Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil

One of the most comprehensively researched exhibitions in the US centered on Brazilian contemporary art will be inaugurated on January 30. Titled Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil, the show will remain open from February 1 to April 20 of 2014 at Ohio State University's Wexner Center for the Arts. Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil is part of a multidisciplinary initiative of Via Brasil that has been already presented for several years at the Wexner Center for the Arts with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with the objective of showcasing the richness of Brazilian culture. On this occasion, the exhibition is the result of three years of research by curators Jennifer Lange (Film/Video Studio Curator of the studies program at the Wexner Center for the Arts), Bill Horrigan (Chief Curator of the Wexner Center for the Arts) and Paulo Venâncio Filho (independent contemporary Art Curator and Art History Professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro) in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Recife and Belo Horizonte as well as in other cities and towns in Brazil. The exhibition will present 80 works by 35 Brazilian artists working with different mediums and practices (painting, site-specific installations, photographs, sculptures, etc.) some of which were produced specifically for the exhibition. As the title suggests, the exhibition will aim to present the diversity and blend of cultures and ethnicities through the racial, social and geographical practices and influences offered by the selected artists who in turn also reflect the diversity that characterizes Brazil. Some of the artists selected to participate in the exhibition are: Jonathas de Andrade (in residency at Wexner), Claudia Andujar, Brigida Baltar, Rodrigo Braga, Tatiana Blass, Leda Catunda, Fernanda Gomes, Cao Guimâraes, Lucia Koch (in residency at Wexner), Jac Leirner, Beatriz Milhazes, Cinthia Marcelle, Rosângela Renno and Regina Silveira, among others. A bilingual catalog (English and Portuguese) will be published. It will document the exhibition through color illustrations of the works and essays by Venâncio Filho, Lange and Horrigan, as well as by Cristina Tejo, Independent Curator and former Director at Museu de Arte Moderna Aloiso Magalhâes in Recife. More information about the exhibition Cruzamentos… is available at: www.wexarts.org/cruzamentos-contemporary-art-brazil For more information on VIA BRASIL visit: wexarts.org/viabrasil