Gravura Brasileira

Project: ‘In Images We Speak’/’Em Images Falamos’

Gravura Brasileira, São Paulo, Amsterdams Grafisch Atelier



1.    Introduction
Stichting het Amsterdams Grafisch Atelier is one of the largest print workshops in the Netherlands for professional visual artists, offering extensive facilities for screen-printing, etching and lithography. The AGA facilitates, experiments, initiates and presents.

Gravura Brasileira is a well-known São Paulo gallery specialising in graphic art. It often collaborates with print workshop Atelier Piratininga, also located in São Paulo.

The objective of the project described below is to familiarise artists in the Netherlands and Brazil with one another’s work, working methods and worlds. Interested members of the public are also encouraged to take part. In addition to exhibiting artists’ work in the traditional manner, the possibilities of the internet shall also be exploited.

The project was prompted by
(1) the invitation from Gravura Brasileira and Atelier Piratininga, both of São Paulo, to collaborate on an exchange project/exhibition and
(2) the 400th birthday of Maurits van Nassau, ‘the Brazilian.’

2.    Objective of the project
Mission: a new meeting.
A new meeting of artists and members of the public in the Netherlands and Brazil – on a more intimate and equal basis than in the time of Maurits the Brazilian.

The work and living environments of visual artists from both countries are the starting point for creating new (graphic) art works and for learning about one another’s worlds.
‘In images we speak’ is to be a project in which artists communicate with one another through their work – a context which, it is hoped, will stimulate the creativity of the participating artists. 
 
3.    Content of the project
Basic concept: thirty artists (these have already been selected by the AGA advisory committee and Gravura Brasileira – fifteen artists from the Netherlands and fifteen from Brazil) will be asked to create works utilising, among other things, graphic techniques.
Theme of the project: the new meeting between the Netherlands and Brazil / Amsterdam and Recife. The rich historical and cultural bonds between them invite discussion.

The artists will record their work, working methods and living environment in pictorial form. Space will be made available at the website of AGA / Gravura Brasileira, where the process can be followed. An intriguing question is whether these artists, who do not speak each other’s language, will be able to communicate pictorially. The combination of the website presentation and the exhibitions in the Netherlands and Brazil will make it accessible to a wide audience in both countries.

List of artists
AGA                                                      Gravura Brasileira

Herma Deenen                                   Jacqueline Aronis
Annemiek Derkx                                  Renata Basile da Silva
Moritz Ebinger                                       Arnaldo Battaglini
Hilly van Eerten                                    Ernesto Bonato
Erik Fliek                                               Ulysses B. De Paula
Meinbert Gozewijn van Soest            Ana Elisa Dias Baptista
Lego Lima                                            Helena Freddi
Anneke van de Mandele                    Norma Mobilon
Raquel Maulwurf                                 Cláudio Mubarac
Anna Metz                                              Francisco Maringelli
Ursula Neubauer                                Paulo Penna
René Olgers                                        Márcio Pannunzio
Elma Oosterhoff                                  Augusto Sampaio
Marina Rupert                                      Lucila Sartori
Esther Sluiter                                      Armando Sobral