Caio Reisewitz: Esqueceu de beber água agora chora de sede

In Galeria I, the show Esqueceu de beber água agora chora de sede [Having Forgotten to Drink Water, It’s Time to Cry of Thirst] features seven photographs from the most recent production by Caio Reisewitz, an artist of growing renown in the national and international art scene. The works presented include images of the Iguaçu series as well as recent photomontages in an entirely new format.

The five photographs measuring approximately 220 x 180 cm that compose the Iguaçu series were taken at the beginning of the year (2010), in Brazil’s South, during a period of phenomenally heavy rains that wreaked havoc in the region. Unlike what we see in most images depicting the Foz do Iguaçu, Reisewitz presents a nearly oneiric landscape, immersed in a diffuse and soft light, in which the details become inapprehensible.

This foggy, powerfully absorbing and appealing setting is also mysteriously perturbing, as though it were impossible to penetrate into this place of seemingly rarefied air. The choice of an aerial view works together with the large-scale format to lend the photographed landscape an epic monumentality.

The photographer’s sensitive gaze infuses these images with the nearly physical and deafening roar of the torrents of water rushing toward the chasms, the droplets suspended in the air, touching lightly on the skin, or even the moist smell of the forest all around.

Caio Reisewitz has developed a poetics with peculiar features. The power of his compositions lies precisely in the dichotomy between the real that we’re used to “seeing” as opposed to the images of idyllic environments or geometric compositions, which often confuse our perception of the real.

Besides the Iguaçu series, the artist will be presenting for the first time two large-format photomontages: “Joaçaba” and “Paretinga.” In the construction of these works, Reisewitz eschews the use of digital photography or computer assisted image editing. The final images are obtained by way of the physical montage of cut-out portions of photos, some taken by the artist, others appropriated, in an evident analogy to human actions on the natural landscapes.

“The photomontages are made with cutouts from photographic enlargements, glued together, rephotographed and then enlarged to a lesser degree to ensure a wealth of details. The anti-Photoshop approach – everything done by hand, scissors and glue – is the interesting thing about these new works,” Reisewitz states.

About the artist

One of the most representative figures of Brazilian contemporary photography, Caio Reisewitz (São Paulo, 1967) uses photography to work with a range of aesthetic and technical issues involving the question of representation in contemporary art, focusing on subjects such as the landscape (both rural and urban) and the interior of buildings.

He holds a degree in visual communications from Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado, and in the early 1990s attended the Fachoberschule für Gestaltung of Darmstadt and graduated from the Kunstakademie Mainz.

His work was shown at the 26th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, in 2004, and in the following year he represented Brazil at the 51st Venice Biennale. Exhibitions he has participated in most notably include Retratos de Villes: Brasília, Chandigarh, Le Havre, Musée Malraux, Le Havre, France; GK Collection # 1, Stary Browar, Poznan, Poland; and Beyond Delirious: Architecture in Selected Photographs from the Ella Fontanals Cisneros Collection, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, USA. His most recent exhibitions have included the solo showsMaracutaia (2009), at Fundação RAC, Pontevedra, and Fundación Pedro Barrie de la Maza, Vigo, both in Spain;Parece Verdade, at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and the group shows 50 Anos de Arte Brasileira,at Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador; Construções de Brasília, Instituto Moreira Salles, Brasília and São Paulo; Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Niterói; and Novos Mundos Novos, Centro Cultural Santander, Recife, in Brazil.

He received acquisition prizes from the 4th and 6th Salão of the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, in 1997 and 1999, respectively, as well as the Sérgio Motta Prize, in 2001. His works are part of important public elections in Brazil and worldwide, including Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, USA; Colecção Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Lisbon, Portugal; Coleção Itaú Cultural, São Paulo; Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador; and Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.

Still in 2010, he will participate in an artist’s residency in Benjin and Guilin, and will also present his works at the Nanjing Biennial, in China.

The artist lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.