raul mourão moto,

Galeria Nara Roesler will inaugurate MOTO, an exhibition of new works by Raul Mourão, on February 15 (Saturday). The exhibition includes kinetic sculptures, paintings, drawings, photographs, videos and an installation in honor of popular artist Selarón, who died in 2013. Mourão dedicates the exhibition to designer André Stolarksi (1970-2013).

MOTO, the second solo exhibition by Raul Mourão at Galeria Nara Roesler, presents a broad outlook on the artist’s career. There are kinetic sculptures made out of galvanized steel pipes and jubilee clips, an installation made up of two kinetic sculptures and small lamps, six videos from the series DOC.DOT.MOV made in New York, where the artist currently lives, as well as photographs and paintings from the series #SETADERUA and sculptures and photographs from the series#AGRADEEOAR. 

The artist comments: “diversity of media and themes is the result of a direct dialogue with the book MOTO, on which I have been working since July last year. The book is a visual essay which mixes the documenting of developed works, projects in progress, mock-ups, small drawings and an inlay in honor of artist Selarón. Starting in September I decided to transpose part of the book to the exhibition by the same name. Differently from my last exhibitions, at MAM, at Praça Tiradentes (both in Rio) and at Galeria Nara Roesler itself, in which I essentially presented kinetic sculptures, MOTO presents a heterogeneous set of works revealing a diversity that has been a prominent characteristic of my production since the beginning, but which, in recent years, had been obscured.”

The exhibition also includes an installation in honor of popular artist Selarón, entitled Suicidaram Selarón [They suicided Selarón]. 

“Selarón was found carbonized in January 2013, at the Staircase that bore his name and was on the same street in which he had his studio, in Lapa, for over 10 years. In this period of coexistence we met several times and I made hundreds of pictures of the staircase, of him working and of his visitors. Selarón tiled the staircase on which he lived and worked with his own hands, without any assistance from the Rouanet law (for cultural incentives), without collectors, without producers, without public or private sponsorship. He built a work that was known worldwide solely with the collaboration of his audience. Over the years, hundreds of people sent him tiles. A collaborative, interactive work and in a permanent process. He created, in one single shot, a massive public work of art, an urban landmark and a tourist spot. On tiling his street, he wished that this gesture would reverberate throughout the region, generating other improvements. Unfortunately that never happened. Lapa continues abandoned by public power and in the hands of criminals”, writes the artist in book MOTO, to be released in the second half. 

In the text that presents the exhibition, author and essay writer Francisco Bosco states: “the tension — between work and form, concrete and abstract signifier and signified, heteronym and autonym — which is the engine of the work of Raul Mourão is replaced in a set that illuminates the general sense of his trajectory, consolidating him, deepening him and granting him new inflections.”

about the book
Book MOTO, to be released by Automatica edições in the second half of 2014, is a broad visual essay on the trajectory of the artist and includes new texts by Agnaldo Farias, Frederico Coelho, Felipe Scovino, Maria do Carmo Pontes, Eucanaã Ferraz and the participation of guest artists like Joshua Callaghan, Daniel Perlin, BNegão, Gustavo Prado and photographer, radio host and DJ Mauricio Valladares. The book also includes an inlay in honor of popular artist Selarón, the author of the staircase that goes by his name in Lapa, Rio de Janeiro, who was found dead on the staircase on the 11th of January, 2013. In the inlay, journalist Karla Monteiro writes about Selarón, his work, his mysterious death and the unfolding of the police investigation. A version of the book will be available online on the artist’s blog during the exhibition.

about the artist
Raul Mourão was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1967. He studied at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage and currently lives and works between New York and Rio. He has presented his work in solo and group exhibitions since 1991. His works, constructed from varied material, develop a plastic vocabulary with elements viewed in urban settings but displaced from their usual context. Among them are references to sports, architecture, bars and the signs around public works.

In 2010 he began his series of kinetic sculptures that were shown in the following solo exhibitions: Tração Animal, at the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro (2012); Processo, at Studio X, Rio de Janeiro (2012);Toque Devagar, at Praça Tiradentes, Rio de Janeiro (2012); Balanço Geral, at Atelier Subterrânea, Porto Alegre (2010) and Cuidado Quente, at Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo (2010). He also participated in group exhibitions Projetos (in) Provados, at Caixa Cultural, Rio de Janeiro (2010); Ponto de Equilíbrio, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2010); Mostra Paralela 2010, at Liceu de Artes e Ofícios, São Paulo (2010); Travessias, at Centro de Arte Bela Maré, Rio de Janeiro (2011); and From the Margin to the Edge, Sommerset House, London (2012). He recently participated in the 7th São Tomé and Príncipe Biennale and in O Abrigo e o Terreno, one of the inaugural exhibitions of the Museu de Arte do Rio (2013).

As a curator and producer, he organized solo exhibitions by several Brazilian artists and group exhibitions Travessias 2 (Galpão Bela Maré, Rio de Janeiro, 2013), Love’s House (Hotel Love’s House, Rio de Janeiro, 2002) and Outra Coisa (Museu da Vale, Vila Velha, 2001).

He edited art magazines O Carioca and Item. He was also the overall coordinator for the multimedia show FreeZone, which brought together artists from several fields curated by poet Chacal, in Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Porto Alegre and São Paulo. Alongside Eduardo Coimbra, Luiza Mello and Ricardo Basbaum, he created and ran gallery and production company AGORA, which operated in Lapa, Rio de Janeiro, from 2000 to 2002.

In 2005, he released the book ARTEBRA, through publishing house Casa da Palavra, and in 2011 he released the book MOV, through Automatica Edições.