesthetics. “The images that the artist produces are not circumscribed only within the visually decoded limits of the uncommon, grotesque or erotic. Rather, they are amoral, orphan and nomadic choices. His work is constructed based on an encounter of purity in scarceness,” comments Marcio Doctors in a text published in the book Ivens Machado – o engenheiro de fábulas [Ivens Machado – The Engineer of Fables].

A pioneer of video art in Brazil, Ivens Machado is one of the freest artists in his generation. The courage to constantly place himself in discussion has already marked various moments of his extraordinary career. Parallel to the videos, in the 1970s the artist also produced extensive series of drawings mostly based on the introduction of small alterations in lined writing paper or graph paper. Beginning in the 1980s, however, the artist’s interest became fixed on sculptures. In them, material and form work together, without dissociation of meaning, being interrelated in a complex web between social/historic memory, contemporary form and modern autonomy, while dialoging with other spheres of culture, without hierarchical criteria, in a game of effective reciprocity.

The author of a singular oeuvre, the artist possesses a vast national and international resume, having participated in five editions of the Bienal de São Paulo (1973, 1981, 1987, 1998 and 2004), in the XIII Paris Biennale, the Novelle Bienal de Paris (1985), the Bienal do Mercosul held in Porto Alegre (1997), as well as in other group exhibitions and solo shows in various countries.

Ever since it emerged, his work has sparked great interest on the part of galleries, museums, curators and scholars, and has been constantly considered by texts written by renowned critics and curators such as Fernando Cocchiarale, Ligia Canongia, Paulo Herkenhoff, Eduardo Jardim, Milton Machado, etc. His works figure in the collections of important international institutions such as the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (USA), and national ones including the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, and the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia.

A drawer and sculptor par excellence, Ivens Machado (Florianópolis, 1942) is outstanding in the art scene for the highly imaginative way that he refines and transforms the organic world of nature and the constructions of culture. The artist lives and works in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).