Encruzilhadas da arte afro-brasileira: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Belo Horizonte
The black presence in Brazilian art dates back centuries. From the painters and architects who built the country's religious iconography, to the pre-modernists, modernists and, finally, contemporaries, the paths taken by Afro-Brazilian art are vast in points of contact and distance. In fact, this abundant production was present at the main moments - and movements - that formed and shaped the very history of Brazil. Sometimes overlooked, the art produced by black people is synonymous with plurality.
Encruzilhadas da Arte Afro-Brasileira (Crossroads of Afro-Brazilian Art) presents around 150 works produced by more than 60 artists from different periods and regions of the country, ranging from the pre-modern period to contemporary times, the exhibition - curated by Deri Andrade - discusses thematic topics around emblematic black artists: Arthur Timótheo da Costa (Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 1882-1922), Lita Cerqueira (Salvador, BA, 1952), Maria Auxiliadora (Campo Belo , MG, 1935 - São Paulo, SP, 1974), Mestre Didi (Salvador, BA, 1917- 2013) and Rubem Valentim (Salvador, BA, 1922- São Paulo, SP, 1991). Each of these names leads, respectively, an axis: Becoming, Languages, Cosmovision, Orum and Everyday Life.
Panmela Castro presents a work dating from 2000 that was created at the suggestion of her teacher and mentor Marcelo Duprat, from whom she inherited a deep taste for the study of color and tone in painting. Painted by observing her own image in a mirror (digital facilities didn't exist at the time), the work was created from a black background, with layers of low mixtures of paint illuminating and creating the shapes of the portrait. A few points of saturation bring the eye to some prominent parts, such as the bone formation of the face marked by the black structure of her ancestors from the Mina Coast in Africa.