RIO: THE MEASURE OF LAND

There are different ways to approach a city through art. One of them involves the iconography of its landscapes—whether natural or urban—created across different epochs. Another entails revisiting chapters of local art history and capturing, through them, something unique about the city. A third path seeks to write a sort of poetic chronicle of the different aspects of the social fabric within the studied territory.

In the exhibition Rio: The Measure of Land, which marks the inauguration of FLEXA, we delve into Rio de Janeiro, guided by the diverse approaches mentioned earlier. The group show brings together forty-six artists spanning from the early 19th century to the present. It presents both historical and contemporary cityscapes, as well as works representative of neo-concretism – a pivotal moment in Rio de Janeiro’s art history – alongside later works, and a selection of pieces addressing political and social issues, such as urban violence and cultural resistance, manifested through parties and carnival.

A common thread running throughout the exhibition is the juxtaposition of works created in different periods, creating friction between the past and the present. This curatorial approach suggests various paths, one of which reflects Flexa’s mission to foster meaningful dialogues within art history by curating a collection spanning a wide timescale.

The diverse range of artists featured here does justice to a Rio de Janeiro characterized by multiple facets that do not coalesce into a uniform image. Hence, multiple viewpoints and contexts are essential to delineate a comprehensive perspective on the city, resonating with its inherently diverse and unequal history. Lastly, the decision to arrange works non-chronologically, by bringing together pieces from distant dates, evokes Walter Benjamin’s (1892-1940) concept of the temporality of artworks. According to Benjamin, artworks possess an intensive rather than extensive temporality, implying that a contemporary artwork may have closer ties to a piece from a century ago than to its contemporaries.

— Luisa Duarte, Lucas Alberto