Art Week 2019
Art Week 2019
Recently, in Frontiers of Thought, the psychoanalyst Calligaris provoked: "let us be light without being frivolous". We adopt it as a challenge and complement it: "let us be contemporary without being dated". We borrow from art its ability to create silent dialogues. Subjects that evaporate from our screens after causing multiplatform floods. Forgotten too quickly. There are those who pretend they haven't seen. There are those who intentionally forget in order to follow. Controversy. Polarization. A type of contrast that does not reveal the best of its complementary opposite. As the end of the year approaches, we see that we need to rethink. To feel. To feel. The gentleness of art is a friendly language to treat the seriousness of the themes of our retrospective with respect. We invite a deeper relationship with our surroundings. A relationship that questions transience, memory and permanence.
Ingrid Stemmer
In its fourth edition, the established Stemmer Rodrigues Art Week marked the completion and delivery of Poema Petrópolis, at Av Encantado 344. The show brought together works by renowned artists from Rio Grande do Sul curated by Ingrid Stemmer. The collection brings sculptures, canvases, prints and decorative pieces and furniture. From the Dadaist Duchamp, we borrowed irony and metaphor to create unusual encounters: contrasting times, divergent platforms, opposing techniques, but which share the visceral humanity of their creators. We even allowed ourselves our own re-reading of the famous sculpture The Fountain which, here in the office, took on tropical airs.
Coincidence or a reflection of the spirit of the times, our provocation occurred a few days before an even greater irony that gained repercussion at Art Basel Miami: at the French gallery Perrotin, Italian Maurizio Catellan caused a stir by exhibition of three bananas fixed to the wall with adhesive tape. Two of them were sold, respectively, for US$120,000 and US$150,000. The artist's intention was precisely to satirize the relationship of hyperbole and passing superficiality with art, the economy and the narratives that sustain them.
Back in Petrópolis, the work that is part of Poema's permanent collection is by the Porto Alegre sculptor Rogério Pessoa. The sculptures, which are over 2 metres high, are cast in iron and ceramics and were the highlight of the Mercosul Biennale and now embellish the quiet street in Petrópolis.
Fahrion, Radaelli and Grassman visit the entrance hall with their oils in a serene friendship between the expressionistic stroke of the brush and the contemporary minimalism of the architecture that embraces them.
Inês Schertel and Selma Calheira, whose work makes use of millenary loom and ceramic techniques, lend baskets and clay sculptures to the collection. From the Amazon, the handicrafts of indigenous tribes play a leading role in Brazilianness and cultural heritage.
Guto Índio da Costa and Guilherme Wentz contribute with extremely minimalist, contemporary decoration and furniture pieces with a strong timeless trace. The architect Carolina Petersen painted murals especially for the occasion, together with her drawn portraits and a grove of bonsai trees from the Associação Bonsai Sul lined up pieces of extreme beauty and contemplation.
Art Week also marked the launch of the Pendureiro, a coat rack designed by Ingrid Stemmer. It is the first piece of the series Objetos Felizes, a collection of pieces designed by S&R whose sales revenue will be fully reverted to charities. The coat hanger is manufactured by San German and sold by Casa de Alessa. Another object that, unusually, made everyone happy were the green bikes, a gift from S&R to the residents of Poema as an incentive to a lighter and more sustainable life.
