On Saturday, August 10th, we inaugurated the PIPA Prize 2019 Exhibition. For the first time, the exhibition was held at Villa Aymoré, in Rio de Janeiro, where the PIPA Institute has held collections and debates since last year. The Aymoré gallery is divided into four spaces, one for each finalist: Berna Reale, Cabelo, Guerreiro do Divino Amor, Jaime Lauriano.
For the exhibition, Berna set up the installation “Terra sem jejum”, consisting of five children’s coffins, decorated with themes such as ice cream and sweets. The artist explains that the work portrays the symbolic death of childhood in Brazil, a country in which “most of the Brazilian prison population is between 18 and 29 years old, (and) that not a day goes by when we do not bury a child because of violence”.
Cabelo created for its space an installation with elements of the project “Luz e Trevas”, which he develops since last year in the form of exhibition and performance. Later this year, the project will become a disco.
In the exhibition, Guerreiro presents “SuperRio”, a fictional work about the history and culture of Rio de Janeiro; “Expanded Metropolitan Supercomplex”, an installation that depicts the structure of São Paulo from Guerreiro’s perspective, as a machine in which wheels of fortune mix with the images of television pastors, and “A Cristalização de Brasilia”, also fictional about the construction of Brasilia, a recently completed work and first exhibited at the PIPA Finalists Exhibition.
Addressing issues of structural racism and decolonization, Lauriano presents elements from three recent projects, including his current research on national symbols, such as the Jules Rimet Cup and the older “Trabalho” project.