O Museum of Visual Arts (MAV) Unicamp completes its tenth year of existence this week. To celebrate the date, there will be a series of webinars and an exhibition. Furthermore, the entire collection will be made available in virtual format, making it possible to search and view the works on the MAV website. Currently, the Museum has 1.391 pieces by Brazilian artists and is part of the Brazilian Network of the System of Museums and Collections.
MAV began to be conceived in the 1980s by artists and teachers from the Department of Plastic Arts linked to the creation of the Gallery of the Institute of Arts (GAIA) and was created in 2012. During its trajectory, it established relationships with local and regional museums, with which creates partnerships for exhibitions and other activities. It also organizes artistic interventions on special dates, such as Unicamp's Calourada.
The director of MAV and professor at the Institute of Arts (IA), Sylvia Furegatti, points out the characteristics of the Museum. “A university museum is a specific typology. It is based on dissemination, research and disposal of its collection, like every museum, but it has the specificity of building relationships with the university community”, she explains.
Since the creation of MAV, says the professor, actions have been carried out to institutionalize it, and external and internal contacts have been made to expand its dissemination. Through relationships with university bodies, culture bodies and other museums, joint exhibitions and events are developed periodically.
One of the needs, since its creation, is a suitable location for its operation, a challenge that will soon have to be overcome. Work on the new MAV house is scheduled to begin at the end of the 2022 semester. The architectural project was created by professors Evandro Ziggiatti Monteiro (FEC), Claudio Lima (IA/FEC) and Gabriela Celani (FEC).
Birthday schedule
Given the current pandemic, MAV programming will initially take place virtually. Virtual postcards are being published for the celebration, with graphic creation by artist Flávia Carneiro Leão. The artwork contains records of people, works and other visual indexes that recall activities and projects developed by the Museum.
Between March and April, a series of webinars will be held focusing on the female presence in Brazilian modern art. For May, an exhibition is planned at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Campinas (MACC) bringing together pieces from the collection and works by contemporary artists. The curator defined the landscape as its main theme.
The MAV Virtual project will also be launched in the first half of the year, which will publish collection data through the official website. The project is carried out through the Tainacan repository platform, with the support of the Latin American Art Center (CAL), linked to the University of Brasília (UnB).
MAV will also be part of Unicamp's activities that will commemorate the Modern Art Week (1922) and Independence (1822).
Exhibitions in the corridor of the Institute of Arts resume
Also coordinated by professor Sylvia, two IA exhibition projects were resumed: the Bookshelf and Artist's Notebooks and the Exhibition Panel of the Department of Plastic Arts (DAP). Both can be visited in the main access corridor to the Institute. In the first, notebooks with artists' notes and sketches are on display, as well as small works. In the second, images printed using the sublimation technique on fabric, representing projects by DAP teachers.
The Bookshelf and Artist Notebooks project was created in 2014. “This project was not inactive at any time before the pandemic. Until March 2020, there were 22 exhibitions by visual artists who had this connection with the idea of processes, notebooks or notebooks. The last exhibition, interrupted by the pandemic, was organized again in January, taking into account the skills test that took place for candidates for the Visual Arts course”.
The exhibition panel appeared in 2018, following the adaptation of a space previously used for internal communication. There, projects by artist professors from the Department of Visual Arts are presented to the community. “It’s a place for teachers to present, using an image, their most recent research”, points out Sylvia.
Marking the resumption of exhibitions, this year's first exhibition presents the project "Map of Clouds", by professor Edson Pfutzenreuter. “[The work] has interesting color work. These are reticules with very saturated, vivid colors. But the image is only perceived from a certain distance, when the large points are seen as nuances of color, light and shadow. The colors are saturated and vivid, but the end result is less saturated colors, more towards reddish browns”, explains the teacher.
Interest in the topic arose after reading Hubert Damisch's book about the cloud in the history of art, symbolically the place of angels, the intermediate level between men and God. Hence the motivation to photograph from above the clouds.
The Exhibition Panel project has already resulted in a collective exhibition, held at MACC in 2021, bringing together works by 13 IA professors. Educational materials were also created, aiming at art education propositions. More information about the works and artists can be accessed via QR Code (learn more here).
Artist Edson Pfutzenreuter's notebook is also on display at Estante, which will soon host an exhibition by artist Iza Figueiredo. In addition to the notebook, watercolors by the artist will be on display.