Originally published in the catalog of Carlito Carvalhosa\u2019s exhibition at Instituto Ling,, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSpace Time Lines\u201d brings together chronological fragments of Carlito Carvalhosa\u2019s artistic trajectory. Paintings, sculptures, and installations that represent more than thirty-five years of work marked by elaborate plastic, historical, mental, and sensitive connections. This is the first Brazilian exhibition of Carvalhosa\u2019s works since the artist left us in May 2021\u2014the main reason for the retrospective and prospective approach. Structured by symbolic pieces from distinct phases, the exhibition presents a compact selection that demonstrates the coherence of his research. This includes records of his creation process, thoughts and memories that marked his trajectory, and a never-beforeseen site-specific installation with wooden lamp posts, drawn in one of his notebooks for an imagined space architecturally similar to the gallery of Instituto Ling. An idea from the past conceived for the future, carried out in the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thinking, reflecting, and observing through traces, scribbles, drawings, notes, writings, and findings\u2014mostly kept in pocket notebooks \u2014was a common practice in Carvalhosa\u2019s daily life. A typical process for researchers, but in his case connected to an effusively curious and naturally disciplined personality. He was thirsty for knowledge. He learned with the same generosity that he taught, resorting to his privileged sensitivity and background to establish deep exchanges with different environments\u2014a practice marked by conscious (dis)connections with the historicity of art, predominantly related to a constant search for materials and supports to use as means of expression. As Paulo Herkenhoff put it, \u201cif Carvalhosa\u2019s memory is built with his sensorial apparatus, the unfolding of his production has an eye on the history of art.\u201d 1\u00a0<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n But Carvalhosa did not follow a straight and linear path. He preferred the circular paths between spaces and times, media and materials, whiteness and colors, the erudite and the popular, science and religions. His works are \u201csolid but empty, opaque but translucent, abstract but suggestive of animal faces; the game between opposites never stops,\u201d 2 <\/sup>as Alberto Tassinari observed. He approximated differences without having to bring the parts together, keeping them in an in-between space, like empty parentheses, which Mammi placed \u201cin an undefined territory between nothingness and anecdote, unimportant singularity and hollow generality.\u201d 3<\/sup> This artistic attitude reminds me of the retard proposed by Marcel Duchamp, a concept that Octavio Paz attributed to the fact that the Frenchman had become \u201ca painter of ideas,\u201d4 who evoked extra-visual reflections in his spectators. Just like the French artist, Carvalhosa sought to activate the mental and sensitive field with his works, often by appropriating and displacing elements of the world, bringing them to the exhibition space, and subtracting the functionality of these objects. Another similarity between Carvalhosa and Duchamp can be seen in the active use of words in the titles of their works or exhibitions. Space TimeLines<\/em> respects this poetic process, assimilating the options found during the curatorial process through an historical, mental, and, above all, sensitive look.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the series Dedinhos, started during an artistic residence in Cologne, Germany, between 1991 and 1992, Carvalhosa resumed the use of wax as a pictorial material\u2014something he had already experimented with from 1986 to 1988. He based his compositions on the color of the material itself, exploring the oscillations between transparency and opacity that are inherent to the encaustic technique, resulting in \u201ca chromatic annihilation that generates a changing spectrum of luminous variations.\u201d6<\/sup> The three-dimensionality, which was subtle in previous works, became the main theme of these wax works.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1995, Carvalhosa created the first sculptural works outside the vertical support by experimenting with the lost-wax technique. The following year, when he created his first public installation for the Arte\/Cidade project, he started working with porcelain sculptures. According to Rodrigo Naves, these works had \u201can undeniable organic aspect\u201d7<\/sup> despite the rigidity of the material and were situated in the dialectic in-between that characterized the artist\u2019s work, since \u201cwhat seemed to be alive takes on the appearance of an industrialized product\u201d8<\/sup> with the reflection caused by the incidence of light. Opposites attracted Carvalhosa, who often explored the relationships between transparency, opacity, and reflectivity, creating some kind of \u201ctrialectics\u201d that would come to characterize his production.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1999, the artist presented his first site-specific exhibitions, creating large works in plaster, a product that is opaque by nature. The sculptural mass was often perforated, presenting something solid and heavy as simultaneously transparent and transposable\u2014an experience he developed over nearly a decade, gradually advancing in scale and execution complexity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a site-specific show in 2008, Carvalhosa used mirrors, which he had already been using as a support for his paintings since the series Espelhos Graxos started in 2003. As Paulo Ven\u00e2ncio Filho put it, \u201cit is reasonable that the mirror comes after the plaster, of which it is the opposite.\u201d9 <\/sup>\u00a0Reflectivity became a ubiquitous attribute in his two-dimensional works, from mirrors to aluminum and carbon steel sheets. According to Ven\u00e2ncio, in these works the artist \u201csought to emphasize [\u2026] how much is offered to the eye and how little is required from seeing.\u201d10<\/sup>\u00a0 Different experiences, in which he used acrylic paint, spray and grease to cover and reveal structures and leaks from the \u2018paintings\u2019. Mammi preferred to use the term \u2018pictures\u2019, emphasizing that \u201csometimes it is difficult to call them paintings\u201d because \u201cwhat is questioned is the very existence of the support as a neutral base.\u201d11<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n In these pieces, we can see an intention to hide existing reflections with experimental or traditional pigments, which work as skins or stains that hide the whole to reveal details of drawings. For Tassinari, \u201cin both sculptures and paintings, the excess exists because of what is smaller, not what is larger. They are points of support that fight against the total disaster.\u201d12<\/sup> This is even more evident in his site-specific works. After the plasters and mirrors, Carvalhosa started creating spaces wrapped in translucent fabrics, which, according to Ivo Mesquita, were intended to \u201ccover, erase to reveal or make you see.\u201d13<\/sup>. They erased and revealed, allowing different perceptions of the places where they were installed, sometimes including sounds. Then came the fluorescent lamps, creating luminous lines and visual glare, sometimes mixed with fabrics and other elements, such as furniture and mirror frames, sometimes alone, used as a sculptural resource. Finally, there were the lamp posts, suspended or supported tripods which defied physics and engineering, disrupting the flow in galleries and museums . Everything together and apart at the same time. An amalgam of disparate elements that met through the artist\u2019s gesture, creating an almost eternal dialogue, just like his work, just like himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1 <\/sup>Herkenhoff, Paulo. J\u00e1 estava assim quando cheguei in Nice to meet you: Carlito Carvalhosa. S\u00e3o Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2011. 3<\/sup> Mammi, Lorenzo. Carlito Carvalhosa. S\u00e3o Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4 <\/sup>Paz, Octavio. Marcel Duchamp ou o castelo de pureza. S\u00e3o Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5 <\/sup>CASA 7. In: ENCICLOP\u00c9DIA Ita\u00fa Cultural de Arte e Cultura Brasileira. S\u00e3o Paulo: Ita\u00fa Cultural, 2022. Available on: http:\/\/enciclopedia.itaucultural.org. br\/grupo434O27\/casa-7. Access on: May 3 rd, 2022. Encyclopedia Entry. ISBN: 978-85-7979-O6O-7<\/p>\n\n\n\n 6 <\/sup>Mammi, Lorenzo. Carlito Carvalhosa. S\u00e3o Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7<\/sup> Naves, Rodrigo. \u00d3leo sobre \u00c1gua in Carlito Carvalhosa. S\u00e3o Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 8 <\/sup>Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 9<\/sup> Venancio Filho, Paulo. Espelhos Graxos in Nice to meet you: Carlito Carvalhosa. S\u00e3o Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2011. 11<\/sup> Mammi, Lorenzo. Carlito Carvalhosa. S\u00e3o Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2000<\/p>\n\n\n\n 12 <\/sup>Tassinari, Alberto. Ceras Perdidas in Carlito Carvalhosa. S\u00e3o Paulo: Cosac & Naify, 2000.13 <\/sub>Mesquita, Ivo. A soma dos dias in Nice to meet you: Carlito Carvalhosa. S\u00e3o Paulo: Cosac & Naify, 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n \n<\/p><\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"decada":[7],"class_list":["post-4122","texto","type-texto","status-publish","hentry","decada-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acervocarlitocarvalhosa.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/texto\/4122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acervocarlitocarvalhosa.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/texto"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acervocarlitocarvalhosa.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/texto"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acervocarlitocarvalhosa.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/acervocarlitocarvalhosa.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/texto\/4122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8825,"href":"https:\/\/acervocarlitocarvalhosa.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/texto\/4122\/revisions\/8825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acervocarlitocarvalhosa.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"decada","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acervocarlitocarvalhosa.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/decada?post=4122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The oldest work presented here, a painting from 1985, was part of Grande Tela at the 18th S\u00e3o Paulo International Biennial curated by Sheila Leirner. At that time, the artists from the collective studio Casa 7 \u2014which, besides Carlito Carvalhosa, included F\u00e1bio Miguez, Nuno Ramos, Paulo Monteiro, and Rodrigo Andrade\u2014were revisiting and revising the use of painting as a medium. According to Mammi, \u201cCasa 7 represented the Brazilian participation in neo-expressionist poetics, which were already dominant in Europe for some years.\u201d5<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2<\/sup> Tassinari, Alberto. Ceras Perdidas in Carlito Carvalhosa. S\u00e3o Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
10<\/sup> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n