‘Another Gesture’ features four female artists from Germany and Brazil who work with painting, drawing, and photography. The notion of “another gesture” suggests a dual approach: first, one that departs from the dominant masculine legacy of abstract expressionism, in which gesture and opticality were used to advocate for the purity and uniqueness of painting as a medium.
The artists included in this exhibition, who are currently working in two different hemispheres, either recognize or incorporate this past, but beyond that, they cling to gesture, not only as a visual element but as a conceptual vehicle for humor, refusal, narrative, or memory. Secondly, within the word “another” there is a subtle play with the idea of being another for someone, a slight reference to the otherness that haunts the historical relations between Brazil and Germany.
These historical connections are best known concerning colonial expeditions and German immigration to Brazilian territories: most famously, in 1557, the German explorer Hans Staden wrote about his capture by the Tupinambás and their cannibalism, a notion that permeated, in the early 20th century, the idea of Anthropophagy among Brazilian intellectuals, a time when the Brazilian critic Oswald de Andrade famously said: “Only anthropophagy unites us.”
In the 19th century, traveling German artists like John Moritz Rugendas and Eduard Hilderbrandt arrived in Brazil to portray its flora, fauna, and native inhabitants. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, German immigrants settled in cities across Brazil, fleeing war and poverty; many German artists played a crucial role in the early São Paulo Biennials. In the 21st century, with the globalization of the art world, German and Brazilian art institutions have sought to shorten the geopolitical and invisible distances 
between the two countries.
“Although these historical connections exist, in ‘Another Gesture’ we avoid them to tell the stories of these female artists: we interrupt this rigid transnational narrative to create alternatives through the idea of ‘gesture’ as a generating theme. ‘Another Gesture’ thus becomes an open, consciously ambiguous, and fluid space in which these artists, from different backgrounds, can navigate,” describe the exhibition curators, Cynthia Cruz & Tatiane Santa Rosa.
For more information about the exhibition, call (212) 255-6651.
When: August 3 to 20, 2017
Where: Artists in Residence Gallery (155 Plymouth St., Brooklyn, NY)