Abre Alas 17

São Paulo | 12 Feb - 19 Mar 2022
Rio de Janeiro | 19 Feb - 9 Apr 2022

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Adriano Braga de Moraes, Albarte, Allan Weber, Ana Hortides, ANNA, Antonio Tebyriçá, Caio Rosa, Carlos Monaretta, Cipriano, Complexo da Pedreira Paulo Vinicius, Fava da Silva, Florencia Caiazza, Ian Schuler, Jeff Mendes, Josi, Kika Diniz, Mari Ra, MARIA ANTONIA, Mariana Honório, Marina Woisky, Mery Horta / Amador e Jr. Segurança Patrimonial Ltda., Patfudyda, Paulo Jorge Gonçalves, Priscila Rezende, Renan Soares, Sabrina Fidalgo, Tainan Cabral, Thadeu Dias, Thiago Thomé Marques, Zé Tepedino

Curatorship: Pollyana Quintella, Deri Andrade, Maxwell Alexandre

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Abre Alas – asks for an open path for the parade to begin. Or rather, to start the proceedings, as they say. The already traditional Abre Alas of A Gentil Carioca is a kind of rite of the beginnings, a bet and kickoff of something to come, it has undergone sixteen uninterrupted editions making its crossroads a point of transversalities and pluralities, by gathering, not without contradictions, artists, non-artists, passersby, street vendors and other living beings. Amidst the fervor of the celebrations, other affections, especially those of younger artists, were diluted in the night: the desire to integrate the fantastic and colorful world of the arts, the anxiety and expectation of being recognized, the conflicts between belonging and not belonging, agreeing and not agreeing, negotiating and defining terms and limits. Some unknown names that exhibited there once today participate in some of the largest art exhibitions in the country; others, also unknown, remain in the shadows. The game is, at the same time, easy and difficult to predict.

But 2020 created a watershed. This pandemic has put the relationship between public and private, home and street, inside and outside, domestic and foreign, familiar and unknown, into crisis, exposing the fractures of the fragile democracy that surrounds us. There was no Abre Alas last year, nor a carnival. What would we celebrate? Indeed, art for whom, and under what conditions? In the meantime, despite all the crises, artistic production in Brazil has gone and is going through a paradigm shift. Multiple, vigorous and thirsty for circulation and reception, artists from non-hegemonic contexts assert themselves with both feet firmly on the ground, demanding other movements on the part of the art circuit. Even if this is an old struggle, fed and paved by previous generations of unavoidable importance, the fact is that the second decade of the 21st century leaves no doubt that the relationship with difference will not be resolved as a mere representation of certain themes and subjects (a failed lesson of modernity and its isms), but as a production of presence and vitality. In other words, subjects matter.

For this edition, both symptoms were felt by us: on the one hand, we are experiencing the dilemma of creating an exhibition in the midst of a period of public and collective uncertainty – after all, we are not exactly in the pandemic or in the post-pandemic period, but in a limbo that is difficult to characterize (at what point does this year's rite converge or diverge from the previous ones?); on the other hand, there is a need to recognize that not everything can be resolved in a selection process: considering the diversity of geographic, racial, and gender markers, which constitute so much of the statements of the now, involves considering the conditions (social, financial, etc.) that determine whether or not someone can apply for a highly visible selection process. That is, in addition to what was sent to us, it was inevitable for us to also reflect on what was not, and why.

Given these considerations, this Abre Alas presents thirty names from many different parts of the country (and abroad), occupying both A Gentil Carioca’s spaces in Rio de Janeiro and in São Paulo, who explore some of the main issues of these contradictory years. Between painting, object, photography, video, installation, performance, sound art and other inventiveness, we hope together to open the paths to this furious 2022 of modernisms turned inside out.

- Deri Andrade, Maxwell Alexandre e Pollyana Quintella