Between questions about being an artist and working as an art teacher and mentor, the exhibition “How long have we been thinking about this?” opens this Thursday (November 6th) at noon at the Art Gallery of the Institute of Arts (Gaia). The exhibition materializes the research projects of nine professors from the Postgraduate Program in Visual Arts (PPGAV) of the Institute of Arts (IA) at Unicamp. On display until December 12th, the exhibition is marked by diversity, bringing together painting, photography, printmaking, woodcut, video, installations, and technology that dialogue with the idea of what it means to be a teacher-artist within the University.
“The exhibition is becoming a tradition; it’s a hard-won space, important for students and the community to see the work of teachers who are also artists. The name of the exhibition has a meaning, which refers to a true feeling, that research in art involves not only teaching or writing texts, but also the materiality of the process. Art demands from us all the time; we are always thinking about it,” says Mauricius Farina, one of the curators of the exhibition, along with César Baio and Sylvia Furegatti, currently Pro-Rector of Extension, Sports and Culture (Proeec), who also present their works.
The organizers' idea is to produce a catalog and take the exhibition to other galleries in Brazil. In addition to the exhibition, on December 18th, at 14:30 PM, in Room 3 of the Postgraduate Program at the Institute of Arts, the role of the artist in the university will be the topic of a panel discussion with Gabriel Zacarias, director of the Museum of Visual Arts at Unicamp (MAV), and guest Luciano Vinhosa, art theorist and artist-professor at the Federal Fluminense University (UFF).
“We have all dedicated ourselves to artistic careers for a long time, and each of us has a job, in addition to all of us being supervisors of master's and doctoral theses,” adds Farina, who presents a series of three photographs from the “Inverted Landscapes” series, which represent suspended time and inhabiting the world. “These images deal with a poetic experience of presence and movement through places,” he defines.
Unprecedented at Unicamp
César Baio, who has dedicated himself to technological art projects using fungi and artificial intelligence (AI), after achieving international recognition with the Cesar & Lois collective (a partnership with the American artist Lucy HG Solomon, from California State University San Marcos), presents for the first time at Unicamp an installation that brings together his experiments.
The work is titled “Intelligence of the Forest: From Boreal to Tropical,” also a Cesar & Lois creation. “The installation shows the invisible signals between the different entities that make the forest a living and interconnected organism. This project began with the work 'Boreal Intelligence,' created in Finland, showing the not always perceptible relationships between the different living entities that make up the forest. For this exhibition, the idea of connection between different species is shifted to a global context,” they explain.
Cocoon-shaped sculptures, installed on the forest floor, capture the bioelectrical signals of fungi, plants, and lichens and translate them into luminous flashes, proving their vital activities. “The work makes visible the subterranean and aerial communication of forest organisms, allowing the public to experience the pulsating life of these environments. The work proposes thinking of the forest as a living network that crosses geographies, species, and times,” adds the artist, who emphasizes: “The installation does not use massive generative AI platforms, known for causing significant environmental impacts.”
“Bringing to the exhibition results, even if partial, of creative processes that also develop as research allows the public to see what is thought and researched within postgraduate programs,” says Baio. “These are works that connect through the relationship between the exercise of the materiality of what is employed by each artist and their creative process.”
Nature, resilience and memory
Sylvia Furegatti presents the installation “Stalactites,” which is part of a new series of works composed of variations of natural plant leaves. “In this exhibition, I present a stalactite tower formed by leaves of Sansevieria (snake plant) that reinforce the technical and poetic research I have been conducting for some time with this syncretic type of plant,” she explains.
"The work proposes a deviation from the plant's natural growth pattern, converting it into a sculpture that the public can walk around, observing its variations in density and color, with some suspicion about its natural origin and ability to survive," he adds.
Regarding the curatorial approach, Furegatti emphasizes that the selection of works sought to reveal the potential for unfolding disciplinary guidelines. "An exhibition of teacher-artists carries a desired tension between the models of production in the atelier or studio and the condition of art as a project," he defines.
Marta Strambi, who presents works with glass elements, such as fists, emphasizes that, as a teacher, she highlights the approach of her creative process. “My process is autobiographical, and I invite students to show theirs,” she points out. For the exhibition, she presents two installations around the theme of resistance. “The works 'Resistere I and II' deal with the relationship between art, violence, and belonging.”
Sergio Niculitcheff, in turn, brought together nine small works produced this year and a painting on canvas from 2006. The recent works, using oil pastel technique, were painted on handmade paper made by the artist from mango fibers. "The choice to combine the works was due to thematic affinity," he explains.
Rachel Zuanon, on the other hand, is betting on an immersive and interactive work called "[embrace] the earth and yourself," which reflects "on the impacts of the Anthropocene on the sustainability of human, non-human, and planetary life." The installation uses virtual reality resources and is based on concepts from cognitive-behavioral neuroscience.
Luise Weiss presents woodcuts inspired by the theme of navigators. "They are ships, ports, arrivals and departures. In the woodcuts, the wood grain intertwines with figures that appear and dissolve, like vessels that sometimes appear and sometimes disappear on the horizon," she explains.
Edson Reuter, the current coordinator of the postgraduate program, exhibits engravings that deal with textures and halftones and their effects on color and transparency in large-format prints. "I have been developing an engraving project in which I use an extremely precise device to produce halftones that optically represent imprecise things, especially clouds, but I have also been interested in using the textures of wood," he says.
In video format, Gilberto Sobrinho presents a poetic documentary about the work of the artist, carver, and sculptor Vitoriano dos Anjos Figueiroa (Salvador, 1765 – Campinas, 1871). “In Campinas, he developed one of his most impactful works, highlighting the influence of the Baroque and Neoclassical styles, which is the main altarpiece of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Campinas, parish of Nossa Senhora da Conceição.
“His figure is emblematic for us to think about the condition of the artist as a worker,” he states. “Vitoriano was a contract worker, dependent on his employer for the creation of his art and his survival. Therefore, we have the artist-worker who is confined to a specific production regime. Vitoriano, as is known, had problems with the continuity of his work contract and was fired. Afterwards, he lived in poverty until he was cared for by people who knew of his legacy and who protected him until his death,” he concludes.
AGENDA
Exhibition"How long have I been thinking about this?", featuring works by artist-teachers Cesar Baio, Edson Reuter, Gilberto Alexandre Sobrinho, Luise Weiss, Marta Strambi, Mauricius Farina, Rachel Zuanon, Sergio Niculitcheff, and Sylvia Furegatti.
Period: From November 6th at 12 PM until December 12th.
Open Hours: Monday to Friday, from 9 am to 17 pm.
Location: Gallery of the Institute of Arts of Unicamp (Gaia), Rua Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, s/nº, ground floor of the Cesar Lattes Central Library. Free admission.
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