(Brasília, Brazil)
The artist Carlos Vergara executes the show “Sudário” (Shroud) at the Honestino Guimarães National Museum, in Brasilia. With text by Luiz Guilherme Vergara, the exhibition is a combination of monoprints in scarves, paintings, photographies on 3D, real and virtual, large format monoprints, videos and installations.
“Sudário” is a cloth that was formerly used to dry sweat. The most famous one is the shroud of Turin – a christian relic que supposedly wrapped Jesus Christ’s body. Although there is not an actual religious aspect in this context, it is possible to establish links between this cloth, later replaced by the scarf, with the idea of the stroller who, by putting himself in motion, is open to discoveries that go beyond the visible. Luiz Guilherme Vergara states that “Sudário” reflects the artist’s search and will of imprinting the presence or active memory of sacred into matter, the dust and herbs of a historical ground where humanity bent on its solitary destiny.
Using a practice that is already present in his work, the monoprint, Carlos Vergara prints in scarves traces of the many territories where he has been throughout his career. In “Sudário”, artworks made in places such as India, Cappadocia, Kazakhstan, London, the Pantanal, São Miguel das Missões and Salvador will be presented.
The exhibition therefore approaches one of the fundamental particularities in Carlos Vergara’s production: an artistic practice mainly created through the printing of traces that poetic displacement and appropriation of places can provide. “This is possible due to my origin with the condition of transitoriness, still considering the interpersonal relations built through the process, which became important in the development of my poetics”, explains Vergara.
Through this poetic displacement and for over five decades of artistic life, Vergara accumulated experiences and intense research into work materials and techniques. A part of this commitment to experimentation, in which the artist creates appropriations of image transference to the body of work, the public will be able to know in this exhibition.
“I want the public to experience the invisible through vision. When fragments of places are moved to the museum environment, other meaning possibilities are built”, explains Vergara who leaves questions in the air: “How to share awe, curiosity, admiration, knowledge, ignorance, fear, amazement when faced with sacred and traces of the human adventure in its places? How to introduce this wrapped in a scarf?” The show is an invitation to a journey and to imagination.
“Sudário” by Carlos Vergara
Honestino Guimarães National Museum, Complexo Cultural da República
20th March to 11th May
Tuesdays to Sundays, 9am to 6h30pm
Free admission and open to all publics
Phone nos.: (61) 3325-5220 e 3325-6410