Dissident Practices, on display from April 19 to June 16, 2023, at the Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, explores how Brazilian women artists respond to social changes — from the military dictatorship in the mid-1960s to the return to democracy in the mid-1980s, the social changes of the 2000s, the rise of the Right in the late 2010s, and the recent emergence of a younger, more diverse generation fighting for gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights. Curated by Claudia Calirman, Associate Professor and Chair of the Art and Music Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the exhibition will feature over 30 works, including sculpture, video, and photography by 11 prominent and emerging Brazilian artists.
Among the featured artists are Letícia Parente (1930–1991), Anna Bella Geiger (b. 1933), Anna Maria Maiolino (b. 1942), Regina Vater (b. 1943), Gretta Sarfaty (b. 1947), Lenora de Barros (b. 1953), Berna Reale (b. 1965), Renata Felinto (b. 1978), Fabiana Faleiros (b. 1980), Aleta Valente (b. 1986), Lyz Parayzo (b. 1994). The exhibition, presented alongside the publication of the book Dissident Practices: Brazilian Women Artists, 1960s–2020s, by Claudia Calirman (Duke University Press, April 2023), will open with a reception on Wednesday, May 3, from 7 PM to 9 PM, following a roundtable discussion.
EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS
One of the most significant artists working from Brazil today, Anna Maria Maiolino explores the complexities of language in her video In-Out (antropofagia) (In-Out [anthropophagy; 1973–74]). Close-ups of two mouths alternately occupy the entire screen — one male, one female — trying to communicate but failing. In her pioneering video Passagens I (Passages I; 1974), Anna Bella Geiger obsessively repeats, to the point of absurdity, the ascent of different sets of stairs that lead nowhere.
Letícia Parente’s video Preparação I (Preparation I; 1975) explores how women are targeted by advertising and media, dictating standards and behaviors to make them desirable, young, beautiful, healthy, and modern. In her video performance Palomo (2012), Berna Reale embodies the imposing and authoritarian figure of a police officer, pointing to the abusive institutional power within the criminal justice system.
In the photographic series Transformações I (Transformations I; 1976), Gretta Sarfaty appears with open-mouthed expressions. The multiple images of her face, stretched to the point of absurdity, create grotesque and comical expressions. The black and white photomontage Língua vertebral (Vertebral tongue; 1998) features an image of Lenora de Barros’s extended tongue on which she placed a small model of the spine.
The perverse mechanisms of racial discrimination are addressed in the performative practice of Renata Felinto. In her video performance White Face and Blonde Hair (2012), Felinto dresses as a white executive and walks through the upscale neighborhood Jardins in São Paulo, browsing high-end boutiques.
Aleta Valente is part of a generation of artists that emerged at the dawn of the 21st century, using social media to build visibility. In the selfie series titled Material Girl (2015), Valente utilizes the unappealing social landscape of the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro for her posts, transforming into a tropical and impoverished version of the pop star Madonna.