(this page was last updated in December 2020)
Teresina, Brazil, 1963.
Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
PIPA 2010 nominee.
David Cury is a visual artist, a specialist in Architecture and Art History in Brazil from PUC-Rio and Master in Visual Arts from UFRJ. Since 2002, is a mentor at the workshop Antiformas de intervenção ― whose researches on various supports and media observe the polarization between conceptualization and experimentation on contemporary art ― at Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, in Rio de Janeiro, where he lives and works.
Photos by Wilton Montenegro
From November 2018 to November 2019 David Cury is a part of the Curatorship of “Horizontes/A Paisagem nas Coleções MAM-Rio” at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. Between 2015 and 2016, he holds the installation “A vida é a soma errada das verdades” at Paço Imperial do Rio de Janeiro. In 2013 and 2014, he was nominated for the scholarship Cisneros-Fontanals Art Foundation for Latin-American Art (mid-career artist category), based in Miami. In 2013, a site-specific intervention “Rasa é a cova dos vivos” at Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Ceará, in Fortaleza, Brazil. In 2012, he takes part in “From the margin to the edge” at Somerset House, in London, with the installation “É com o sexo que os homens se deitam, pedindo como anões o seu ascenso.”
In 2011, he participates of Art in Brazil (show that was a part of the “Europalia 2011”), in Brussels, with the intervention “Corumbiara não é Columbine”. In 2010, he is a part of 29a Bienal Internacional de Arte de São Paulo with the installation “Antônio Conselheiro não seguiu o conselho”. He is nominated to PIPA Prize (PIPA 2010). In 2009, “Antônio Conselheiro não seguiu o conselho”, solo show at Espaço Monumental do Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. In 2008, the site specific work “Hydrahera” at Morro da Conceição, in Rio de Janeiro. In 2007, the solo show “O fogo é sombra”, at Galeria Oeste, in São Paulo, and the group intervention “Associados”, at Rio de Janeiro, with “Viropticals”. In 2006, he holds the site-specific intervention “Paradeiro” at Estação Barão de Mauá-Leopoldina, in Rio de Janeiro, and takes part of the shows “10+1: os anos recentes da arte brasileira” (Tomie Ohtake Institute, São Paulo), “Grandes formatos” (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro) and “É hoje na arte brasileira contemporânea/Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand” at Santander Cultural, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, with the installation “Todos os homens dormiram com suas mães. Algumas mulheres, com seus pais”.
In 2005, holds the intervention “Há vagas de coveiro para trabalhadores sem-terra”, at Carreau du Temple, in Paris, and the installation “Antônio Conselheiro não seguiu o conselho”, at Funarte / Palácio Gustavo Capanema, at Rio de Janeiro. He takes part at the shows “Arte brasileira hoje/Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand” and “Chroma”, at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. In 2004, he runs the painting solo exhibition “Os dias em claro”, at Galeria Anita Schwartz, the installations “Todos os homens dormiram com suas mães. Algumas mulheres, com seus pais”, at Paço Imperial, and “Os homens mentem porque as mulheres confessam”, at Arquivo Geral do Jardim Botânico, all of them in Rio de Janeiro. Between 2003 and 2004, the site-specific “Para a inclusão social do Crime”, at Gallery Lygia Clark/Palácio Gustavo Capanema, in Rio de Janeiro, and exhibits the installation “As mulheres existem para que os homens se meçam”, at Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, in Salvador, Brazil. In 2001, he takes part at the show ‘Nova Orlândia’, in Rio de Janeiro, with the intervention “As meninas não medem esforços”. In the same year, he holds the painting solo exhibition “O acaso joga fechado”, at Paço Imperial do Rio de Janeiro. In 2000, the painting solo exhibition “Impurezas são incontroláveis”, at Centro Cultural São Paulo (SP), and the site specific “Death by meter/Não há nenhum lugar aqui”, at Alpendre, in Fortaleza, Brazil.
He takes part, among others, of the shows “Tudo é Brasil”, at Paço Imperial do Rio de Janeiro and Instituto Itaú Cultural de São Paulo (2004-2005); “Arquivo geral”, at Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro (2004); “Investigações 1” and “Repertórios alternativos”, at Instituto Itaú Cultural de São Paulo, in Brasília, Belo Horizonte and São Paulo, Brazil (1999-2000); “Disposição”, at Fundição Progresso, Rio de Janeiro (1999); “Art contemporaine du Brèsil”, at Museu Sürsock, in Beirut (1997); “The Brazilian northeast contemporary art”, at Liberty St. Gallery, in New York (1996). In 1994, he was selected by The Tamarind Institute (USA) for the program “The Art of the Americas” and holds the painting solo exhibition “Mental Eyes”, at The Cafe Gallery, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1993, he participates of “Sechs aus Rio”, at Maerz Gallery, in Linz, Áustria, and of “XIII Salão Nacional de Artes Plásticas”, from Fundação Nacional de Arte, at Palácio Gustavo Capanema, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.