RIO DE JANEIRO.- Galeria Nara Roesler | Rio de Janeiro announces the opening of rec/rio, featuring more than 90 works by Paulo Bruscky.
Bruscky's third show at Galeria Nara Roesler and his first at its Rio de Janeiro space, rec/rio focuses on three nuclei: works proposed to the city of Rio but never realized, works created while in Rio, and works produced specifically for the Galeria Nara Roesler | Rio de Janeiro exhibition.
Paulo Bruscky, a pioneer of Xerox art, mail, and fax art, emerged on the Brazilian art scene in the late 1960s, one of the nation's darkest periods of state political oppression. Despite the harsh political climate, he resisted authoritarian structures, staging happenings and interventions and pushing the boundaries of experimentation through the employment of humor and wordplay. As he himself states, he never asked the government for permission to make his art, even when this led to imprisonment; and although many of his projects won important competitions, they almost always were censored.
Featured in rec/rio are over 50 of his proposals made to the city of Rio. Some have since been realized, such as Fogueira de gelo, which was completed during the 2010 São Paulo Biennial, but the majority remain unfinished. In response to this, Galeria Nara Roesler produced, for the first time, the work Tiro ao alvo. First proposed in 1971 at the I Salão de Arte da Eletrobras, the work consists of light, caught on mirrors, projecting itself, and turning on a radio as an end result. Tiro ao alvo can only be activated by the public playing the traditional children's game from which the work takes its name.
Known for his active involvement in the international mail art movement and for the dynamic relationships he forged with international artists, including those in the Fluxus and Gutai movements, Bruscky has always been an artist in communication with the world. In rec/rio, he brings to the gallery works that he created in the air, while traveling to and thinking of Rio. A sort of communication to himself, his poem Poema para VoAR welds two planes together to form one.
Always contemporary but never obvious in his process and creation, Bruscky presents a twist on the status quo, as seen in his feet "selfies" Pés de Bruscky I and II or his firecracker paintings (Traques II). rec/rio brings old memories and new works to Rio, adding depth and layers to his existing body of work, which spans over 45 years. His work reflects a simultaneous engagement with a local artistic framework and with a global network, which Bruscky filtered and documented through artist books, urban interventions, performances, visual poetry, Super 8s, art classifieds, and ready-made sculptures. Traversing multiple mediums and often employing his surroundings as primary material, his production cannot be spoken of as a unified body of work. On the contrary, poetic experimentation, a versatility of media, and an interest in processes of circulation and distribution lie at the core of Bruscky's practice, which refuses to be bound to one medium, form, or movement.
Paulo Bruscky was born in 1949 in Recife, Brazil, where he lives and works.
He was featured in the 16th, 20th, 26th, and 29th editions of the São Paulo Biennial (1981, 1989, 2004, and 2010) and the 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba (2009), among other biennials. Recent solo shows include Paulo Bruscky (Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, 2014); Paulo Bruscky: Artist Books and Films, 1970–2013 (The Mistake Room, Los Angeles, USA, 2015; Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil, 2014); Art Is Our Last Hope (The Bronx Museum, New York, USA, 2013); Paulo Bruscky (Plataforma Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia, 2013); Banco de ideias (Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil, 2012); and Arte correio (Centro Cultural dos Correios, Recife, Brazil, 2011). His works are included in the collections of MoMA, New York, USA; Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; Tate Modern, London, England; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland, among others.
