Ana Maria Tavares

Euryale Amazonica

Data / Date
2014

Local / Location
Sicardi Gallery

Cidade / City
Houston

Download
Sicardi's Release for Exhibition
Sicardi's Handout by L Wellen
Sicardi's Invitation
Artforum's Pick JAN 2015

( ..) Euryale Amazonica is the result of a collaborative project developed by Ana Maria Tavares in Fortaleza, Brazil (2013), with designer Celina Hissa and a group of seven artisans from the Ceará region. This work [see exhibition Natural-Natural: Paisagem e Artifício], which brings ornament to the center of the discourse surrounding modernism, is part of Natura in-Vitro: Interrogating Modernity—a larger research project that examines the cross-pollination of tropical nature and modern architecture at the core of Brazil’s ethos of modernity. The artisans who worked on the project are: Benedita Áurea de Sales, Elenir Fideles da Silva, Francisca Aldenice de Souza Felix, Helena Fideles da Silva, Júlia Fideles da Silva, Tatiana Santos da Silva, Verônica Vieira dos Santos.

( ..) With her first exhibition at Sicardi Gallery, Ana Maria Tavares brings major concerns of the 20th century in dialogue profoundly and simply. The exquisitely handmade objects, created in collaboration with artisans from Brazil—remember, women’s textile work has been dismissed for centuries as merely ornamental or (strangely enough) solely functional and therefore unworthy of study or exhibition—is placed within pristine Plexiglas cubes. The tinted glass and metal legs of the cubes reference a scientific mode of looking, a way of exploring the world around us. To pair these flowers, handmade by artisans in Brazil, with the vitrine is to make a statement about the legacies that inform modern modes of viewing. It is also to reclaim the flower that transformed 19th century Europe, inspiring significant cultural change in the practices of Modernism, and to say, “look again.”

Fragments of the exhibition handout by Laura A. L. Wellen, PhD

Vista Geral da Exposição. Foto: Logan Sebastian Beck

Vista parcial da exposição. Foto: Logan Sebstian Beck

Sinfonia Tropical para Loos VI, 2014 Fotomontagem digital; impressão pigmentada mineral sobre papel Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308g. 90 x 90 x 5 cm. Edição: 5 + 2 p.a. Fotomontagem: Pedro Perez Machado

Vista parcial da exposição. Foto: Logan Sebastian Beck

Sinfonia Tropical para Loos VI, 2014 . Fotomontagem digital; impressão pigmentada mineral sobre papel Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308g. 90 x 90 x 5 cm. Fotomontagem: Pedro Perez Machado. Edição: 5 + 2 p.a.

Vista Parcial. Vitorias Regias para o Rio Coco II (Euryale Amazonica), 2014. Tecidos e os diversos, acrílico e aço inox. VT01: 70 x 20 x 20 cm; VT10: 110 x 20 x 20 cm. Edition: 1. Foto: Logan Sebastian Beck

Detalhe: Vitorias Regias para o Rio Coco I (Euryale Amazonica), 2014. Tecidos e os diversos, acrílico e aço inox. VT03: 80 x 40 x 40 cm Edition: 1. Foto: Logan Sebastian Beck

Vista Parcial. Vitorias Regias for Purus and Negros I (Euryale Amazonica), 2014. Tecidos e os diversos, acrílico e aço inox. VTPNova01: 90 x 20 x 20 cm. Foto: Logan Sebastian Beck

Sinfonia Tropical para Loos, 2014 Fotomontagem digital; impressão pigmentada mineral sobre papel Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308g. 90 x 90 x 5 cm. Edição: 5 + 2 p.a. Fotomontagem: Pedro Perez Machado.