ART CITIES:Venice-Adriana Varejão

One of the most original voices in Contemporary Brazilian art, Adriana Varejão’s diverse practice comprises painting, sculpture, photography and installation. The artist is best regarded for her insightful considerations on the rich though conflicted history and culture of Brazil represented in her “Azulejão”, continuing ever since the first iteration in 1988. Azulejãos were conventionally used to adorn religious and secular buildings in order to homogenize the architecture into an illusionistic illustrative whole.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Victoria Miro Gallery Archive

An exhibition of new works by Adriana Varejão is on presentation at Victoria Miro Gallery in Venice. On show are Saunas and Baths paintings, and Meat Ruins by the renowned Brazilian artist at her sixth exhibition at the gallery. Varejão has painted several large scale compositions involving ceramic tiles and saunas, but preferring to hint at the gore rather than explicitly describe it, often leaving it outside of the picture completely, focusing more on tension and architectural patterns. The artist present paintings that refer to details of public baths in Budapest and also an abandoned swimming pool near Rio de Janeiro. While previous Sauna paintings represent idealised, near-monochromatic tiled interiors, these new works are painterly evocations of existing places of wellness, leisure and ablution. Varejão has also expanded her field to sculptural objects. Her series of “Meat Ruins” explores her theme of the interrelation between ceramic tiles and the human body as metaphor for the violence and cruelty of colonisation. The geometry and cool coloring of the tiles is offset by the violent, expressive and irrational nature of the ‘meat’ below. The strange balance seems to be held together by invisible forces, but the tiles remain on top, presumably, as our nature is to repress that which we find repulsive and ‘inhuman’.  For Varejão, flesh occupies a symbolic position as a mediator of history, and in its ability to stir both seduction and repulsion. Resembling marble, the veins of fat and flesh in these new Ruins make explicit the parallels in Varejão’s art between architecture and the body, these fleshy, architectonic ruins laying bare the vulnerability of bodies, buildings and even entire cultures.

Info: Victoria Miro Gallery, Il Capricorno, San Marco 1994, Venice, Duration: 14/7-8/9/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-13:00 & 14:00-18:00, www.victoria-miro.com