VI(E)-SÃO – The title of the exhibition is the program. For the rapprochement of two cultures, Vienna and São Paulo, with a common vision – in Portuguese “visão”. The exhibition is the result of the collaboration of the Brazilian gallery “Choque Cultural”, the viennese Festival “Calle Libre” and AG18 Gallery.
The exhibition features canvases by renowned artists Tec and Daniel Melim, accompanied by a curated selection of print editions as well as paintings from viennese street artists.
Tec and Daniel Melim are two artists who make you feel the artistic heartbeat of São Paulo.
To be seen in the works are contrasting social, political and subjective influences. Seen in realistic portraits and landscapes, surrealistic and dreamlike depictions. When the mayor passed the Clean City Act in 2006, he used it to ban all advertising in public places in São Paulo. This freed numerous facades from commercial oppression. Daniel Melim then painted a large mural that sparked a citywide movement, during which hundreds of murals were created in the city.
The Argentine artist Tec promoted this development to a decisive degree. He began painting in the outskirts of the city, on streets that flooded when it rained, in squares where children played. He used drones to shoot films that show his art like a tattoo on the surface of the city.
Both artists have participated in memorable exhibitions with Choque Cultural, including at the Art Museum of São Paulo (MASP) between 2009 and 2012. Their presentations in one of the most prestigious museums in the world had a resounding impact on the universe of urban art in Brazil and opened a market for the new direction of contemporary art.
Tec is a painter from Argentina who has lived in Brazil for over ten years. His work focuses heavily on movement, whether through sweeping brushstrokes of action painting or delicate, meticulously painted details. Tec’s painting is more physical, resulting in visually intense compositions through the interplay of powerfully applied colors on the canvas and a variety of small interventions – words, texts, doodles,intentional and careful calligraphy.
He uses overlapping layers of paint to add density to his paintings, while his contemporary style incorporates portenho fillet with strong colors, symmetry, and three-dimensional effects. His work defies conventional classifications and blends different media and forms of expression. His latest production reflects the blurred boundaries between reality and fiction in today’s world, where farce seems to repeat itself as tragedy.
Melim is a Brazilian artist, a cerebral painter who approaches the pictorial space with a mathematical and geometric perspective, in which the balance is constantly disturbed and recomposed as figures appear and position themselves in the orthogonal space of the canvas. The artist favors graphic and typographic techniques that reference comic books, old newspapers, popular magazines, fanzines, and various editorial productions, including woodcuts. His work captures the nuances of historical contrasts and expresses his current artistic identity. In his canvases and murals, he explores gender, race, and childhood, giving the viewer the opportunity to reflect on these experiences.
Choque Cultural is more than an art gallery. It subverts the conventions of the white-walled cube and other market norms. Because art can be found anywhere – on the street, in schools, and even on our own bodies. And art can be collected by anyone – rich or poor, old or young.
Born out of architects Mariana Martins and Baixo Ribeiro’s dissatisfaction with the art market and the contemporary art system, Choque Cultural has expanded its activities, discovered new audiences, and developed educational, urban, and ecological programs that transcend the conventional boundaries of art and bring it closer to real life.
Choque Cultural fosters new experiences between audiences, artists, collectors, museums, schools and other institutions. In addition to promoting education, recreation, and collecting, Choque Cultural rediscovers one of the most important aspects of art: imagining and daring to create a better world. Encourages active participation, with an encouragement, in the spirit of Joseph Beuys: everyone is an artist.
