Antony Gormley’s “Event Horizon” statue in São Paulo, 2012
London’s White Cube gallery will shut its 4,500-square-foot São Paulo branch after just three years of memorable exhibits by a host of its top artists who landed solo shows for the first time in Brazil, among them among them Damien Hirst, Andreas Gursky, Tracey Emin, Georg Baselitz, Julie Mehretu and Theaster Gates. The gallery’s communication department granted an interview only to the Portuguese-language Brazilian newspaper Estado de S. Paulo, where it denied that the country’s current economic crisis had any relation to the closing, and stated that White Cube intends to maintain commercial links with the country as well as develop “special projects” through its local director, Peter Brandt, yet Brazilian director Karla Meneghel has left the business.
One of the most memorable exhibitions staged by White Cube in São Paulo was Antony Gormley’s “Facts and Systems” in 2012. At the same time the British sculptor exhibited a special project with thirty-one naked life-size anatomically correct iron casts of the artist’s own body installed on top of São Paulo buildings and at busy crossroads amidst passersby. White Cube continues to represent three Brazilian artists, Beatriz Milhazes, Jac Leirner and newcomer abstract painter Christian Rosa, whose exhibit remains on view at the São Paulo location until August 22. The gallery maintains an additional international outpost in Hong Kong, opened in 2012.
Rio-born Cynthia Garcia is a respected art historian, art critic and journalist fluent in five languages stationed in São Paulo. Cynthia is a recipient of the 2023 APCA (Paulista Association of Art Critics) award as a contributing editor of Newcity Brazil since its founding in 2015. Her daughter America Cavaliere works in the contemporary art market and her son Pedro Cavaliere, based in LA, is in the international DJ scene.
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