Votorantim, Brazil
14/09/2024 - 14/01/2025

DAN Interior Gallery presents

José Roberto Aguilar

Amazônia Vida

José Roberto Aguilar explores the Amazon with its physical and symbolic dimensions through the language of painting. His canvases portray the forest as a living entity, full of color and movement. “Amazônia Vida” discusses the relationship between nature and humanity, the cycles of life, the concept of time and

impermanence.

Curated by Fabio Magalhães, the exhibition presents 31 canvases and the installation “Guardians of the Waters”, at the DAN Interior Gallery space in Votorantin, a space that encompasses large format works and acts as a mediating space between the interior and the capital.

“To try to categorize Aguilar’s art is to chase the wind,” writes journalist Leonor Amarante. José Roberto Aguilar entered the Brazilian art scene in the early 1960s, when he was selected to participate with three paintings in the 7th São Paulo Biennial. From then on, it includes the most important artistic events in the country. His works and interventions over six decades range from painting — through video art, video installation, performances — to the leadership of

the Performance Band.

He participated in several editions of the São Paulo Art Biennial and held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Brazil and abroad — Japan, Paris, London, the United States and Germany. His paintings are present in museums in Brazil and abroad (Museum of Modern Art — Rio de Janeiro, Museum of Contemporary Art — São Paulo, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Museum of Contemporary Art — Niterói, Museu de Arte Brasileira -SP, Hara Museum-Japan, Austin Museum of Art-US) and are also part of important private collections (Gilberto Chateaubriand, João Sattamini, Haron Cohen, Greg Ryan, Joaquim Esteves, Jovelino Mineiro, Miguel Chaia, Roger Wright, Ricardo Akagawa, João Raz among others). In the mid-1990s, he became director of Casa das Rosas, energizing that cultural space with major exhibitions on Brazilian culture (1996-2002) and pioneering initiatives with art and technology. His work as a cultural manager led to him being invited by the then Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, to represent the Ministry of Culture in São Paulo (2004-2007). Aguilar currently contains important works and documents from the history of art and culture in Brazil in its collection. It includes paintings, installations, photographs, documents, books, and others

.

For the curator, “Aguilar always painted like a fighter. The clash between paint and canvas and gestural choreography are important actors in the construction of his

visual poetics.

Since 2004, the artist has been divided between São Paulo and Alter do Chão, in Pará, where he maintains an ateliê house and a strong relationship with the Amazon Rainforest and the local riverside community.

“The Amazonian biome ignites a new poetics in my work, where the indomitable forces of the rainforest confront urban sensibility. In Alter do Chão, I dive into the vastness of the Amazon ecosystem, where the light of each morning and the hue of each sunset reveal

the hidden life of the forest.

“As director of DAN Interior Gallery, it is a great honor to be able to produce the exhibition “Amazônia Vida” by José Roberto Aguilar. This exhibition, curated by Fabio Magalhães, inaugurates the artist’s representation by the gallery. Aguilar’s work remains relevant and influential in contemporary art, as does his innovative spirit, which left an indelible mark on the Brazilian art scene. Magalhães’s sensitive curatorship was able to prove why Aguilar is a central figure in the history of Brazilian art, crossing time with more than five decades of artistic production.” — Cristina Delanhesi