Brazilian Press | Agenda Cultural: 19 February, 2021
February 19, 2021
Beginning March 11, Lévy Gorvy will present The Two Sides of an Empty Line, an exhibition of new paintings …
Paulo Monteiro: The Two Sides of An Empty LineExhibitions
Paulo Monteiro: The Two Sides of An Empty Line
Beginning March 10, Lévy Gorvy will present The Two Sides of an Empty Line, an exhibition of new paintings and sculptures by Paulo Monteiro. Monteiro rejects monumentality and grand statements in his art in favor of expressive immediacy and intimacy, and an embrace of contingency, subtle humor, and gesture, stating: “I’m more connected to the expression, to the poetic, instead of sticking to a technique that favors me.”
Monteiro emerged as an artist in São Paulo, where he was born in 1961 and where he continues to live and work. Initially drawn to illustration and cartoon imagery, he was inspired to cultivate his painting practice in 1981, when he first encountered the late work of Philip Guston in Philip Guston: Seus Últimos Anos, the American exhibition at that year’s São Paulo Bienal. In 1983, he cofounded the artist’s group Casa 7 with Fábio Miguez, Rodrigo Andrade, Carlito Carvalhosa, and Antonio Malta. Inspired by Guston’s profound humor and incorporation of comic imagery into contemporary painting, as well as by the example of European Neo-Expressionism, Monteiro and his compatriots in Casa 7 introduced a new energy to Brazilian painting. Monteiro would combine these innovations with the compositional concerns of Neo-Concrete art specific to Brazilian contemporary art to develop his singular practice.