PRESENTATION:I-D

In 2019 Galeria Luisa Strina completes 45 years of activity. Luisa Strina started as a marchant in 1970 and opened her gallery in 1974. During the 1970s, Strina introduced into the market diverse exponents of what later would be called “Geração 70”, such as Cildo Meireles, Tunga, Waltercio Caldas and Antonio Dias. Her gallery was the first Latin-American one invited to participate in the Basel Art Fair, in 1992. During the 1990s she started working with Brazilian artists that would afterwards develop an international career, such as Alexandre da Cunha, Fernanda Gomes, Marepe. Currently, Galeria Luisa Strina represents 42 artists, a mixture of established and emerging artists which are active locally and internationally.

By  Efi MIchalarou

On its anniversary, Galeria Luisa Strina ipresents “I-D”, a group exhibition that tells the story of the consolidation period of the space’s identity. The 1990s are marked, in Brazilian art, by an operation of deconstruction and reconstruction of the notions of concrete and constructivism, notably through the “pop-folk” works by names like: Marepe, Alexandre da Cunha and Emmanuel Nassar. About him, it has been stated that he “literally makes a gambiarra* from concrete to popular or vice versa”. From this same deconcretist and deconstructivist matrix, the more minimalist poetics of Marcius Galan, Renata Lucas and Fernanda Gomes were also born in that decade and in the 2000s. The 1990s are also a time of reconciliation with the beautiful, with color being rehabilitated by artists who do not identify with the 1980s generation, but who practice a kind of conceptual painting, such as Caetano de Almeida, Monica Nador and Marina Saleme. About Saleme, it has been written: “The figurative allusion is firmly anchored by the title; it is a landscape, and yet it is already a post-concept painting, painting of painting, a figure that examines the viability of painting now”. Finally, another hallmark of this historical period in art is the emergence of conflicting subjectivity in more existential works, such as those by Leonilson, Dora Longo Bahia, Edgard de Souza and Cabelo. The present exhibition brings together works by these and other artists to tell the story of Luisa Strina Gallery from the 1990s to the mid-2000s. The names listed above were all represented by the gallery, they were artists that Luisa bet on when they were beginning their careers, and therefore, she was also responsible for “launching” their professional path, which would be consolidated in the years 2000 and 2010. Today, Marepe, Alexandre da Cunha, Marcius Galan, Fernanda Gomes, Caetano de Almeida, Renata Lucas and Marina Saleme remain in the gallery group, setting up lasting partnerships of 20 or 30 years of joint work and complicity. The exhibition deals with the consolidation of the gallery’s identity, also including works by foreign artists that Luisa presented and / or began to represent in the period covered by the exhibition, and that continue to integrate the core of artists that define this identity: Muntadas, Jorge Macchi, Carlos Garaicoa and Alfredo Jaar. In addition to the 1990s generation, “I-D” features works by artists who continued to actively participate in the gallery’s life in the period, such as Antonio Dias and Artur Barrio. And it brings a small selection of works by the great names of the international contemporary art history that showed works here in the decades contemplated by the curatorial election: Peter Halley, Roni Horn, Mike Kelley, Jenny Holzer and Wim Delvoye.

* Gambiarra is a word with several meanings, among which the most predominant are “light extension” and, in Brazil, “improvisation” (which will correspond in the term “disenchantment”, used in Portugal) .

Info: Galeria Luisa Strina, Rua Padre João Manuel 755 Cerqueira César, São Paulo, Duration: 17/12/19-15/2/20, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-19:00, Sat 10:00-17:00, www.galerialuisastrina.com.br