“Displacement” collection: check out Maxwell Alexandre’s and Romy Pocztaruk’s works acquired by PIPA Institute

PIPA Institute maintains its mission to create and share a representative collection of contemporary art produced in Brazil. Since 2010, works by artists who have already participated in PIPA Prize are acquired, while finalist artists and the winners of PIPA Online have donated artworks for the collection until the edition of 2020.

Last year, 2021, we had the pleasure to announce acquisitions from diverse artists, including an artists duo: Ana Frango Elétrico, who entered the collection with 3 patterns and a painting; Eduardo Berliner, who now has 5 more paintings in the collection; Ilê Sartuzi joined the collection with 3 videos and an installation; the work “De noite penso no dia, de dia penso na noite / 夜はを思い、は夜を思 う (Yoru ha hiru wo omoi, hiru ha yoru wo omou)”, commissioned and acquired from Yukie Hori + Inês Bonduki, and two more artworks by Elias Maroso, who was already in the Displacement collection with two other pieces.

Three paintings by Maxwell Alexandre, from the Brown is Paper series, were also acquired, forming a set with the artwork that he, as one of the winners of 2020, donated for the collection, and 7 photographs by Romy Pocztaruk, PIPA 2018 finalist.

Know more about the works acquired through passages from the text The Institute, the Collection and the Prize, written by Lucrécia Vinhaes, Roberto Vinhaes and Luiz Camillo Osorio and published on the PIPA Prize 2021 catalogue:

• Maxwell Alexandre

“Each winner of the PIPA Prize 2020 donated one work to the Institute. Maxwell Alexandre gave one from his Pardo é Papel [Brown is Paper] series. We decided that the collection would be enriched if it had more works from the same series to form a set, so we acquired three more. The Rio-based artist started the series in 2017 when he began experimenting with brown paper. In the process, besides noting its aesthetic potential, he perceived the political and conceptual act he was articulating by painting black bodies on this surface, since the idea of the “color” brown was used for a long time to conceal blackness. Maxwell Alexandre has presented works from this series in several exhibitions at important institutions in Brazil and elsewhere”.

Maxwell Alexandre (Rio de Janeiro, 1990) lives and works in the Rocinha favela. Raised in the evangelical church’s beliefs, the artist has served in the army and has also been a professional street roller skater for 12 years. He graduated in Design from a Catholic university, PUC-Rio, in 2016. In 2018, he was recognized by the Archdiocese and received the São Sebastião de Cultura prize. Maxwell considers his works as prayers and his atelier as a temple. His young career has international recognition. Beyond being one of the winners of PIPA Prize 2020, Maxwell was also a member of the Nominating Committee of PIPA 2021.

• Romy Pocztaruk

“Romy Pocztaruk was one of the finalists in 2018, and we were keen to include some of her work in the PIPA Institute collection. However, it was only in 2021 that we were able to acquire a set of her works. Specifically, we chose photographs from three different series. Five of the photographs are from the A última Aventura, Fordlândia [The Final Adventure, Fordlândia] series, which reveals the artist’s journey along parts of the Trans-Amazonian highway. Stretching almost four thousand kilometers, the highway was begun in the 1970s under the military government, but it remains unfinished. Pocztaruk captures the symbolic and material vestiges of the pharaonic, utopian and jingoistic project that was so quickly doomed to neglect and oblivion. We also acquired one photograph from her Bombrasil series, shown at the PIPA 2018 finalists’ exhibition, which consists of a photographic investigation of Brazil’s nuclear weapons development project during the military dictatorship, with images of the Angra dos Reis nuclear power plants. And finally, there is one photograph from the Red Sand series, which depicts the steel platforms that make up the Maunsell Sea Forts erected off the southeastern coast of England in 1942 to provide support and protection for the British army during the Second World War”.

Romy Pocztaruk holds a Master’s degree in Visual Poetics by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). When inquiring about the artist’s position in the different contexts they face, her work deals with spatiotemporal simulations from the intersection of disciplines from different areas, such as science and history, in relation to the field of arts visuals. Beyond being a finalist of PIPA 2018, Romy was also nominated for the Prize in 2015 and 2017.

To visit the PIPA Institute collection, click here.