Jonathas and the Fish [Brazil]

Jonathas and the Fish: To be Presented at Biennale di Venezia 2022

The artist Jonathas de Andrade, who will represent Brazil at the next Venice Biennale, has a lot to say about his heritage

La Biennale di Venezia, is a moment when public and artists are in grace. Because  the combination of Venice and art, there is really no match.

Therefore in 2022, artist Jonathas de Andrade will represent Brazil at the country’s pavilion, with curation by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti.

He develops videos, photographs and installations based on the production of images, using strategies that blend fiction, reality, tradition and negotiation.

He takes the body – mainly the male body – as his guiding axis for dealing with themes such as the world of work and of the worker, along with the identity of the individual in contemporaneity, through metaphors that fluctuate between nostalgia, eroticism and political and historical criticism,” says the Brazilian Pavilion’s curator.

In the World of Jonathas

The fish. 2016. 16mm transferred to 2k

Located in the Northeast coast of Brazil, a village of fishermen enact a ritual of embracing the fish that they have caught.

The affectionate hug that accompanies the ritual marks a passage of death and a relationship between species that is imbued with an ambiguous sequence of gestures of tenderness, violence, and domination.

Hunger for Resistance 2019-2020

I love this project! Hunger for Resistance is part of the Endless Hunger Map series, which aims to look at hunger as a possible desire for resistance.

For that, the project was conceived in 2019 in collaboration with Kayapó women from the Pukany village, in Southern Pará, Brazil.

 

 

First, a group of Kayapó women was invited to intervene on historical maps of the Kayapó territory demarcated and protected by law. Second, there is the indigenous art collaboration and cultural exchange.

In the superposition of one drawing on the other, the Kayapó culture impregnated in the graphics, takes the entire space of the map.

Hence, going beyond the limits of the demarcated territory that carries the logic of the “white man” culture.

Kayapó’s drawings mark, symbolically and poetically, a political presence.

It is truly wonderful to have Jonathas de Andrade representing Brazil. Maybe because his work dialogues with the people and landscapes I know.

Afterall, we were born in the same city of Maceió, in Alagoas, a region that is a hub of creativity in all forms.

Working up a sweat -2014

In this work the artists presents a collection of 120 sweaty shirts traded – exchanged, bought, donated.

One by one, they were collected from workers the artist randomly met leaving or going to their works.

The strength of these objects has a community energy, a sense of a grouping that can exist in many forms – a line of people seeking for a job.

Images and press information by @jonathasdeandrade @bienalsaopaulo

 

Jonathas de Andrade




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