Erika Verzutti
Missionary
Galpão Fortes Vilaça
May 14 to July 16, 2011
Erika Verzutti's exhibition consists of twenty new sculptures, vegetables cast in bronze or concrete, some painted with deep mate colours. The works permeate erotic themes while exploring procedures intrinsic to modern sculpture: notions of geometry (in organic shapes), the ambition of verticality (and its tendency to phallic associations), the counter-form.
The exhibition title favours affectivity while referring to the artist's choice of simple gestures as formal solutions. “Missionary” also hints to a defense of the empiric studio practice - pro material opposed to immaterial. The sculptures preserve the artist's fingerprints, making visible the presence of the artist in the sculpture making.
Verzutti refers to some works as “sculpture of sculpture” or “sculpture of painting”. For example, Porn Star, revisits Brancusi's infinite column, it is a high tower made of starfruits cast in bronze, its overflows with white paint on the top; Desenho (Drawing) is a bronze spider of okras and paintbrushes which is a homage to Louise Bourgeois; Beijo (Kiss) has a handmade geometric body which sustains two heads, a celery and beatroot, which wink to Maria Martin's “O Impossível”; while volumes from Tarsila do Amaral's painting “Sol Poente” appear in Tarsila com Laranja (Tarsila with Orange). Other works impose goemetry in nature: In Escala (Scale), squashes and cylinders are set side to side in an open game of form and size comparisons. Geometry reappears in Brasilia TV, a sculpture of a giant jackfruit whose center is emptied in three straight chops. Meanwhile, Pepinos (Cucumbers) is a wall piece with concrete cylinders which echoes the works of Sergio de Camargo.
Erika Verzutti was born, and works in São Paulo, Brazil. Upcoming exhibitions include: Lyon Biennale, France, September 2011, and a solo exhibition at the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil in Spring 2012.
http://www.fortesvilaca.com.br
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