Luciana Brito Galeria is presenting mundo do meio [world in between], Caio Reisewitz’s seventh exhibition at the gallery since 2005. Occupying all the spaces of the former modernist residence designed by Rino Levi, the show provides an overview of the more than 20-year span of the artist’s research into the representativity of architecture using various photographic approaches. The critical text is by Laymert Garcia dos Santos.
mundo do meio goes back in time to recover visual artist Caio Reisewitz’s initial investigations concerning architecture and brings them into the present day, positioning them in relation to Brazil’s current social and political contexts. Since the early 2000s, the artist’s investigation has been centered on this theme, particularly on how modernism, in Brazil, is representative of the culture and expression of a people, of an era. One focus of his research is the aesthetics surrounding spaces of power, as well as their multiple discourses in the visual arts.
The exhibition thus establishes a symbiosis between, on the one hand, the formalist aspects of modernist architecture, its history and the agents involved in it, through reference to Rino Levi’s design, and, on the other, the issues involved in Brazil’s current polarization – which range from extreme social differences concerning political ideologies to the dismantling of public institutions and the ensuing consequences for the Brazilian environment. The glass pane, represented here by the glass wall that separates two spaces of the former Castor Delgado residence – the living room and the garden designed by Roberto Burle Marx – serves as a metaphor for Caio Reisewitz’s “world in between.” Glass has always played an important role in the modernist concept, insofar as it promotes dialogue between the various designed environments, especially in the context Brazil’s climate and natural world. Even while this glass divides and blocks, it also brings together and unites the things on either side. In the exhibition, this division is dissolved with the artist’s site-specific installation, which brings the garden inside the house and reminds
us of the power of nature.
In the adjoining space, the installation Mundo do Meio [World in Between] (2023) occupies the main wall. This work is part of a series of large-scale collages, the first ones of which were shown at the Biennale of Sydney (2022), as well as in Guangzhou, Chengdu, Medellin, and Paris, at the Grand Palais. It was created by combining images made recently by the artist on various themes – including the Praça dos Cristais, the plaza in Brasília designed by Burle Marx for the Army Headquarters where the insurrectionists gathered in preparation for the January 8, 2023 attack on the Federal Government – along with others from the artist’s research archive, picturing rafts of wildcat gold miners, agribusiness advertisements, and uncut forests. The same room also features other works being shown here for the first time, presented in a format of overlapping images, in a metaphor for natural disasters and environmental neglect.
Ten years ago, Caio Reisewitz produced the Altamira (2013) series, in which he documented the region of the Belo Monte forest (in the state of Pará), which once stood along the Xingu River, but which disappeared with the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant, creating a paradox where the teeming nature of the pristine region in the images is now only a memory due to human action. The artist revisited the series in 2018, after the region was flooded. The exhibition also features documents, images, and notes used by the artist in his research.
About Caio Reisewitz
1967, São Paulo, Brazil. Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil
Caio Reisewitz’s research takes photography as its main medium. Through technical and thematic refinement, his work evinces an interest in human action and its social and political effects, whether in the natural space or the architectural space. While his photographic technique highlights the dramaticity among shapes, colors and textures, his artistic poetics constructs a nearly dreamlike aesthetic repertoire. These aspects establish a dichotomous dialogue between the real (that which is characteristic of the photographic record) and the chimerical (our own repertoires).
“mundo do meio”, Caio Reisewitz
Critical Essay: Laymert Garcia dos Santos
Opening: Mar 25, 11AM-5PM
Running: until March 05th, 2023
Location: Luciana Brito Galeria - Av. Nove de Julho, 5162
Website: www.lucianabritogaleria.com.br
Working Hours: Mon, 10AM - 6PM | Tue to Fri, 10AM - 7 PM | Sat, 11AM - 5PM
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