O Bastardo | Ballet Noir: O Pós-Virtuosismo: Centro Municipal de Artes Hélio Oiticica | Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Critical text: Osmar Paulino

In “Ballet Noir: Post-Virtuosity”, presented at the Centro Municipal de Artes Hélio Oiticica in Rio de Janeiro, O Bastardo investigates the relationships between body, movement, and representation through the figure of the Black ballerina. The exhibition challenges the codes that have historically defined the concepts of art, technique, and virtuosity.

In dialogue with the tradition of European painting and classical representations of dance, the artist shifts the gaze toward corporalities, experiences, and trajectories that have remained at the margins of these narratives. From this investigation, O Bastardo proposes the construction of a counter-visuality—or an Afro-visuality—rejecting virtuosity as a measure of legitimacy.

The project thus asserts itself as a visual manifesto on the power dynamics intrinsic to the art field, claiming other ways of producing and experiencing images, and establishing new ways of seeing.