Português
As part of Pivô’s 2015 Exhibition Programme, ‘Apodi 69’ stems from the desire of a group of artists to bring together their artistic production for the first time.
Between 2003 and 2008, artists Cinthia Marcelle, Lais Myrrha, Marilá Dardot, Matheus Rocha Pitta and Sara Ramo shared a house on Apodi Street, door number 69, in Belo Horizonte. At the time they lived together, the artists were selected for the first edition of the prestigious art grant of the Museu de Arte da Pampulha, and shared intense periods of interaction, creation and dialogue, which culminated in various collaborative artworks. During this same period, they began to dedicate themselves exclusively to art, advancing their individual careers.
The group’s works are exhibited together for the first time in twelve years. Even though the artists never considered themselves as a collective, they were in constant dialogue, invariably enriching each other’s individual production. For this exhibition, they were invited to freely select the artworks they had always wanted to see side-by-side. As well as displaying recent and previous individual and collective artworks, the show also presents promotional materials from previous exhibitions and documents relating to the time they lived in Belo Horizonte. The visitor is granted access to the origins of these artists who today enjoy a consolidated position in the national art scene. The exhibition focuses on moments of intersection, suggesting new ways of looking at the group’s current production.
Six nine
Apodi 69 is the address of a house in Belo Horizonte where five artists – Cinthia Marcelle, Lais Myrrha, Marilá Dardot, Sara Ramo, and myself, Matheus Rocha Pitta – lived and worked. The house was rented in 2003, the year of the first edition of the arts residence programme Bolsa Pampulha, for which we were selected.
Despite having lived together, we don’t have a common agenda; we’re not a movement or a collective; and neither do we work with a specific medium that could identify us. However, we have established a web of dialogue, which we believe has been a major influence on our respective artistic languages. This is the reason behind Apodi 69: to introduce to the public elements of the artistic background and history that take place horizontally between each artist, something that inescapably springs from our friendship.
To propose any sort of consistency for this dialogue is in itself a utopia. In the current cultural environment, market insertion – through the legitimation of curators and galleries and the widespread ‘professionalisation’ of art – prevails over the slow and at times invisible maturation of an artistic language. As amateur curators and avoiding any judgements other than our own, we took charge of our own exhibition: the artworks exhibited here were chosen for their power to connect to a context other than their own author’s. Homage is our paradigm: in Apodi 69 stealing ideas is nothing but a declaration of love.
The exhibition is split into two parts. The aim of the main part, which consists of photos, videos, objects and installations spanning over 13 years of production, is to be a sample – albeit not definitive – of our interchange. The second but no less important part, called Documental, brings together collective initiatives, catalogues, posters, photos, letters and projects, everything that we have created together, amongst our group and also with other artists. Here informality does not mean carelessness but rather provides the conditions to experiment and share.
Devising and building together this exhibition has reignited partnerships, exchanges and conflicts, and has brought us closer to the things we believe really matter. Work and trust.
