Exhibit Celebrates Brazilian Art and Culture

Art Business News, Oct, 2001

Following the closing of its blockbuster show "Frank Gehry," the Guggenheim Museum is hoping to strike gold once again with the recently opened, "Brazil: Body and Soul." Containing more than 350 objects, the exhibit emphasizes the integration of the physical and spiritual experience in Brazilian art through an examination of the importance of performance, music and ritual, as well as the role of religious processions and secular celebrations.

The introductory section of the exhibit consists of an examination of the "outsiders' view" of Brazil in the Age of Exploration. Included in this section are major paintings depicting Brazilian peoples and landscapes by early 17th-century Dutch artists Frans Post and Albert Eckhout attesting to the political and economic presence of a variety of Europeans in early modern Brazil.

The Baroque section features religious sculpture, including processional figures, ritual liturgical objects and private devotional altars. Frei Agostinho da Piedade, Manuel Inacio da Costa and Antonio Francisco Lisboa, known as Aleijadinho, are also included.

Interwoven throughout the exhibit are examples of work by indigenous artists from early and modern times, including feather capes and other body adornments from the Amazonian and coastal peoples. Examples of the influence of Afro-Brazilian rituals and traditions are also included with a large selection of objects ranging from gold and silver jewelry worn by slaves to contemporary expressions by artists like Mestre Didi, "GTO" and Agnaldo dos Santos.

The Modern section explores the radical innovations in Brazilian art of the 1920s and '30s. Featured artists include Tarsila do Amaral, Anita Malfatti, Lasar Segall, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, Victor Brecheret, Vicente do Rego Monteiro and Candido Portinari.

The Concrete and Neo-Concrete movements that defined the artistic experiments of the later 1950s, '60s and '70s are explored with artists such as Franz Weissman, Mary Viera, Luis Sacilotto, Sergio Camargo and Lygia Pape. A selected group of key contemporary figures are also featured.

SHOW FACTS

Brazil: Body and Soul
Through Jan. 27, 2002

Guggenheim Museum

Address: 1071 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY

Phone: (212) 423-3500

Web site: www.guggenheim.org