The 2024 Venice Biennale is linked to Brazil on several levels. From 7 September 2024, the Zentrum Paul Klee is devoting to the country the large-scale exhibition Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism, which is organised in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
Djanira da Motta e Silva, Três orixás, 1966, Oil on canvas, 130,4 x 195,5 cm, Collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, purchased by the Governo do Estado de São Paulo, 1969 © Instituto Pintora Djanira
As the first curator based in the southern hemisphere, Adriano Pedrosa is curating the 60th International Art Exhibition. Pedrosa is the director of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. It is from the holdings of this museum that the Zentrum Paul Klee is being loaned several masterpieces for its major autumn exhibition Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism. Six of the artists of whom works are being shown in the exhibition are also represented in the Biennale.
Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism will be on display in Bern from 7 September 2024 to 5 January 2025. The exhibition will then travel to the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
About the exhibition
At the beginning of the 20th century, Brazil was a young nation in search of its own identity. The population was made up of different indigenous groups, former slaves, colonists and migrants from the whole of Europe and Japan. A great variety of cultures met in this context. Art was in a state of upheaval too, and artists were looking for their own modern artistic expressive forms. Their references were the European avant-garde – including Paul Klee – and their own indigenous and Afro-Brazilian cultures.
The exhibition at the Zentrum Paul Klee shows various ways in which Brazilian artists developed their own modern pictorial languages. Alongside works by ten artists it presents an introduction to formative political and economic events as well as milestones in the country’s literature, music, design and architecture.
Lasar Segall Mulato II, um 1924 Oil on canvas
64,3 x 45,5 cm, Private collection
Flávio de Carvalho, Ascenção definitiva de Cristo, 1932 Oil on canvas, 75,5 x 62 cm, Collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, purchased by the Governo do Estado de São Paulo, 1969
Tarsila do Amaral Povoação I, 1952 Oil on canvas 75,5 x 100 cm, Private collection
Opening
The opening of the exhibition will take place on Friday, 6 September 2024, from 6 pm. Admission to the exhibition is free on this evening.
Concert
On Saturday, 21 September 2024 at 6 pm, a Bossa Nova concert with Jenny Chi & ChiBossa will take place at the Zentrum Paul Klee in the context of the exhibition.