Arjan Martins | O gesto do poder, o poder do gesto: Centro Cultural do Patrimônio Paço Imperial | Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Curatorship: Lucrécia Vinhaes

Exhibition design: Carla Marins

In “O gesto do poder, o poder do gesto - um recorte da Coleção Instituto PIPA” [The gesture of power, the power of the gesture - a selection from the Instituto PIPA’s Collection], the structural relationship between art, authority, and memory is the central axis. The exhibition investigates how Brazilian contemporary art responds to power dynamics and how the creative gesture itself can act as a form of confrontation. It is within this context of provocation and questioning that Arjan Martins presents the painting “Rio Setecentista” [Eighteenth-Century Rio] (2013).

In the work, the artist—winner of the 2018 PIPA Prize—turns his gaze to the African diaspora and Afro-Atlantic migrations of the colonial period. By taking part in a show that reflects on how our choices and actions can transform hegemonic structures, Arjan's painting emerges as a powerful political and visual gesture of historical revision.

The composition gathers recurrent iconographic elements in his research, such as caravels, compass roses, and maps. These cartographic and naval symbols are reappropriated to map and challenge the violent history of navigation and colonial exploitation, subverting official narratives of domination.

On the canvas, the representation of the Atlantic Ocean is superimposed with shapes that resemble horizontal Black bodies, acknowledging the sea as a vast cemetery for enslaved people. Arjan's work thus reflects the power of the artistic gesture to confront historical power, inscribing in painting the urgent need to retell and make visible the memories and fractures of Afro-Atlantic history.