Marcia Pastore: counterbody

About

The Pinacoteca de São Paulo, museum of the Secretaria de Cultura e Economia Criativa (Secretary of Culture and Creative Economy) of the state of São Paulo presents, from November 23rd, 2019 until April 6th, 2020, the exhibition Marcia Pastore: counterbody, display a selection of the native São Paulo artist’s production, bringing together, on the 4th floor of Pinacoteca – Edifício Pina Estação, 40 works produced over the course of almost three decades. Curated by Ana Maria Belluzzo, the set of pieces lies at the intersection between visual arts and architecture, emphasising the poetic relationships between force, material and space.

Pastore’s sculptural practice investigates the intrinsic qualities of very diverse materials (rubber, plaster, iron etc), and traverses distinct times and techniques, revisiting both sculptural traditions and manufacturing and casting techniques. For this, the artist starts, not from drawing, but from a direct clash of materials, place and experimentation, acquiring a language that refers to civil engineering processes, without losing sight of the organic articulation of the materials. In her work, the forms arise from both a sense of imminence and from traces left by the presence of a body.

In the show at the Pinacoteca, the visitor is invited to explore these imminences and traces, which appear to emerge from the architecture itself. Among the works, are four that have never been shown before, conceived especially for the exhibition, including Linha-d´água and Linhas de força. Both are also part of a set of significant works in the artist’s career, including for example the relief Untitled (1999) – made in bronze and silver plated, and belonging to the museum’s archive – and Peso contrapeso, which was shown for the first time at Funarte, São Paulo, in 2012.

To establish a dialogue between the latter work and the architecture of the Pinacoteca building, the artist opened windows in the ceiling of the museum, so the cables supporting the work were hung from the intersection of the rafters and trusses that make up the design of the roof, gaining stability from the interaction between the metal tubes, pulleys and weights. “This game had to be with the structural architectural forces of the place”, comments Pastore.

This interest in the dynamics of materials relates both to concepts of Arte Povera, the artistic movement that also favours the poetics of the relationships between things, and to the artist’s adolescence. At 16, Pastore started working in a woodwork shop that developed furniture projects for interior design. “I followed the whole execution process, from the design right through to the development of the product. This gave me an experience of how materials behave, and of the resources that I could draw from them”, she says.

The distribution of the pieces within the space was developed by the artist and by curator Ana Maria Belluzzo as a way of dispensing with a chronological order. “The intention of the show is to highlight the way in which the artist handles the body of the work, which is found in a state of independence in the middle of its environment, so that the point of balance and support of each piece within the space becomes in itself an instigator”, reflects Belluzzo.

This balance between material and space is often at the point of maximum tension. In Risco (2013), for example, every tube has graphite at its upper point, whilst its lower end is a dry point, like that of a compass, guaranteeing a certain friction with the floor. “Some tubes are almost laying down. It’s very impressive that they stay still. I bring the works to this limit: it is until here that it can stay still, it is here that it will stay. I don’t leave a margin of security, this imminence of movement, or of danger, leaves everything in suspense”, concludes the artist.  

ABOUT MARCIA PASTORE

Marcia Pastore was born in São Paulo in 1964, where she now lives and works. She has exhibited twice at both the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro (1993 and 2010) and at the Centro Cultural Maria Antônia (2002 and 2010); and once at the Museu de Saúde Pública Emílio Ribas (2010), at the Centro Cultural São Paulo (2000), at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP (1990), at the Caixa Cultural, Fortaleza (2012), at Funarte de São Paulo (2012), at the Biblioteca Mario de Andrade (2015) and at MuBE (2017). She was part of major group shows at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP (1992), the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (1990) and the Palácio das Artes, in Belo Horizonte (1990). In 1998 and in 2000, she participated in Arco – International Contemporary Art Fair in Madrid and, in 2004, at the opening of Vestfossen Kunst Laboratorium (Oslo, Norway). Her works are included in collections including at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the Pinacoteca Municipal de São Paulo, the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da USP, the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo and the Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, in Ribeirão Preto.