ART CITIES:Paris-Beatriz Milhazes
Beatriz Milhazes is well known for her colorful, kaleidoscopic collages, prints, paintings and installations which draw on both Latin American cultural imagery and Western Modernist painting. The tension in Milhazes’s work is not only between figuration and abstraction, but also between the global and local influences that merge in her work.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Max Hetzler Archive
In her solo exhibition “Marilola” at Galerie Max Hetzler in Paris, Beatriz Milhazes presents two large-scale paintings, a medium sized one, a collage and a three-dimensional work. Beatriz Milhazes started designing stage sets for her sister’s dance company in Rio de Janeiro in 2006, leading her to further explore working in three dimensions. The work that gives the title of the exhibition “Marilola” (2010-15), is a cascading curtain suspended from the ceiling. The dense arrangement is made of various materials such as polyester and paper flowers, beads, aluminium and resin chains. The work echoes the colours and rhythm of Milhazes’s two-dimensional works in which the patterns seem to be floating across the canvas, bringing the successive layers into three dimensions. For many viewers, her brilliantly colored works seems typical for Brazil, an error, as Milhazes explains “We don’t have a strong tradition of painting in Brazil, and especially not painting with color. When I became internationally known as a Brazilian painter, the international audience thought that I came out of a strong tradition of Brazilian painting…Due to Spanish colonization, some countries like Mexico or Venezuela have a strong painting tradition. This is not the case for Brazil. The most important and well-known Brazilian art is Conceptual and Constructivist. There is no special interest in color. Brazil is a colorful country, but its art isn’t. That is why people get confused. I use elements from my culture, and color is one of them, but I’m the only one to do so”. Her work occupies a unique position between Latin American and Western traditions. She showed an early interest in the work of Brazilian writer and poet, Oswald de Andrade and that of his companion, Tarsila do Amaral . Andrade’s Manifesto “Antropofago (1928) called upon Brazilian artists to develop their own unique culture by “Devouring” European styles and melding them with elements derived from local culture. Tarsila do Amaral’s painting expressed this philosophy, combining the bright colors and tropical imagery of Brazil with the Surrealism she discovered in Europe. Inspired by her predecessors, Beatriz Milhazes embraces a dizzying kaleidoscope of influences, following an approach that she describes as “Culture eating culture”. Her canvases have an undeniably Brazilian flavor, filled with an abundance of brightly colored, highly decorative motifs. “I am an Abstract painter and I speak an International language, but my interest is in things and behaviors that can only be found in Brazil”, she explained in a conversation with the musician Arto Lindsay.
Info: Galerie Max Hetzler, 57 rue du Temple, Paris, Duration 17/10-19/11/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.maxhetzler.com
