“Abre Gira é a primeira exposição individual de Bruno Miguel nas Cavalariças do Parque Lage. Professor da EAV há treze anos – além de artista e curador –, nesta mostra, ele exibe pinturas sobre tapeçarias antigas compradas em leilões. Misturando tintas acrílica, a óleo e em spray, os trabalhos apresentam entidades e orixás, representações sincréticas religiosas e manifestações presentes na cultura brasileira: tais como samba, capoeira e festas populares."

A exposição integra o Plano Anual de Atividades da Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, que conta com o patrocínio do Instituto Cultural Vale, por meio da Lei Federal de Incentivo à Cultura

Venha!

Bruno Miguel - Abre Gira
Curadoria - André Sheik

Aguardamos vocês!

Local: Cavalariças da EAV Parque Lage
02 de fevereiro à 02 de abril de 2023

Visitação aberta ao público todos os dias, exceto às quartas-feiras, das 10h às 17h.


__________________________________________________________________

English version

The construction of Brazil as a nation-state project throughout our history was generally based on projects of social exclusion, concentration of income and property, domestication and annihilation of non-white bodies, and disqualification of plural knowledge in the name of a Eurocentric civilizing project.

At the same time, in the gaps of the wall of exclusion that began to be erected in colonial times and, to a large extent, it remains, the Brazilian people - in all its diversity - elaborated original ways to invent life where apparently only death should triumph. Among these are the various ways of worshipping ancestry that underlie the codification of Umbanda in various perspectives and ramifications.

Umbanda teaches us about the connections between the material world - visible, palpable - and the invisible. The material world consists of people and what surrounds them: water, stones, leaves, animals, trees, streets, corners, crossroads, drinks, food, etc. In the invisible dwell the ancestors, the enchanted ones, disincarnate spirits, entities that interact with what is seen and connect in various ways with the living, through trance, music, dance, the vibration of the orixás, the healing power present in the leaf baths and in the smoke from the pipes of the 'pretas and pretos velhos'.

More recent studies on Umbanda increasingly emphasize the strong connection of the religion developed in Brazil with African and indigenous rituals - the fundamental bases of Umbanda practices - intertwined with influences from popular Christianity, gypsy magic, and European spiritualism. Umbanda is the daughter of the crossroads, the place where pluralities meet and life moves with the amazement and beauty of the one who, at the crossroads, profanes the sacred and sacralizes the profane to give meaning to the world manifested in the street: Exu.

Based on these elements, Bruno Miguel's works that make up this exhibition take on contours that challenge, dribble, and subvert the exclusion projects of official Brazil in the name of the amazing strength of enchanted Brazilianness. Interfering in tapestries with European characters, scenes and environments, and bringing to the art - 'gira orixás', guides, 'encantados', 'caboclos', 'malandros', 'pombagiras',' carnivals', drums, arrows, cockade; the artist celebrates the sophistication of knowledges and ways of life that beat structural racism, coloniality, projects of physical, spiritual, artistic and philosophical whitening.

The opposite of life, for Afro-indigenous wisdoms and spiritualities, is not death; it is disenchantment. The opposite of death is not life; but enchantment. In this sense, there are dead more alive than the living; there are living more dead than the dead. To a large extent, this is what the works exhibited here suggest and challenge, as enchanted celebrations of the mystery and permanence of what, against colonial horror, Brazil can be.

Luiz Antonio Simas



Amalgamations ("Purity is a myth")

"Abre Gira" is Bruno Miguel's first solo exhibition at the Cavalariças at Parque Lage. Professor at EAV for thirteen years - in addition to being an artist and curator - in this exhibition, he exhibits paintings on antique tapestries bought at auctions. Mixing acrylic, oil and spray paints, the works show entities and orixás, syncretic religious representations, and manifestations present in Brazilian culture: such as samba, capoeira, and popular festivals.

Ancient eras coexist in contemporary times. We live in a kind of historical palimpsest, where, as in a painting, older layers (despite being overlaid by newer ones) resonate in the present. Similarly is the culture in our country: an ethnic and religious combination, in which each specific contribution is sometimes almost indiscernible, resulting in a typically Brazilian junction, which, in many situations, took place in a non-peaceful manner.

Bruno Miguel, in his production, does not often start from a blank canvas, but uses existing supports that have had other uses before. He seeks to establish connections with the memory of the other (in order to understand him, to get closer to him) as well as with domestic things with which many of us can identify. This way, he builds something together, an intersection between something pre-existing and his creation, all interspersed with common affective experiences, which facilitates the other's access to the work. Pop and popular references are frequent in his trajectory as a visual artist.

Here, Bruno Miguel mixes different qualities of paint on old tapestries, bringing together not only these techniques and times - of contemporary painting with the interwoven threads of a fabric already loaded with history -, but also presenting the syncretism of Umbanda (his religion) and other typical Brazilian cultural expressions. If most Western art has its origin associated with Christian religious painting, by portraying elements of a belief of African matrix on carpets, whose origin is from a European tradition, the artist gives new meaning to these fabrics and adds to them the mixed Brazilian culture. In this process, the artist reverses the logic of protagonism.

In most of the compositions, with a certain influence from Djanira's paintings and various anonymous representations, the strong contrast between the bright colors used by the painter and the sober worn tapestries accentuates the differences between the materials and styles, making its miscegenation explicit. However, this junction is harmonized in the works. The artist referred to this encounter as a "temporal aesthetic clash".

He has been painting on this specific medium since 2010. Almost all of the carpets in this exhibition are of the types generically called Gobelin and Abusson, which have their origins in France for at least six hundred years. Before the advent of oil paint and canvas, tapestries adorned the walls of medieval European castles. As time went by, these productions, initially handcrafted and, in some periods, destined for French royalty, became popular, and were later used to decorate the walls of homes in our country. Today, they are also industrially manufactured in China.

The set presented in "Abre Gira" began during the Covid-19 pandemic, coinciding with Bruno Miguel's mediumistic awakening. During the entire process and development of the research, he consulted and respected his spirit guides, brothers in faith, and his Spiritual Healer. The artist states: "'Abre Gira' is respect, love, and lots of axé.

André Sheik
Curator