Exhibition: 2nd May to 29th June 2013
Artists: Ana Cvorovic and Rodrigo Matheus, Gabriel Lima, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané and Roberto Evangelista
Maddox Arts is proud to present A Séance for Geometry curated by Kiki Mazzucchelli, a group show bringing together new works by four young artists alongside a short film by Roberto Evangelista (Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, 1946).
The exhibition takes Evangelista’s film as the starting point for a reflection on the possibilities of locating geometry in the visual arts. Mater Dolorosa – In Memorian II (Of the Creation and Survival of Forms) presents a mystical conception of geometry that sets it apart from the widely spread tradition of 20th century geometric abstraction. Shot in the Rio Negro region in the Amazonian forest in 1978, this poetic audiovisual essay is punctuated by a free-flowing narrative establishing the relationship between geometry and the cosmogony of the Tukano Indians. Dozens of perfectly round bowls (cuias) are seen floating on the dark waters of a lagoon against a backdrop of thick Amazonian forest as our narrator recounts the oral history of the Tukanos, for whom the circle is the originating form of the universe.
Daniel Steegmann Mangrané incorporates the geometrical motifs of the Tupi Indians in his collages and objects and his work is charged with a symbolic meaning that transcends the pure materiality of the surface. A Catalan who has been based in Brazil for some ten years, Mangrané’s work evokes the encounter with nature and with models of native knowledge – something that forcibly calls for a phenomenological approach, as it cannot be fully apprehended by Cartesian thought.
In their first collaborative work, Ana Cvorovic and Rodrigo Matheus present us with a floor installation combining a series of industrial and natural elements in order to create sculptural arrangements simultaneously suggesting architectural landscapes and natural phenomena; three empty, office cabinets are aligned and filled with sand, stones and plaster cast objects, topped with lamps projecting a series of ascending light circles in an arrangement that oscillates between the rigidity of industry and the character of nature. The installation extends along the floor into a Constructivist assemblage of mirrors, metal trestles, frames, stones and cast objects. By combining everyday objects taken from the urban environment with natural elements, Cvorovic and Matheus create a piece that comprises disparate moments of extreme formal restraint of freedom.
