MARIA NEPOMUCENO
Always in a Spiral
23 JAN – 6 JUNE
Exhibition
The Brazilian artist Maria Nepomuceno allows her sculptures to spread across the exhibition space like vegetation in a mysterious garden. She uses rope and necklaces as raw material for her work, letting them take on their natural spiral form. For Nepomuceno the metaphor for the body and nature is central. She describes rope as a line, an umbilical cord, and every bead as a fertile point and a possible beginning that can be multiplied infinitely. In one work a giant bead rests in a hammock while another sculpture is filled with thousands of small glittering beads. Every time she exhibits a sculpture she changes it and combines a part of it with another or takes it apart completely. Nepomuceno is inspired by ancient traditions and materials giving them new form and content. In Latin America hammocks are places of sleep, birth and death but the artist is also interested in the movement, the rocking motion. The artist will let her sculptural hammocks suspend across the exhibition space at Magasin 3.
She says of her work, “I want to create a situation that feels like transiting from the beginning of our culture to the present.”
Maria Nepomuceno has re-worked existing sculptures and created new ones for the space. The exhibition at Magasin 3 is her second European solo show. She was born in 1976 and lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With a background in industrial design and art she has been actively exhibiting since 1999, most recently in her hometown at A Gentil Carioca (2009).
In the library we are showing Maria Nepomuceno’s films Domingo, 2003 and Expiro, 2006. The beads of Maria Nepomuceno’s sculptural work resurface in this filmed performance in the form of a large pink beach ball with the word “Amor” written on it. The artist releases the ball in various crowded places and sees what happens. One of the places is a beach in Rio de Janeiro and another the samba parade in the same city during the carnival. At the beach the sunbathers play with it, while on the street the revelers end up puncturing the pink ball, which slowly deflates and shrivels.
Curator: Elisabeth Millqvist
Image: Maria Nepomuceno, Installation at Magasin 3 (2010), photo: Christian Saltas
About the artist
Born in 1976 in Rio de Janeiro, Maria Nepomuceno studied painting and drawing at Parque Lage’s visual arts school with among others Beatriz Milhazes before studying industrial design at the University of Rio de Janeiro and art and philosophy at the School of Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne & Paris, Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles and at A Gentil Carioca Gallery, Rio de Janeiro to mention a few. In 2009 she was a part of the group exhibition ”Age of Anxiety”, Volta New York and the previous year she exhibited at Toyota Museum of Contemporary Art, Nagoya. The exhibition at Magasin 3 is her first Scandinavian solo show.
Read an interview with the artist by curator Elisabeth Millqvist (pdf)
Images
Work list
The exhibition includes 10 recent works all made in 2009 to 2010. The works are in mixed media. The artist works with rope both in nylon, straw and fabric. She also recurrently works with necklaces of plastic beads. An important part of the working process for Nepomuceno is to constantly reassemble the sculptures, incorporating them in each other or taking them apart. The works vary in scale. The largest measure more than 250 cm. The artist’s working method is re-working existing sculptures for new exhibitions. For more information please see images of the works.
Program
LECTURE BY CORINNE DISERENS
TUESDAY, MAY 11 AT 6PM
Lygia Clark, Máscaras abismo
”Geometry arises from the reflection of the body projected in my soul. And I am on my way, with a thousand and one aphorisms that I enjoy, that entertain me, fascinate me… ”
(Excerpt from a letter by Lygia Clark to Hélio Oiticica, June 7, 1974)
Lygia Clark created art from plastic bags with air, shells, plastic tubes or from no objects at all. She is an icon within contemporary art and an inevitable reference for Brazilian artists, but there are few opportunities to take part of her works. In conjunction with the Brazilian artist Maria Nepomuceno’s exhibition at Magasin 3, Curator Corinne Diserns gives us in-depth knowledge of a groundbreaking artistry.
The exhibition and café are open from 5pm. Free admission to the lecture.
Corinne Diserens is a curator and former director of Museion, Bolzano, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, Musées de Marseille and Carta Blanca, Madrid. Corinne Diserens has previously been a curator at IVAM, Valencia, organized the restrospective “Lygia Clark” at the Musée d’Art Contemporain – MAC, Marseille and co-curated with Suely Rolnik the exhibition “Lygia Clark, de l’oeuvre à l’évènement. Nous sommes le moule. A vous de donner le souffle” 2005 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes.
GUIDED TOUR OF “ALWAYS IN A SPIRAL”
SATURDAY JAN 23 AT 2.30PM
Curator Elisabeth Millqvist gives a guided tour of the exhibition “Always in a Spiral” with Maria Nepomuceno. NB: The tour will be in Swedish.
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