Galatea opens the year with a retrospective of Rio de Janeiro artist Marília Kranz

From day 09 March, Thursday, at 18h, to Galatea presents a retrospective overview of the work of Marília Kranz (1937-2017). Born in Rio de Janeiro, Marília was a painter, designer and sculptor, and began to have its estate officially represented by the paulista gallery as of last year.

The shows “Marilia Kranz: reliefs and paintings” will present about 30 works, between sculptures and paintings, that cover the trajectory traversed by the artist since the 60, initial stage of its production, until the years 2000. Who signs the exhibition's expographic project is Marietta Ferber, designer and art director.

The choice of Marília Kranz's name came about through a survey by Conrado Mesquita, one of the partners of the gallery, who established contact with the daughters of the artist. So responsible for the artist's estate, were very excited about this project to rescue their work in the current context of art in Brazil and with the expansion of their reach beyond the Rio de Janeiro market, where the artist has always been appreciated.

Pioneer in the struggle for feminism, Marília Kranz dedicated herself, in the early years of his career, drawing and the study of painting. At one point, began to explore the field of geometric abstraction, producing in reliefs like plaster, cardboard and wood, and which were part of his first individual exhibition, in 1968, in the Hollow Gallery, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1969, upon returning from trips to Europe and the United States, started to produce the reliefs from the vacuum molding technique (vacuum forming), using plastic, fiberglass, resin and industrial enamels; in addition to cut and polished acrylic sculptures, calls from counterforms. 

The technique was innovative, since, at the time, was not widespread in Brazil even in the industrial sector. In addition, the content of the works was loaded with a strong experimental character. According to art critic Frederico Morais, the abstract and geometric forms explored in these works – and in the production of Marília Kranz as a whole – would be closer to international artists such as Ben Nicholson (England), Auguste Herbin (France) and Alberto Magnelli (Italy) than the prominent constructivist trends in Brazil, such as Concretism and Neoconcretism.

From 1974, the artist resumed her work with paintings on canvas, but this time the focus was different: landscape images loaded with a certain voluptuousness. The artist began to bring constituent elements of her favorite landscapes in Rio de Janeiro to the center of the canvas..

Compared to artists like Giorgio de Chirico and Tarsila do Amaral, its scenarios and geometrized and dreamlike figures, bordering on abstraction, evoke solemnity and eroticism. the pastel tones, on the other hand, became your brand. “Color yields to luminous intensity”, says Frederico Morais. When we look at the flowers and fruits that are the protagonists with great sensuality in several of his paintings, we also think of Georgia O'Keeffe, considered by Marilia Kranz her “soul sister”.

At the exhibition, it will be possible to follow the passage, within the artist's path, of an abstract and formalist geometry of the reliefs of the end of the decade of 1960 for landscape painting – figurative, but with geometry intrusions – which began to develop in the mid-1990s. 1970 and which exploits until the end of its production. Marilia goes from a somewhat “cold” aesthetic, formalist or rational” to something more “warm, fluid, affective", also inspired by her passion for the landscape of Rio de Janeiro and the agenda of female sexual liberation.

In this transition enters the eroticism of flowers, for example, that connects her with Georgia O'Keeffe's painting, and the colors and landscapes that bring her closer to both Tarsila de Amaral Pau-Brasil/Antropofágica and the empty and solemn landscapes of the metaphysicians who would influence surrealism, like Di Chirico.

Marília Kranz was selected by Galatea as the first woman of many that are in the gallery's representation plans.

She became known for her active advocacy for sexual liberation and political freedom during the military dictatorship in Brazil. (1964 to 1985), in addition to the fight for environmental causes, acting as one of the founders of the Green Party in 1986.

Exhibited in national and international galleries and institutions, receiving awards for his paintings and sculptures. In 2007, was honored at the major retrospective exhibition “Marília Kranz: reliefs and sculptures, held at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio).

About Galatea

Galatea is a gallery that emerges from the different and complementary trajectories and experiences of its founding partners: Antonia Bergamin was at the forefront for almost a decade as managing partner of a large gallery in São Paulo; Conrado Mesquita is dealer and collector, specializing in discovering great works in unlikely places; and Thomas Toledo is a curator and actively contributed to the historic institutional renewal of MASP, where he recently left as chief curator.

With modern and contemporary Brazilian art as the main focus, Galatea works and sells both well-known names from the national art scene and new talents in contemporary art, in addition to promoting the rescue of historical artists.

Such temporal amplitude reflects and articulates the conceptual pillars of the gallery's program: to be a point of promotion and convergence between cultures, temporalities, different styles and genres, generating a rich friction between the old and the new, the canonical and the non-canonical, the erudite and the informal.

In addition to these proposed connections, the gallery also bets on the relationship between artists, collectors, institutions and gallery owners. On the other hand, care in the research process, respect for creative time and encouragement of the artist's professional development with curatorial accompaniment. From the other, constant listening and transparency in commercial relations.

By tightening ties, with a sensitive look at what is important to each one, Galatea praises the relationships that are created around art — because she believes that doing so is also praising art itself..

In this sense, starting from the idea of ​​relationship is that the name of the gallery appears, borrowed from the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. This myth tells the story of the artist Pygmalion, that when sculpting in ivory Galatea, a female figure, falls in love with his own work and begins to adore it. The goddess Aphrodite, moved by such devotion, transforms the statue into a woman of flesh and blood so that creator and creature can, anyway, live a true relationship.

Service:
Local: Galatea
Address: Rua Oscar Freire, 379, store 1 – Gardens, São Paulo - SP
Opening: 09 March, Thursday, at 18h
Exhibition period: 9 March to 29 May 2023
Operation:  Monday to Friday, from 10h to 19h; Saturdays, from 11 at 3:0 pm
More info: www.galatea.art 
Parking lot: On-site parking