ExhibitionFebruary 3, 2023
Americas Society presents an exhibition of Bispo do Rosario
It is the first solo exhibition in the United States of the Afro-Brazilian artist. During his career, Bispo do Rosario (b. 1909, Japaratuba, Brazil, d. 1989, Rio de Janeiro) created more than 1,000 artwork objects from Colônia Juliano Moreira, a psychiatric institution in Rio de Janeiro, where he lived most of his life. The exhibition runs from January 25, 2023, through May 20, 2023.
Bispo do Rosario's artistic work is linked to his mental illness: it began after he suffered hallucinations at the age of 29 that made him believe that God had sent him on a mission to organize chaos, after which he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and spent the rest of his life institutionalized.
Co-curated by Aimé Iglesias Lukin, Ricardo Resende, and Javier Téllez, with Tie Jojima, the exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Museu Bispo do Rosario Arte Contemporânea in Rio de Janeiro.
Bispo do Rosario: All Existing Materials on Earth compiles Bispo do Rosario's iconic artworks, which include hand-embroidered textiles with attached elements, mixed-media sculptures, and his "Annunciation Garment," his best-known artwork, which he intended to wear on Judgment Day. In his small room at the asylum, which he considered his "castle," the artist felt receiving instructions day and night from the voices he heard urging him to work assembling objects and embroidering textiles with what he had on hand at the hospital and exchanged with other inmates, from sheets to combs.
For Aimé Iglesias Lukin, the interest provoked by his work has a lot to do with the questions of what art is and who can be an artist since he follows a "different path" given his personal history and yet becomes "a symbol of contemporary art and 'outsider' art" (marginal).
Bispo do Rosario's artistic work is linked to his mental illness: it began after he suffered hallucinations at the age of 29 that made him believe that God had sent him on a mission to organize chaos, after which he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and spent the rest of his life institutionalized.
Co-curated by Aimé Iglesias Lukin, Ricardo Resende, and Javier Téllez, with Tie Jojima, the exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Museu Bispo do Rosario Arte Contemporânea in Rio de Janeiro.
Bispo do Rosario: All Existing Materials on Earth compiles Bispo do Rosario's iconic artworks, which include hand-embroidered textiles with attached elements, mixed-media sculptures, and his "Annunciation Garment," his best-known artwork, which he intended to wear on Judgment Day. In his small room at the asylum, which he considered his "castle," the artist felt receiving instructions day and night from the voices he heard urging him to work assembling objects and embroidering textiles with what he had on hand at the hospital and exchanged with other inmates, from sheets to combs.
For Aimé Iglesias Lukin, the interest provoked by his work has a lot to do with the questions of what art is and who can be an artist since he follows a "different path" given his personal history and yet becomes "a symbol of contemporary art and 'outsider' art" (marginal).
