Political Issues and the Relationship with the Occult

Driven by research on the use of symbols as tools of language, the “⌾” exhibition, curated by Catarina Duncan at Galeria Leme in São Paulo, brings together work by 17 artists of different generations, raising both underlying political issues as well as relationships with the occult and the unknown. One of the artists featured is the poet, playwright and politician, Abdias do Nascimento (1914-2011). His painting, Quilombismo (Exu and Ogum, 1980) sees Brazil’s quilombos as one of the Americas’ first experiments in freedom, putting forward a new form of political organization from the overlaying of symbols of the implements of the orishas, Exu (communication, contradiction and dialectics) and Ogum (technological innovation and commitment to combat).

The title of the exhibition, “⌾”, is also a symbol used to identify the Sun, which in many cultures is understood as ‘the indefinable’, or always containing something that cannot be explained by the means of reason. Symbolic language, which permeates the entire exhibition, takes precedence over the written word as a proposition for a changeover of power, so that new tools for combat and communication may be developed in a world where listening has become increasingly rare and an alignment between ancestral tools and contemporary technologies is becoming increasingly necessary.

Participating artists: Abdias Nascimento, Aline Motta, Antonio Pichillá, Cabelo, Camila Mota, Cristiano Lenhardt, Dan Coopey, Frederico Filippi, Ismael David, MAHKU – Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin, Mariana de Matos, Moisés Patrício, Mônica Ventura, Raphael Escobar, Rodrigo Bueno, Vânia Medeiros, Vivian Caccuri.