Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
I was recently disabused of the notion that reportage like this is of little interest to the assembled, so here’s a quick rundown of what’s currently on view at my space in São Paulo.
I wanted to show the changes in the work of three abstract Brazilian painters by whom I have work spanning three decades. All are in their 50s or 60s and emerged in the 1980s. They were then, and perhaps still are, reacting to the so-called death of painting (understood, very specifically, as the exhaustion of painting’s formal possibilities within a teleological conception of art history) that held sway between roughly 1968 and 1982, a time when the rigors of conceptual and political art, and new media exploration, allowed little space for the hedonistic tactility of painting, a medium seen as outmoded, archaic even.
The first artist shown below, Dudi Maia Rosa, reacted to this so-called death by maintaining the painterly tradition with different materials, fiberglass and dyed resin, same as used to make surfboards. The first three works (from right to left) were cast directly on smooth, hard surfaces, and have smooth surfaces. The first, shaped like an orange Byzantine cross, is transparent enough to show its structuring braces. The second and third used more pigment, so the internal structure is invisible. Part of what is interesting to me here, besides the visual attraction, is that the medium is so distinctive (when seen in person) that the artist can use almost anything as subject matter without losing distinctiveness. The fourth (more recent) work was cast on a sheet of plastic over a smooth, hard surface; as the resin dries, it generates heat, and heat makes the plastic wrinkle, wrinkling the resulting surface.
Dudi Maia Rosa (1946), sem título, 1984, resina poliéster, fibra de vidro e pigmento, 220 x 300 cm
Dudi Maia Rosa (1946), sem título (porta), 1986, resina poliéster, fibra de vidro e pigmento, 210 x 80 cm
Dudi Maia Rosa (1946), sem título (porta), 1986, resina poliéster, fibra de vidro e pigmento, 210 x 80 cm
Dudi Maia Rosa (1946), Expresso 2222, 2001, resina poliéster, fibra de vidro e pigmento, 210 x 77cm
The fifth and sixth (square) works were cast as large (200 x 200 cm) hollow fiberglass boxes, the fiberglass back acting as the structuring element. The one on the left is a monochrome of different greens, while the one on the right is a monochrome with a halo, both playing with the concept with a luminosity that comes not only from the colors but also from the material. Part of what I find interesting about these works is that they are always created from the back reminiscent of printmaking, in which you draw or incise the inverse of what you want to show so the artist never knows quite what the work will look like until the resin dries and he unveils the newly-minted surface. This kind of approach is so process-oriented that it reminds me of the process-oriented v. goal-oriented debate in winemaking.
Dudi Maia Rosa (1946), sem título, 2004, resina poliéster, fibra de vidro e pigmento, 200 x 200 x 6 cm
Dudi Maia Rosa (1946), sem título, 2005, resina poliéster, fibra de vidro e pigmento, 200 x 200 x 6 cm
The second artist, Fabio Miguez, was part of a well-known Brazilian collective, Casa 7, composed of five painters who adopted the vigorous neo-expressionistic style typical of the return of painting seen in Germany and Italy in the 1980s (and exemplified in the U.S. by Schnabel, Salle, Basquiat, and Haring). They were also influenced by the final work of Philip Guston, a member of the abstract expressionist generation who became an apostate by going back to figurative painting at the end of his life. After tiring of that trendy international style, each of the Casa 7 artists went their separate way, and the black painting (perhaps better seen in the previous photo) is an example of what Miguez did next, using a heavy mix of oil with wax on wood, a formula which still hasn’t completely dried after 25 years.
Fabio Miguez (1962), Compensado, 2004, óleo e cera sobre compensado, 180 x 160 x 100 cm
Fabio Miguez (1962), sem título, 2001, óleo sobre tela, 200 x 230 cm
Fabio Miguez (1962), sem título, 1988, óleo e cera sobre tela colada em madeira, 175 x 241 cm
This kind of painting is sometimes called "matérica", which translates as "matterful". The larger painting in the middle is from much later, and shows him groping for a new direction. What interests me here is exactly this searching quality, this esthetic of indecision/hesitation, devoid of craft mastery, of cuisine. In contrast, the third painting, from just three years later, is decisive and economical; here it is, of course, the decision and economy that interest me. But what I was keenest to do was to contrast the antipodes.
The third artist, Cassio Michalany, lives and works with the austerity of a monk, and reacted to the death of painting by totally ignoring it, an approach typical of late modernist painters (of which perhaps Robert Ryman is the prime example). This is not the ideal place for an account of the issues involved, suffice to say that perhaps the most influential critic of the time, Clement Greenberg, argued that painting as high art could only survive the onslaught of commercial kitsch (resulting, in turn, from the advent of mechanical reproduction) by focusing on the only area of investigation where no other medium could equal it: the investigation of its constituent elements, paint and canvas. In this conception, anything illusionism of any sort represents (pun intended) a step back. Painting thus found itself painted into a corner where only an endless repetition of the death of painting could be restaged at its ground zero, the monochrome.
Cassio Michalany (1949), sem título, 2007, esmalte acrílico sobre tela, 160 x 280 cm
Cassio Michalany (1949), sem título, 1996, esmalte sintético sobre tela, 125 x 170 cm
Cassio Michalany (1949), Esmalte Sintético/Grafite (grafite + óleo), 1987, esmalte sintético sobre tela, 60 x 125 cm
These three paintings are almost exactly a decade apart. The first (from right to left) had to be a triptych because the three surfaces were painted with different kinds of paint. The second didn’t have to be a polyptych because the (automotive) paint is the same for all four colors; it could have been a single canvas with four color stripes. But then it would no longer be four monochromes. The third, my favorite, has to be a polyptych because, if it were a single canvas, the separating lines would have to be illusionistic, and that would be painterly spoof. It is, of course, a work that any one of us could have made, but it took this artist nearly forty years of painstaking (paintstaking) development to reach the point where he could make something this simple with sufficient authority that society considers it art.
I wanted to show the changes in the work of three abstract Brazilian painters by whom I have work spanning three decades. All are in their 50s or 60s and emerged in the 1980s. They were then, and perhaps still are, reacting to the so-called death of painting (understood, very specifically, as the exhaustion of painting’s formal possibilities within a teleological conception of art history) that held sway between roughly 1968 and 1982, a time when the rigors of conceptual and political art, and new media exploration, allowed little space for the hedonistic tactility of painting, a medium seen as outmoded, archaic even.
The first artist shown below, Dudi Maia Rosa, reacted to this so-called death by maintaining the painterly tradition with different materials, fiberglass and dyed resin, same as used to make surfboards. The first three works (from right to left) were cast directly on smooth, hard surfaces, and have smooth surfaces. The first, shaped like an orange Byzantine cross, is transparent enough to show its structuring braces. The second and third used more pigment, so the internal structure is invisible. Part of what is interesting to me here, besides the visual attraction, is that the medium is so distinctive (when seen in person) that the artist can use almost anything as subject matter without losing distinctiveness. The fourth (more recent) work was cast on a sheet of plastic over a smooth, hard surface; as the resin dries, it generates heat, and heat makes the plastic wrinkle, wrinkling the resulting surface.
Dudi Maia Rosa (1946), sem título (porta), 1986, resina poliéster, fibra de vidro e pigmento, 210 x 80 cm
Dudi Maia Rosa (1946), sem título (porta), 1986, resina poliéster, fibra de vidro e pigmento, 210 x 80 cm
Dudi Maia Rosa (1946), Expresso 2222, 2001, resina poliéster, fibra de vidro e pigmento, 210 x 77cm
The fifth and sixth (square) works were cast as large (200 x 200 cm) hollow fiberglass boxes, the fiberglass back acting as the structuring element. The one on the left is a monochrome of different greens, while the one on the right is a monochrome with a halo, both playing with the concept with a luminosity that comes not only from the colors but also from the material. Part of what I find interesting about these works is that they are always created from the back reminiscent of printmaking, in which you draw or incise the inverse of what you want to show so the artist never knows quite what the work will look like until the resin dries and he unveils the newly-minted surface. This kind of approach is so process-oriented that it reminds me of the process-oriented v. goal-oriented debate in winemaking.
Dudi Maia Rosa (1946), sem título, 2005, resina poliéster, fibra de vidro e pigmento, 200 x 200 x 6 cm
The second artist, Fabio Miguez, was part of a well-known Brazilian collective, Casa 7, composed of five painters who adopted the vigorous neo-expressionistic style typical of the return of painting seen in Germany and Italy in the 1980s (and exemplified in the U.S. by Schnabel, Salle, Basquiat, and Haring). They were also influenced by the final work of Philip Guston, a member of the abstract expressionist generation who became an apostate by going back to figurative painting at the end of his life. After tiring of that trendy international style, each of the Casa 7 artists went their separate way, and the black painting (perhaps better seen in the previous photo) is an example of what Miguez did next, using a heavy mix of oil with wax on wood, a formula which still hasn’t completely dried after 25 years.
Fabio Miguez (1962), sem título, 2001, óleo sobre tela, 200 x 230 cm
Fabio Miguez (1962), sem título, 1988, óleo e cera sobre tela colada em madeira, 175 x 241 cm
This kind of painting is sometimes called "matérica", which translates as "matterful". The larger painting in the middle is from much later, and shows him groping for a new direction. What interests me here is exactly this searching quality, this esthetic of indecision/hesitation, devoid of craft mastery, of cuisine. In contrast, the third painting, from just three years later, is decisive and economical; here it is, of course, the decision and economy that interest me. But what I was keenest to do was to contrast the antipodes.
The third artist, Cassio Michalany, lives and works with the austerity of a monk, and reacted to the death of painting by totally ignoring it, an approach typical of late modernist painters (of which perhaps Robert Ryman is the prime example). This is not the ideal place for an account of the issues involved, suffice to say that perhaps the most influential critic of the time, Clement Greenberg, argued that painting as high art could only survive the onslaught of commercial kitsch (resulting, in turn, from the advent of mechanical reproduction) by focusing on the only area of investigation where no other medium could equal it: the investigation of its constituent elements, paint and canvas. In this conception, anything illusionism of any sort represents (pun intended) a step back. Painting thus found itself painted into a corner where only an endless repetition of the death of painting could be restaged at its ground zero, the monochrome.
Cassio Michalany (1949), sem título, 1996, esmalte sintético sobre tela, 125 x 170 cm
Cassio Michalany (1949), Esmalte Sintético/Grafite (grafite + óleo), 1987, esmalte sintético sobre tela, 60 x 125 cm
These three paintings are almost exactly a decade apart. The first (from right to left) had to be a triptych because the three surfaces were painted with different kinds of paint. The second didn’t have to be a polyptych because the (automotive) paint is the same for all four colors; it could have been a single canvas with four color stripes. But then it would no longer be four monochromes. The third, my favorite, has to be a polyptych because, if it were a single canvas, the separating lines would have to be illusionistic, and that would be painterly spoof. It is, of course, a work that any one of us could have made, but it took this artist nearly forty years of painstaking (paintstaking) development to reach the point where he could make something this simple with sufficient authority that society considers it art.