Installation view of exhibition “Calder+Miró,” 2024, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake/Photo: Julia Thompson
It is possible to notice the enthusiasm in the voice of curator Max Perlingeiro from miles away. “This is a true must-see exhibition,” he reflects. “The possibility of seeing these works together again is almost nonexistent.” Perlingeiro refers to this project he has been dedicated to in recent years: the exhibition “Calder+Miró,” currently on display (until September 15), at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo.
The curator’s argument is plausible. The exhibition—an expansion of its first show at Casa Roberto Marinho in 2022, in Rio de Janeiro—brings together a collection of 150 artworks from forty different lenders, most of them private collections. Some are from the most important private collections in Brazil, notably the one of Karin and Roberto Irineu Marinho, vice president of the managing board of Grupo Globo, the largest media outlet in the country.
Divided over two floors, “Calder+Miró” is a kind of artistic takeover. After all, almost the entire available exhibition space is dedicated to the show, filled with paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, installations, books, poems and even an open studio for the public—an educational project designed by the Tomie Ohtake Institute so that visitors can “invent their own creative processes and, at the same time, understand themselves as part of a constantly transforming collective.”
Installation view of exhibition “Calder+Miró,” 2024, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake/Photo: Julia Thompson
In one of the double rooms on the upper floor on one side, there are paintings of American artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976), ranging from figurative to abstract, always imbued with a good dose of humor and inventiveness; on the other side, the magnetism of the erratic, hypnotic and uniquely styled forms on the canvases of Catalan artist Joan Miró (1893-1983) demands attention. Outside, in the common hall, sculptures and installations by both artists, in various sizes and dimensions, provoke curiosity and even a good laugh.
Across the hall, still on the upper floor, there’s one of Perlingeiro’s most intriguing curatorial choices. Paulo Venâncio Filho, professor at the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, was invited to set the tone for the “Brazilian Affinities” section. In this room, the technical and poetic proximities of both Calder and Miró to Brazilian modern and contemporary art and architecture are emphasized by bringing together significant works by seventeen key Brazilian artists: Abraham Palatnik, Aluísio Carvão, Antonio Bandeira, Arthur Luiz Piza, Franz Weissmann, Hélio Oiticica, Ione Saldanha, Ivan Serpa, Luiz Sacilotto, Lygia Clark, Mary Vieira, Milton Dacosta, Mira Schendel, Oscar Niemeyer, Sérvulo Esmeraldo, Tomie Ohtake and Waldemar Cordeiro.
Alexander Calder, “Black Widow,” 1948/Photo: Cabrel | Escritório de Imagem
On the lower floor, there are three spots that stand out: the imposing bronze sculpture “Femme [femme debout]” (1969) by Miró; the room where the impressive “Black Widow” (Calder, 1948) hangs—a three-meters-high mobile composed of nineteen numbered metal pieces fitted in a gradation of sizes to ensure the balance of the structure; and finally, the room organized by writer Valéria Lamego entirely dedicated to Miró’s intimate relationship with poetry. In there, the close friendship between the artist and Brazilian poet João Cabral de Melo Neto is noteworthy, with the Catalan painter having illustrated Melo Neto’s essay “Joan Miró” (1950) with woodcuts.
“This is an art, therefore, which is not separate from life” is how Brazilian art critic Mario Pedrosa described Calder’s work back in 1944. Pedrosa also claimed that Miró was the vehicle for this art-life reconciliation, responsible for awakening in Calder “an art actively serving the imagination.”
Imagining, undoubtedly, is an urgent exercise that “Calder+Miró” compels us to put into practice.
“Calder+Miró” is on view at Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Rua Coropé, 88 – Pinheiros, São Paulo, through September 15.
Olavo Barros is an arts-oriented journalist, independent curator and master’s student in art criticism at the Universidad Nacional de las Artes in Buenos Aires. With twelve years of experience in writing, planning and implementing projects for companies and agencies, he has also contributed to the creative and communication teams at São Paulo Art Museum (MASP) and ArPa Art Fair. As a scholar, he researches the intersections of modernity and contemporaneity in Latin American cinema, literature and visual arts.
