Nara Roesler presents the group exhibition Fascination and Affection, curated by Agnaldo Farias. The show brings together historical and new works by Abraham Palatnik, Amelia Toledo, Artur Lescher, Brígida Baltar, Julio Le Parc, Tomie Ohtake, Rodolpho Parigi, Vik Muniz, and José Cláudio da Silva — artists with whom Nara built lasting friendships, fostering continuous dialogue and supporting the development of their careers within both the Brazilian and international art scenes.
The second exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of Nara’s career as a gallerist, the show takes as its starting point the relationships of friendship and coexistence she cultivated over decades of involvement in the art world.
The project also marks another chapter in the longstanding dialogue between Nara Roesler and Agnaldo Farias, who, in addition to curating biennials and major institutional exhibitions in Brazil and abroad, has been a close friend of the gallerist for nearly 30 years and has curated more than sixteen exhibitions at the gallery.
In his curatorial text, Agnaldo Farias recalls Nara’s upbringing in Recife, in a home shaped by gatherings of musicians, artists, architects, writers, and intellectuals. “It was precisely from this atmosphere that her enduring fascination with the extraordinary universe of culture emerged,” he writes, linking the gallerist’s trajectory to an idea of constant dialogue with artists that extends beyond professional relationships.
Among the highlights of the exhibition is Vik Muniz’s series of puzzles, in which the artist subverts the object’s traditional logic by dissociating the image from the interlocking structure of its pieces. “A puzzle piece is, at the same time, image and object,” Muniz says of the works. The exhibition also includes a 2011 installation by Brígida Baltar, shown for the first time in São Paulo this decade, composed of a harp and bronze wings suspended in space, creating a tension between elevation and fall, the angelic and the mundane.
From the kinetic and luminous experiments of Julio Le Parc and Abraham Palatnik to the organic structures of Amelia Toledo and Tomie Ohtake, passing through the formal investigations of Artur Lescher and Rodolpho Parigi, the group exhibition brings together different generations and artistic languages around bonds of closeness and mutual accompaniment. At the entrance to the exhibition, a portrait of Nara painted by José Cláudio da Silva, a decisive figure in her introduction to the art world, welcomes visitors.