Português
Pivô launches its new programme Fora da Caixa (‘Outside the Box’) with the group show Casa 7 no Pivô (‘Casa 7 at Pivô’). Eduardo Ortega’s curatorship focuses on the production of artists Paulo Monteiro, Nuno Ramos, Fábio Miguez, Carlito Carvalhosa and Rodrigo Andrade, from 1984 to 1985. The group turned house number 7 on a mews in Pinheiros, São Paulo, into a shared studio
The studio itself and the close interaction between the artists formed the basis for the creation of the collective Casa 7 (house number 7, in Portuguese). The exhibition covers the group’s high point in terms of recognition, during the final two years in which the artists shared the same working space.
The collective is still highly relevant in the Brazilian art scene. In the 1980s, its main proposition was the reaffirmation of painting. The young artists went through a process of public exercise as the works were simultaneously produced and exhibited; bravely opting to take the risk of showing both hits and misses. The paintings exposed their processes; the signs of making were printed on the final result. These artists were interested in an impulsive and cathartic form of painting, in opposition to the discursive art in vogue nowadays. The act of making came before the conceptualisation of the artwork. They were strongly influenced by German Neo-Expressionism as well as by North American painter Philip Guston.
A common ground marked the artists’ pieces, even though they were individually signed. The extent of this fusion encompasses not only the choice of techniques but also the exercise of a certain plastic language: in 1984, they all worked with enamel paint on craft paper, subsequently progressing onto oil on canvas the following year. One could say this was due to the affordability and accessibility of the materials at the time, but it was undeniably an intentional common decision. The exhibition at Pivô showcases two works (enamel paint on craft paper and oil on canvas) by each one of the five members.
Exhibiting the production of Casa 7 gains even more relevance when we consider the issue of authorship that is so recurring in contemporary practice.
Finally, it is worth highlighting the way Casa 7 claimed the reaffirmation of plaster painting, even under the pressure of a national artistic context that was heading in a different direction. These young artists were not proposing to unfold the Brazilian Constructivist project or responding to the tradition of Concrete or Neo-Concrete Art. They were not about maintaining mainstream conceptual and political practices but presenting an independent dimension and their own poetics.
As well as lodging the collective, Casa 7 also acted as a fertile meeting point for a whole generation of writers, filmmakers, musicians and other artists. It was one of the most important and prolific cultural hubs in the city of São Paulo in the 1980s, and its influence can still be felt today.
Casa 7
Casa 7 came into being in 1982, when a group of school friends decided to adopt an empty house owned by one of the member’s mothers as a studio. This was house number 7 in a mews on Cristiano Viana Street, in the neighbourhood of Pinheiros, in São Paulo. The original members were Rodrigo Andrade, Paulo Monteiro, Carlito Carvalhosa, Fábio Miguez and Antonio Malta, who left in 1983, when Nuno Ramos joined the group. From 1982 to 1985, the artists exhibited as a group at Paço das Artes, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP, Centro Cultural São Paulo, Galeria Subdistrito, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro and the 18ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo.
The focal point of this exhibition is the output of the Casa 7 group of artists from 1984 to 1985.
The show brings together two works – one synthetic enamel on kraft paper and one oil on canvas – of each one of the five members of this group: Paulo Monteiro, Nuno Ramos, Fabio Miguez, Carlito Carvalhosa and Rodrigo Andrade.
Those two years is the period when the group earned high acclaim and were also the last years when these artists worked together in the same studio.
The origin of Casa 7 dates back to 1982, when a group of school friends from Colégio Equipe decided to use an unrented house owned by the mother of one of them as a studio: the house number 7 in a residential cluster on the street called Cristiano Viana, in the neighborhood of Pinheiros.
The original studio group consisted of Rodrigo Andrade, Paulo Monteiro, Carlito Carvalhosa, Fábio Miguez and Antonio Malta, who left in 1983, the same year when Nuno Ramos joined them.
Why putting up an exhibition featuring Casa 7’s works today?
Because of the collective concept, a common and still pressing practice in contemporary art. Because of the authorship issue.
When the five artists of Casa 7 not only shared a physical creative space, but also worked on very similar paintings, a fusion of intents took place combined with a certain dilution of the authorial individuality. Albeit unconsciously, they elicited such discussion. The experience of practising in a common studio triggered an explosion of shared ideas, discussions and influences. Such events brought about a transformation effect on the work of these young artists and eventually built up into the group’s identity. The collective sought to reaffirm painting – a common vision reflected in their making works of akin approaches not only as regards the references. An extensive common denominator in the works of these artists took shape, even though signed by each of them. The extent of this fusion ranged from the techniques chosen to the use of a certain aesthetic language. Why did all of them come out with synthetic enamel paintings on kraft paper at the same time in 1984? Why did they all switched to oil on canvas in the following year? A justification for that may be the lower and affordable price of those materials at that time. However, one cannot deny the fact that an intentional decision was made in common. It is also clear the softening from one painting to the other using the same dark color palette, the predominance of shades of black, brown and gray; the softened colors, the rare use of a pure color. On paper, on the other hand, the palette expands. A common element in all of them is the pictorial mass density, the abundance of matter. Each artist keeps his own style while all of them play with the abstract language, even within the boundaries of a figurative representation. Everyone seems to revel in the composition saturated, in pushing the pictorial matter to maximum compression. How to make art, what to do in art, is after all one single idea practiced by all. Although it were not the group’s own speech at the time, and maybe not even a goal, authorship takes an ambiguous stand, a fugitive attitude towards signing the painting. A new visit paid to the Casa 7 output becomes even more relevant when it is taken from the perspective of this authorship issue, so current in contemporary practice.
Another important factor is the freshness, youth that reverberates in these works, this passionate and immature vigor intrinsic to the works. These young artists learned their craft in public – they experienced a public education process. The events unfolded in the studio and they simply showed a youthful attitude to dive in, to expose themselves and to take risks. Showing the dos and dont’s. Today there is much talk of the apparent process in the work of many artists, the relevance of having the marks of the creative process stamped on the final outcome. In a way, the Casa 7’s output is analogous to this issue insofar as traces of ‘the making of’ process are embedded in the work. This is heightened in this case for the works are displayed as a transitional step in the process of becoming mature before the very eyes of the viewers. While today this process issue normally comes in a ready-to-use and speech style, it evolved more impulsively in Casa 7 as a more spontaneous way of doing and displaying things. It was nearly a catharsis. In this respect, Casa 7 is the genesis, the most primitive version of the current interpretation of the process speech.
Finally, reaffirmation of the plaster painting that they embraced is relevant, even under the pressure of a national artistic context that was not pointing in the same direction. These young artists have escaped the most obvious path, which would have been some offshoot of the Brazilian constructivist concept. What they have produced is not a response to the tradition of concrete art, an anti-concrete or neo-concrete or anti-neo-concrete art. Neither have they continued with their conceptual and political practices approached here. They presented a different vocabulary, an independent working line. Obviously, nothing exists in a vacuum. References to this body of work can be easily found, such as the European painting, especially German painting. What is worth taking into account here, though, is the notion of possibilities.
