In Conversation with Adriana Varejão
VIEW EVENT DETAILSArtist In Focus Series
Evening discussion:
ADRIANA VAREJÃO, Artist
DENNIS CARR, Curator
Drinks Reception 6:30pm,
Discussion 7:00pm,
Close 8:00pm
Throughout her practice Adriana Varejão considers art history, religious art, erotic art, ceramics, and porcelain; weaving together these threads to show the pervasive influence of the Euro-centric worldview on the New World, specifically Brazil, China, and Japan. In this evening discussion, Varejão will give a presentation on her exploration and investigate into the connection between China and Brazil. Varejão references traditional Chinese ink paintings, particularly those from the Song Dynasty, which is considered the golden age of Chinese painting and porcelain. Throughout her body of work, she seamlessly combines Chinese and Brazilian narratives and motifs, in one instance combining scenes found in traditional Chinese ink paintings with Baroque churches and monasteries from the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Varejão will be joined by Dennis Carr, curator of American Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, who will provide a historical view of the themes touched on by Varejao in this evening conversation.
Adriana Varejão (b. 1964, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is a leading female Brazilian artist working today, whose diverse practice explores themes of colonialism, miscegenation, and anthropology through a variety of media including painting, sculpture, works on paper, installation, and photography. Varejão has exhibited extensively internationally, including solo shows at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris (2005); Hara Museum, Japan (2007); Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo, Brazil (2012); and Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2013). Varejão’s work was included in the São Paulo Bienial (1994 and 1998); Venice Biennale (1995); 5th Mercosul Biennial in Visual Art, Brazil (2005); Liverpool Biennial (1999 and 2006); and 12th International Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (2011), among others. In November 2014, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston mounted an extensive solo exhibition devoted to the artist. Varejão’s work is included in the collections of the Tate Modern, London; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hara Museum, Tokyo; and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, among others. In 2008, the Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim opened a permanent pavilion devoted to her work in Brazil. The artist lives and works in Brazil.
(Portrait © Fabien Calcavechia)
Dennis Carr is the Carolyn and Peter Lynch Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture in Art of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He was a co-curator of the MFA’s new 53-gallery Art of the Americas Wing and a contributing author of the books A New World Imagined: Art of the Americas (MFA, 2010), Painting a Map of Sixteenth-Century Mexico City: Land, Writing, and Native Rule (Yale University Press, 2012), and Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia (MFA, 2015). He holds graduate degrees from Yale University and the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture.
He recently opened the critically acclaimed exhibition at the MFA, “Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia,” which was awarded grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Supported by
Event Details
Asia Society Hong Kong Center, 9 Justice Drive, Admiralty