Gravura Brasileira

“Traces and Forms in Contemporary Brazilian Engraving”

Alberto Fuks and Eduardo Besen founded the art gallery Gravura Brasileira in 1998. Alberto and Eduardo are partners at Canto Projetos e Construções, an architectural and engineering company, since 1987.

In a few years, Gravura Brasileira became the most important place in Brazil for print lovers. It’s the only gallery, in the whole country, specialized in original prints. The gallery usually promotes exhibitions, lectures and books and print albums publishing. We also promote exchange programs with foreign countries studios and we participate in international art fairs.

Visitors and curators from all over the world can view our collection of more than 4000 original prints by artists from Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Canada, Cuba, Japan and England.  The gallery’s exhibitions and permanent collection intend to portray modern and contemporary prints, as well as, bringing to our public different aspects of printmaking art.

In march 2003, Gravura Brasileira opened its new space with a print and photography exhibition by artists Evandro Carlos Jardim and Dalton Sala. The second exhibition “Images and Myths in Contemporary Cuban Printmaking” curated by Tereza de Arruda was the first step of an exchange program between Cuba and Brazil that continues with “Lines and Shapes in Brazilian Contemporary Printmaking”, a group exhibition curated by Tereza de Arruda and Eduardo Besen that will open in November 2003 during the “8th Bienal de La Habana”.

Next year schedule includes “Gravura Paulista-Sao Paulo Prints”, group show celebrating Sao Paulo’s 450th anniversary; “La Collecte”, a project created by the Canadian studio “Presse Papier” with more than 300 prints from all over the world; “Brazilian Contemporary Printmaking” group show at the “Amsterdams Grafisch Atelier” located in Amsterdam, Holland and individual shows by artists Jacqueline Aronis, Constança Lucas, monoprints by Regina Dutra, Margot Delgado and Maria Villares as well as participations in 2004´s Frankfurt and Berlin Art Fair.


Traces and Forms in Contemporary Brazilian Engraving

This exhibition at Casa Guayasamín continues the exchange project between Cuban and Brazilian engravers, which effectively started in 2002 as the result of my visits to various ateliers, galleries and institutions specialized in engraving in these two countries over the course of recent years.

The first stage of the project was carried out at the gallery Gravura Brasileira in São Paulo, through of the exhibition “Figuras e Mitos na Gravura Contemporânea Cubana” (Figures and Myths in Contemporary Cuban Engraving), which presented works by Rafael Zarza, Luis Lara Calaña, Sandra Ramos, Julio César Peña Peralta, Ángel Ramírez, Norberto Marrero Pirez, Max, Rubén Rodríguez, Frank Martinez, Ibrahim Miranda, Hugo Azcuy, Abel Barroso and Janette Brossard Duarte. This exhibition was complemented by workshops and lectures, as an active form of integrating and exchanging experiences. The Brazilian press gave the event substantial coverage, which caught the attention of institutions far removed from this Brazilian metropolis, such as the museum Centro Cultural Brasil Estados Unidos in Belém do Pará, which purchased some of the works on display for its musem.

The exhibition “Traces and Forms in Contemporary Brazilian Engraving” proves to us that contemporary artists are still seduced by the scratch of engraving, for only the print itself can disclose all the traits utilized. All the firmness, intentions, subtleties, and slip-ups or mistakes end up being registered in the production process, which demands both courage and precision. This exhibition is made up of works by active artists, who not only produce for themselves and for consumers, but are also conscious of disseminating this technique, combining innovative supports and materials with age-old principles. In all the works we can see the concern with the aesthetic character and the loyalty to the use of monochrome, whether the works are figurative, geometrical, or abstract. The legacy from drawing is visible in various works, such as those of Ernesto Bonato. His engravings are filled with figures that support themselves on their own traces and in the contrast between light and dark. Francisco Maringelli on the other hand offers a detailed exploration of human beings and the urban environment in a process of complete interaction. Rodrigo Cunha conveys a striking expressiveness in his characters through the precise use of traces and tones. Rosa Esteves takes parts of her own body as engraving matrixes, isolating them from any and all external elements and conferring upon them a sculptural character. Sandra Kaffka creates constructivist forms ressembling creatures with imposing postures. Armando Sobral develops volumes composed of the density of the plot achieved by tireless repetition of the movement. Such gesture can also be seen in the engravings of Cassia Gonçalves, who explores the movement upon an acrylic surface that acts as both matrix and artistic result. Eva Castiel also exhibits unconventional work, since it is developed upon the resinous paper itself, without the use of a matrix. The reliefs are superimposed upon each other within an autonomous white universe.

This exhibition provides us with confirmation that the diversity of the current engraving output is focused on the subjective artistic character, far removed from commercial, political or other such commitments with which it used to be connected in long-gone days. This firmness and autonomy leads it to the internationality of contemporary art fairs and exhibitions.

Tereza de Arruda
Berlin, September 2003