Nara Roesler Gallery presents an exhibition of works by Paulo Bruscky, a Brazilian from Recife. The exhibition showcases the artist’s classified ads, as well as 
documentation of historical performances, illustrating the seminal body of work of the artist over more than five decades, many of which were never completed due to censorship imposed by the military dictatorship in Brazil during the early years of his artistic career.
Multimedia artist and poet, Bruscky was a pioneer in “communication art,” a term coined by the artist himself. Like many artists of his generation, Bruscky believes that art should incorporate its surroundings and strive to de-fragment everyday life. An active proponent of the international mail art movement and a member of Fluxus, the artist conducted unorthodox experiments with communication systems such as artist books, classified ads, telegrams, telefaxes, faxes, the internet, and Xerox. Driving Bruscky’s practice is a poetics of experimentation, anchored in the potential of the media, a rejection of 
formalism, and a refusal to stagnate in the pursuit of recognition.
As Bruscky states: “I study equipment to see how I can subvert them, tear them away from what they are meant to do, I mean, make them our allies, right?”
Central to Bruscky’s investigations with image and reproduction techniques is the desire to transform the status quo and create the impossible. In the 1970s, Bruscky began publishing ads in newspapers, or “declassified art,” that interrupted the mundanity of the newspaper by offering extraordinary proposals to the reader.
In his classifieds, as well as in his performances, underlying the humor and genuine desire to create a poetic expression, there is a political intention to undermine the oppressive regime that imprisoned and artistically paralyzed the artist 
throughout the 1960s and 70s. The artist’s Cemetery Art exhibition in 1971 aimed to memorialize the death of artistic autonomy under state censorship, while tacitly reflecting on the deaths of political activists. However, when the exhibition was prevented by the authorities, the artist organized a funeral procession for his exhibition, which took place in the streets of his hometown, Recife, until it was inevitably repressed.
In addition to his political critique, Bruscky simultaneously questions the parameters for the creation and exhibition of art, engaging in frequent dialogue with contemporaries who are also dedicated to institutional critique. For the 30th Paranaense Art Salon in 1973, the artist sent a telegram (Telex, 1973) transmitting three proposals that constituted a performance/installation reflecting on the 
act of preparing an exhibition. The conceptual historicity of the salon made it a particularly suitable occasion to question the canonizing institution of art. Although accepted by the salon, the piece was not realized at the time.
What: “Paulo Bruscky” Exhibition
Where: Nara Roesler Gallery (Manhattan)
When: Until June 24