(this page was last updated in April 2023)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1978.
Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Represented by Casa Triângulo.
PIPA Prize 2011 Finalist.
PIPA Prize 2010, 2014 and 2018 nominee.
Works in the PIPA Institute Collection
Berliner’s paintings can be seen in renowned public and private collections worldwide, including: Daros Latinamerica AG (Zurich, Switzerland), Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Saatchi Gallery (London, UK), Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (New York, USA), Bob and Renee Drake (Wassenaar, Netherlands), and Pinacoteca de São Paulo (Brazil).
Video produced by Matrioska Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2011:
Untitled
By Osei Bonsu
[Text written in 2014]
Eduardo Berliner had originally resisted using oil on canvas because of its weighted tradition, loaded with social, political and cultural associations. Eventually, he came to recognize that the medium’s resilience lay in a unique temporality, unlike the uninterrupted flow of photographic images that populate the modern world. Berliner utilizes this tension between painting and the image to question the authenticity of memory and direct experience. The artist’s primordial relationship to the physical world alters his perceptions of daily surroundings, allowing his paintings to become manifestations of tacit assumptions and misunderstandings. Berliner’s humanistic renderings of living things, scenes from the natural world, plant forms, animals and people, revealed shared relationships contingent on unlikely occurrences. They attest to the slippage between invention and memory, between indifference and trauma.
“Dysfunction”
By Daniela Labra
These paintings’s chromatic palette can, because of their coldness, be quite deceitful. The situations, portrayed in sober tones, seem to depict apparently banal and uncomplicated subjects, and confuse the interpretation of the viewer. Pilled-up chairs, the reverse of a banner, a cup-cum-puddle, an upturned trolley. Escaping from convoluted poetics, these and other compositions are disturbing due to their economy of elements, which, paradoxically, does not collaborate towards a discursive clarity, for it raises an enigma that takes as its starting point a presumed thematic obviousness.
One of the big questions for the contemporary art piece is the possibility of it not being confined to itself, assimilating references from the world into its own objectual nature, making its surroundings part of the piece, giving it meaning. Thus, a painting’s represented image, for instance, is the starting point for a reflection that lies beyond the icon. For sure, this intellectual procedure has been around ever since the Renaissance, however, what we observe today is the chance for the art piece to exist even without materiality or visuality, being able to erect itself through the understanding of its context, whether expressed or not, in the authorial discourse.
Despite not following in the direction of elaborating an entirely immaterial piece, Berliner’s paintings are charged with conceptual data and surprise with their reflection of the human mirrored in the artifacts and absurd surroundings portrayed, which, aseptic in their majority, prove the existence of the human animal in the world. In the text hidden beneath the surface of these images, the artist, despite being less acidic, does not criticize mores or make any moral or value judgment, nor does he weave any manner of interpretations of Pop culture or of the contemporary world that creates it.
Nevertheless, the grand motto of Berliner’s pictorial work is painting itself, with its making, procedures and the visual and narrative possibilities to be reached in this most traditional of media – keeping himself constantly open to new stylistic endeavors. In this movement, his muted, slightly gloomy palette, goes back to foggy sunsets and creates a thunderous silence. The objects represented in this opaque color scheme prove themselves to be, in their turn, honest in composition, but are, in fact, dysfunctional in relation to their context: nothing works in its proper place.
It is noteworthy that the depicted situations suggest a static temporality which, rather curiously, resides in the human and not in the object. For the time of man, despite being dynamic, remains the eternal prisoner of the present instant, thus watertight, in the manner in which the inanimate objects of these paintings show themselves to be. Such a feature raises the absurd thematics of the scenes, and the volume of the thunderous silence which embraces them, even higher.
In relation to Berliner’s process, this new series marks another step in his pictorial work, previously marked by an angry process of making and the juxtaposition of various elements and techniques. Another important component was the materiality of the oil paint, applied in thick layers. In the present moment, however, the homogeneous surface is more highly valued, while the ample areas of color give form and volume to the object, making the outlining that turned the canvas into a sketchbook dispensable. This new way of applying paint is, nevertheless, concerned not only with the composition’s imagetic and thematic reference points, but also with the conscious desire of exploring new challenges in the troublesome task of going back to painting in order to be able to reach the world.
Education
2003
– Master’s degree in Typography, University of Reading, UK
2000
– Bachelor’s degrre in Industrial Design/Visual Communication, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil
Solo exhibitions
2021
– “Eduardo berliner: Desenhos”, Curadoria de Giancarlo Hannud, Museu Lasar Segall, São Paulo, Brasil
2019
– “a forma dos restos”, Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brasil
2016
– “Corpo em Muda”, Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brazil
2015
– “A Presença da Ausência”, Fundação Eva Klabin, Rio de Janeiro,Brazil
2014
– “Pinturas”, Casa Daros, Rio de Janeiro,Brazil
2013
– Sala A Contemporânea, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Rio de Janeiro (CCBB RJ), Rio de Janeiro,Brazil
2010
– Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brazil
2008
– Galeria Durex, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2005
– Galeria Laura Marsiaj/Anexo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Exposições coletivas
2021
– “futuração”, Curadoria de Lucas Albuquerque, Galeria Aymoré, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
– “1981 /2021: Arte Contemporânea Brasileira na coleção Andrea e José Olympio Pereira”, Curadoria de Raphael Fonseca, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
2020
– “TOOL FOR UTOPIA: SELECTED WORKS FROM THE DAROS LATINAMERICA COLLECTION”, Curadoria de Marta Dziewańska. Kunst Museum Bern, Switzerland
2020
– “Com Título e Sem Título”, Técnicas e Dimensões Variadas, Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brasil
– “Utopia de Colecionador o Pluralismo da Arte”, curadoria de Ricardo Resende, Fundação Marcos Amaro, Itu, Brasil
2019
– Com Título e Sem Título, Técnicas e Dimensões Variadas, Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brasil
– Utopia de Colecionador o Pluralismo da Arte, curadoria de Ricardo Resende,Fundação Marcos Amaro, Itu, Brasil
2018
– Projeto Cavalo: Quadrivium 8 patas, Curadoria de Priscyla Gomes, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brasil
2017
– “Projeto Cavalo: Quadrivium 8 patas”, Jacaranda, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– Bestiário, curadoria de Raphael Fonseca, Centro Cultural São Paulo, Brazil
2016
– “Os muitos e o um”, curated by Robert Storr, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil
2016
– “A cor do Brasil”, curated by Paulo Herkenhoff e Marcelo Campos, Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2015
– “Saideira”, curated by Fernando Mota, Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brazil
– “Dark Mirror . Lateinamerikanische Kunst Seit 1968”, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
– “E se quebrarem as lentes empoeiradas?”, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil
– “Pangaea II: News Art From Africa and Latin America”, Saatchi Gallery, UK
2014
– “Casa Triângulo no Pivô”, Pivô, São Paulo, Brazil
2012
– 30th São Paulo Biennial, curated by Luis Pérez-Oramas, São Paulo, Brazil
– “Nova Pintura”, curated by Rejane Cintrão, Torre Santander, São Paulo, Brazil
2011
– “Os Dez Primeiros Anos”, curated by Agnaldo Farias e Tiago Mesquita, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil
– “Exposição dos Finalistas do Prêmio PIPA 2011”, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM-Rio), Brazil
– “6ª Ventosul – Bienal de Curitiba”, Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brazil
– “Como o Tempo Passa Quando a Gente se Diverte”, curated by Josué Mattos, Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brazil
2010
– “Se a pintura morreu o MAM é um céu!”, curated by Luiz Camillo Osorio, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM-Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– Prêmio CNI-SESI Marcantonio Vilaça, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
– Prêmio CNI-SESI Marcantonio Vilaça, Museu Histórico Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Edições”, Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, Brazil
2009
– “Investigações Pictóricas”, curated by Daniela Labra, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói (MAC), Niterói, Brazil
– “The Portrait Show”, Galeria Durex, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2008
– “Desenhos em todos os sentidos”, SESC Petrópolis, Teresópolis e Nova Friburgo, Brazil
– 15º Salão da Bahia, Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil
– “Estranha Coletiva”, Galeria Durex, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2007
– “Novas Aquisições da Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand”, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM-Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Cloro Forte Jamaica”, Espaço Repercussivo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2006
– 27ª Bienal de São Paulo, invited to take part in Mabe Bethônico’s work, São Paulo, Brazil
2005
– 30º Salão de Arte de Ribeirão Preto, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
2004
– “Posições 2004”, Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Dobra”, Centre d’Art Contemporaine de la Ferme du Buisson, Paris, France
2001
– “Rio Trajetórias”, Funarte, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Awards
2011
– PIPA Prize Finalist
2009
– Winner at the Prêmio CNI SESI Marcantonio Vilaça
Public collectins
– The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA
– K 11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong, China
– Daros Latinamerica AG, Zurich, Switzerland
– The Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
– Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand no Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM-Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– Coleção Banco Itaú S.A., São Paulo, Brazil
– Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP), São Paulo, Brazil
– Museu de Arte do Rio de Janeiro (MAR), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– Pinacoteca de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
– Bob and Renee Drake, Wassenaar, Netherlands
– Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York, USA
– Estrellita B. Brodsky, New York, USA
Video produced by Matrioska Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2010:
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