(this page was last updated in July 2016)
[pipa2016:81704]
Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 1960.
Lives and works in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Represented by Celma Albuquerque Gallery de Arte and Luciana Brito Gallery.
PIPA 2016 nominee.
A pioneer of multimedia art in Brazil, Eder Santos is recognized worldwide for developing hybrid projects that mix visual arts, cinema, theater, video, and new media. His works belong to the permanent collections of the MoMA in New York and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, two of the largest contemporary art museums in the world. Santos has participated in biennials and festivals in Brazil and overseas, including the World Wide Video Festival, held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. There, the artist presented the installation “Enciclopédia da Ignorância” (“Encyclopedia of Ignorance”), also shown at the Media Art Film Festival of Milan, Italy, at the Palácio das Artes in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and at Luciana Brito Gallery in São Paulo, Brazil. Beyond his work as a video installation and video performance artist, Santos has an award-winning career as a film director. He has made fifteen short films, the TV series “Midnight Tales” (2004, TV Cultura, 90 episodes), and the feature film “Intriguing People” (1995), which was awarded Best Montage at the 17th Festival del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano in Havana, Cuba, and Special Mention in the 17th Festival et Forum International des Nouvelles Images in Locarno, Switzerland. Currently, Santos is working on the distribution of his second feature film, “Blue Desert”. The project is a result of the artist’s continuous experimentation with video language and his relationship with the visual arts.
Website: www.tremchic.com.
‘The Vernacular in Light’, by Bárbara London
Eder Santos is a painter of light. Since the 1980s he has used the cool, detached technology of video, and in the hot climate of Minas Gerais has warmed up electronic images gathered from his daily life. Not interested in the mimetic—a significant aspect of his chosen medium—he probes the poetic, deftly weaving together layers of haunting visuals and sounds. Over the years Santos has fashioned an unassuming style. This evolved partly in opposition to the rationalism and formality of Conceptualism and Minimalism of generations prior, but in concert with the lyrical abstraction of 1950s Brazil.
Santos deftly de-forms the colors of video, keying them as if he were a watercolorist. Having started out in the dark ages, before home pages and Skype, he has worked quietly in isolation, away from the metropolises of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Merging a strong sense of independence, with a twinkle in his eyes and a healthy sense of skepticism, he exploits his vocabulary as he handles his steadily evolving tools.
Despite the fact that Santos has become a perpetual traveler, moving about the globe for festivals and shows, his practice always refers back to his idyllic home in Belo Horizonte. There he skillfully works from his studio, digitally linked to such collaborators as sound artist Stephen Vitiello, based in Richmond, Virginia.
Santos remains a Brazilian artist, aware of the socioeconomic relation of technological media and cultural representation.
I have never lost sight of the fact that I am using a technology rather foreign to my city and country — in short, there is a gap in the relation between the social and the technological. As a consequence, I always attempt to use our own cultural elements.
The current tsunami of miniaturized communications gadgets suits media and sound, which traditionally get around language restraints and territorial barriers.
In the near future, i-pods may even become multi-purpose projectors, feeding “cinema” to every other display device, right along with music and the digital videos of Eder Santos. Today the calm pace practiced by Santos suits the high octane pace of a global era rife with attention deficit disorders. Frenetic multitasking and YouTube mania indicate that he is ahead of our time.
***
–Barbara London – Video and Media Curator – MoMA, New York, USA
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Eder Santos, by Solange Farkas
Video is, first and foremost, metamorphosis, as demonstrated by Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostel when, back in the 1960s, they invented video art by distorting and changing the conventional image generated by television. As aesthetics of metamorphosis in the highest degree, video allows for more transgressive manipulations and more disjointed interference on the images in a raw state as recorded by cameras.
A work of image editing and manipulation par excellence, Eder Santos’s creations show, in addition to their profound inspirations, how he operates the images in an original way, creating an electronic cinematography in which the scenes of reality, the effects, and colors are used as musical notes in an expositive, clearly non-linear structure.
Eder Santos is one of the most recognized and widely known artists of electronic art in Brazil and latin America. His output is vast and includes both single channel videos and video installations, video sculptures, and performances, all charged with a strong existential sense and sophisticated styling. Paradoxically, his work is not something easy. It is characterized by extreme
experiences and lack of concessions in regard to the entire Brazilian videographic production, it is composed of noises, interferences, defects, disturbances from the equipment used and, in some of his works, such as Mentiras e Humilhações (lies and Humiliations), boarding the boundaries of visualization. Eder constructs a visual language with technologies that are quite diversified, hybrid, using digital and film resources, especially amator-shot homemade super-8, as in his work called Europa em 5 Minutos (Europe in 5 Minutes), in which he uses all his ability to undress the cognitive modes of image.
Santos creates vibrant, poetic works that merge personal, cultural and technological elements, which reinterpret themes related to Brazilian cultural heritage and evoke the rhythms and textures of memory and history, thus creating a reflection on contemporary society. In works such as Não vou à África porque tenho plantão, Essa coisa nervosa and Januária (respectively, I am not going to Africa because I am on call, This nervous thing and Januária), Eder Santos makes this point-of-view very clear, also reassuring his commitment to the tireless search for stylistic resources.
The nearly organic relationship between sound and image in the artist’s work has generated solid partnerships with first-class contemporary musicians like the American artist Stephen Vitiello
and Paulo Santos, who is a member of Uakti, a pretigious contemporary group from the state of Minas Gerais. Also, this relationship has produced a number of multi-didactic shows, which include dance, music and poetry and almost always dazzle the audience for the quality of the stimulation provoked during the performances.
After working with projections on urban surfaces, architectural fragments, and rough materials, such as soil and sand, Eder Santos began to explore more intimate elements in his installation. Furniture and household objects are used in his works as a support for metaphors on memory and consciousness. In the works presented here, the top bed of a bunk bed and the cups and vases of a china cabinet are transformed on the screen as dream images, in a fantasy projection of oppressive thought. Gaunt nightmares in bright scribble. These pieces highlight the intangible, dreamlike nature of the electronic image, while reaffirming the humanistic emphasis that characterizes the artist’s contribution.
***
Solange Farkas is the Curator and Director of Associação Cultural Videobrasil. She is the creator and chief curator of the International Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil.
Education
1984
-Fine Arts at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.
1983
-Visual Programming at Foundation Mineira de Arte Aleijadinho.
Film Production
2014
-“Deserto Azul”, feature film.
2010
-“Pilgrimage”, short film, HD video.
2009
-“Cinema”, short film, HD video.
2004
-“A Delicadeza do Amor”, short film, 35mm.
-“Contos da Meia-Noite”, TV series, 90 episodes.
2003
-“Neptune’s Choice”, short film, video.
2000
-“Acidente Geográfico”, short film, video.
-“Projeto Apollo”, short film, video.
1999
-“Framed by Curtains”, short film, video.
1998
-“Tumitinhas”, short film, video.
1995
-“Enredando as Pessoas”, short film, 35mm.
1993
-“Janaúba”, short film, video.
1991
-“Essa Coisa Nervosa”, short film, video.
1990
-“Não vou à África porque tenho plantão”, short film, video.
1989
-“Rito e Expressão”, short film, video.
1988
-“Mentiras e Humilhação”, short film, video.
1987
-“Uakti-Bolero”, short film, video
1986
-“A Europa em 5 Minutos”, short film, video.
Live Videos
2013
-“Pràzer”, theatre: video scenography, Cultural Centre Bank of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
2011
-“A Lua Vem da Ásia”, theatre: video scenography, Cultural Centre Bank of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
2008
-“Cubo”, musical performance: Paulo Santos and Josefina Cerqueira, Totino, Italy.
2007
-“No cars go”, video performance with the actresses Maria Luisa Mendonça and Mônica Medeiros, Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil.
Solo Exhibitions
2013
-Gallery das Almas III, video installation, Museum of Art of Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
2012
-“Dogville”, video intervention, facade of Gallery Celma Albuquerque, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
2011
-“Dogville”, video intervention, facade of Oi Futuro Ipanema, Projeto VideUrbe, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
-“Dogville”, video installation, curated by Jacopo Crivelli, Project Solo: PINTA ART FAIR, New York, USA.
2010
-“Deserto Azul”, feature film, 35mm, Brasília, Brazil.
-“Atrás do Porto Tem uma Cidade”, video installation, Museum of the Valley, Vitória, Brazil.
-“O Julgamento de Paris”, video installation, HD 3D, Museum of Art of São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Mentiras e Humilhações”, site-specific installation, Palácio da Aclamação, Salvador, Brazil.
-“Cinema”, Luciana Brito Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Embaixadas”, video installation, Cultural Centre Bank of Brazil, Brasília, Brazil.
-“Roteiro Amarrado. Retrospective Eder Santos from 2000 to 2010”, Cultural Centre Bank of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
2009
-“Fever”, video intervention, facade of hotel Marina All Suites – Projeto Lumen, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
-“Call Waiting”, Cultural Centre Usiminas, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
-Gallery das Almas, site-specific installation, Cultural Centre Bank of Brazil, Brasília, Brazil.
2008
-“Suspensión y Fluidez”, site-specific installation, ARCO, Madrid, Spain.
-“Call Waiting”, video installation, Festival Experimenta Colômbia, Bogotá, Colombia.
-“Que Fim Levaram Todas as Flores”, site-specific installation, Museum of Modern Art of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil.
2005
-“Ilha-Roteiro Amarrado”, Luciana Brito Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil.
2003
-“The Encyclopedia of Ignorance”, video installation, World Wide Video Festival, Passenger Terminal, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
2000
-“Janaúba”, video installation, Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Group Exhibitions
2013
-“Vista Luz”, video intervention on street lampposts, Biennial of Curitiba, Brazil.
2012
-“Noite Branca”, Municipal Park Américo Renné Giannetti and Palácio das Artes, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
-“Cascade”, Gallery Celma Albuquerque, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
-“Rua Sertões. The Storytellers: Narratives in International Contemporary Art”, Stenersen Museum, Oslo, Norway.
-58th International Festival of Short Movies Oberhausen, Pilgrimage, Germany.
2011
-“Panoramas do Sul”, 17th International Festival of Contemporary Art Sesc-VideoBrasil, São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Fragmentos de um Prisma”, Cultural Centre José Maria Barra, Uberaba, Brazil.
-“Estratégias para Luzes Acidentais”, Luciana Brito Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil.
2010
-“Paralela”, Liceu de Artes e Ofício, São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Deuses e Madonas. A Arte do Sagrado”, Museum of Art of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
2009
-International Week of Digital and Alternative Arts–Siana, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
2008
-“Braaaasiiiil”, National Museum Centre of Art Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain.
-“Parangolé – Fragmentos desde los 90 en Brasil”, Portugal and Spain, Museum Pátio Herreriano of Spanish Contemporary Art, Valladolid, Spain.
-“Paradigmas do Experimental”, Museum of Image and Sound, São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Brazilian Videoart”, Gallery Beckers, Frankfurt, Germany.
2007
-“Itaú Contemporâneo – Arte no Brasil 1981-2006”, Institute Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil.
-Performance, Concert Hall, Den Haag, the Netherlands.
-“Arte para Crianças – Uma Exposição de Arte Contemporânea para o Público Infantil”, Museum da Vale do Rio Doce, Vila Velha, Brazil.
-“80/90 Modernos, Pós-modernos, etc…”, Institute Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Estiuart 07”, Joan Guaite Art, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
-XVII Biennial Internacional Del Deporte en El Arte, Gijón, Spain.
-“Equatorial Rhythms”, Stenersen Museum, Oslo, Norway.
-XVI International Festival of Electronic Art Videobrasil, Sesc Pompéia, São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Ctrl C + Ctrl V”, Sesc Pompéia, São Paulo, Brazil.
2006
-“Visiones Presas”, Castillo de Santa Bárbara, Alicante, Spain.
-IX Biennial of Havana, Cuba.
-“Videoformes – Vídeo & Noveaux Médias dans l’Art Contemporain”, Clermont-Ferrand, France.
-“A Luz da Luz”, Sesc Pinheiros, São Paulo, Brazil.
-V International Biennial of Photography and of the Visual Arts, Liège, Belgium.
2005
-“Bel Horizon – Resonance”, VIII Biennial of Contemporary Art of Lyon, France.
-“Panorama da Arte Brasileira”, Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Images Passages”, Annecy, France.
-XV International Festival of Electronic Art Videobrasil, Sesc Pompéia, São Paulo, Brazil.
-Gallery Mira Quesada Garland, Miraflores, Peru.
-“Razão e Sensibilidade”, Encontro com Arte, São Paulo, Brazil.
-Espaço Brasil, Carreau du Temple, Paris, France.
-Alcazar de Paris, Bresils Bresils by Videoformes, Paris, France.
-“Videoformes – Vidéo & Noveaux Médias dans l’Art Contemporain”, Gallery de l’Arts Du Temps, Clermont Ferrand, France.
-Piemonte Share Festival, Torino, Italy.
2004
-“Versão Brasileira”, Gallery Brito Cimino, São Paulo, Brazil.
-Festival Sonar Sound, Institute Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil.
-VI International Competition Media and Architecture, Graz, Austria.
2003
-XIV International Festival of Electronic Art Videobrasil, Sesc Pompéia, São Paulo, Brazil.
-World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
-XIV International Festival Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brazil.
-Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, Den Haag, the Netherlands.
2002
-“Estratégias para Deslumbrar”, Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo and Art Gallery of Sesi, São Paulo, Brazil.
2001
-“Rede de Tensão – Bienal 50 Anos”, Biennial Foundation of São Paulo, Brazil.
-XIII International Festival Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brazil.
2000
-“Cá entre Nós”, Paço das Almas, São Paulo, Brazil.
-Macau Art Festival.
-“Exit”, Chinsenhale Gallery, London, UK.
-“Brasil plural y Singular”, Museum of Art of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
-Festival of Vitória, Brazil.
-XXVI National Salon of the Museum of Art of Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
1999
-XX Videoart Festival, Locarno, Switzerland.
-“Chivas Synergies Art”, Casa das Rosas, São Paulo, Brazil.
-Festival of Video and Electronic Art Vidarte, Mexico City, Mexico.
1998
-XII International Festival of Electronic Art Videobrasil, Sesc Pompéia, São Paulo, Brazil.
1996
-14th World Wide Video Festival, Municipal Museum, Haia, the Netherlands.
-23rd International Biennial of São Paulo, Biennial Foundation, Brazil.
-“Enredando as Pessoas”, National Film Theater, London, UK.
-“Enredando as Pessoas”, Pacific Film Archive – University of California, Berkeley, USA.
1995
-6th International Week of Video Saint-Gervais, Geneva, Switzerland.
-Cinema, Noveau Festival International Cinéma Vidéo Nouvelles-Technologies, Festival du 2e Siècle, Montreal, Canada.
-“Enredando as Pessoas, Video Viewpoints”, MoMA, New York, USA.
-“Enredando as Pessoas. Inside Brazil, Exhibition of Brazilian Video Art”, Long Beach Museum of Art, USA.
1994
-10th International Festival of Electronic Art Videobrasil, Sesc Pompéia, São Paulo, Brazil.
-2nd Festival de Cortometrajes Latinoamericanos en Cine y Video, competitive show, Caracas, Venezuela.
-Ars Eletronica Festival/Intelligent Ambience, Vienna, Austria.
-“Arte Cidade: a cidade e seus fluxos”, São Paulo, Brazil.
-Danish Film Institute Workshop Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark.
-“Janaúba”, University of Rennes, France.
-International Video Showing of Cádiz, Spain.
-New Visions International Film and Video Festival, Glasglow, Scotland.
1993
-1st Manifestation Internationale Vidéo et Art Électronique, Montreal, Canada.
-14th Video Art Festival Locarno, Switzerland.
-39th Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Germany.
-“Essa Coisa Nervosa. Between Words and Images”, MoMA, New York, USA.
-“Janaúba. Latin American Videos”, MoMA, New York, USA.
-“Poscatidevenum”, Foundation Clóvis Salgado, Palácio das Artes, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
-“Uakti, Rito & Expressão, In(dig)nação e Janaúba (vídeos), Mostra Verde Amarelo – Retrospectiva de Arte Brasileira”, Vente Museum, Tokyo, Japan.
-Viper Film and Video Festival, Lucerne, Switzerland.
1992
-30th New York Film Festival – Videorama, New York, USA.
-“6th Manifestation Internationale de Video et Télévision – retrospectiva Eder Santos”, Montbéliard, France.
-9th International Festival Videobrasil, Sesc Pompéia, São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Essa Coisa Nervosa. Committed Visions”, MoMA, New York, USA.
-Video Festival of Cádiz, Spain.
-“IXTLY South American Video – retrospectiva Eder Santos”, Bremen, Germany.
-World Wide Video Festival, Haia, the Netherlands.
1991
-“Brazilian Videos”, Pacific Film Archive, University Art Museum at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.
-ForumBHZVídeo, Cultural Centre of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
-“Não Vou à África Porque Tenho Plantão. New Artists from EAI”, Anthology Films Archive, New York, USA.
-“Radical. vídeos – mostra 1”, Museum of Image and Sound, São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Trabajos de Eder Santos”, Institute of Cooperation Ibero American, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
1990
-8th International Video Festival Fotoptica – Videobrasil, Museum of Image and Sound, São Paulo, Brazil.
-International Film Festival Berlin, Germany.
-Seme – Manifestation Internationale de Vidéo et Télévision de Montbéliard, France.
-“Uakti e Rito & Expressão”, Arizona Center for Media Arts, Tucson, USA.
-World Wide Video Festival, Haia, the Netherlands.
1989
-Tucano Arts Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Awards
2011
-Film Award in Minas Gerais, feature film.
2009
-Film Award in Minas Gerais, feature film.
2006
-Petrobrás Prize, feature film.
2000
-Sergio Motta Prize, video.
1999
-20th VideoArt Festival, jury award, Locarno, Switzerland.
1996
-17th Festival et Forum International des Nouvelles Images, special mention: D’Ars Award, Locarno, Switzerland.
1995
-“Janaúba”, best video, Video Festival Franco-Latino-Americano, Bogotá, Colombia.
-“Enredando as Pessoas”, best feature film, 35 mm, 17th International Festival of New Latin-American Cinema, Havana, Cuba.
1994
-5th International Festival of Video–City of Vigo, special mention, Spain.
-“Janaúba”, award at two festivals: best video – 10th International Festival Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brazil.
1993
-“The Desert in My Mind”, best video, installation, Paulista Association of Art Critics, São Paulo, Brazil.
1992
-“The Desert in My Mind”, special jury award, 9th International Festival Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Essa Coisa Nervosa”, special mention, Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and Video, Montreal, Canada.
1991
-“Não Vou à África Porque Tenho Plantão”, special award CICV, Fotoptica International Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brazil.
1989
-“Rito & Expressão”, Tucano de Prata, best international experimental film, FestRio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
1988
-“Mentiras & Humilhações”, best direction and photography ¾ , 6th Festival Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brazil.
-“Uakti”, three awards: award Casa de Las Américas, Cinema Festival of Cuba, Havana, Cuba.
1987
-Prêmio Tucano de Prata, best international music video, FestRio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
-“Uakti”, two awards: award Sol de Ouro, 3rd Rio Cine Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
1985
-“Interferência”, best experimental VHS video, 3rd Festival Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brazil.
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