Artist Hilal Sami Hilal and Atlas book, handmade paper and pigments, 78.7″ x 118.1″ x 2″ (open), Casa França-Brasil, 2024/Photo: Pat Kilgore
Don’t miss out on “Lugar de Passagem” (Place of Passage), a major exhibition with a bilingual catalog by seventy-one-year-old Hilal Sami Hilal. The show places fifty of his fascinating, thought-provoking works from the past ten years in the colonial-neoclassical architectural jewel, Casa França-Brasil, in Rio de Janeiro’s old city center.
Alluding to his Middle-Eastern heritage are some powerful and enchanting works: the acclaimed installation “Sheherazade” (2007), a large maze of book-bound reams of paper that brings to mind the never-ending tale; “Aleppo,” a 2024 monotype series on hand-crafted cotton paper of common objects—a tee-shirt, a door, a spoon, a comb, a pair of toddler shoes—from the war rubble of Syria’s once most important city; “Seu Sami” (2007), an homage to his Syrian immigrant father, a book with letters, words and signs filigreed in copper pages, one of his preferred materials, also found in the delicate grid-like walls and roof of “Casa” (Home), created in 2020, a minute, plain, universal house structured in eroded copper sheets over a symbolic pile of dust of eroded copper, displayed in the vault of Casa França-Brasil. Contrasting in scale but not in mood, you’ll find the Gulliverian four-meter (thirteen-foot) long “Barquinho” (Little Boat) and two-meter (six-and-half-foot) long “Aviãozinho” (Little Airplane). Produced in hand-crafted paper, they are large joyful origami pieces like the ones most of the world’s children make to play with and to dream of going places.
Hilal Sami Hilal, “Monotipia (Monotype),” “Aleppo” series, 2024, hand-made cotton paper and pigments, 82.7″ x 27.6″/Photo: Pat Kilgore
In 2015 we published a comprehensive interview with the artist, who lives and works in his beach-lined native hometown of Vitoria, the capital city of the state of Espírito Santo (literally Holy Ghost), on the occasion of “Ya’ayouni: Light of my Eyes,” an Arab expression of love in the title of this solo exhibition showcased in São Paulo’s Marilia Razuk Gallery. Hilal’s current exhibition is curated by Rio-born Marcus de Lontra Costa, also curator of the groundbreaking 1984 collective show, “Como Vai Você, Geração 80?” (How Are You, Generation 80?).
Marcus, to better understand the work of Hilal Sami Hilal, tell us about his artistic journey.
Hilal is a multi-disciplinary artist with a well-founded practice that propels his creative freedom. His trajectory is based on in-depth research on supports and materials, along with experiments in artisanal practices. He has a strong attachment to paper and its artisanal production. By combining paper with metal elements, through processes of corrosion and oxidation, essential in metal engraving, he achieves a highly poetic dimension in his work. He has a fascination for books and lettering as symbols that dialogue with literature, and Arab and Iberian traditions. Space and architecture also interest him. All this guides his career in a powerful way.
Hilal Sami Hilal, “Sherazade” (Scheherazade), reams of paper 37.8″ x 12.6″ each, and bookbinding, 106 units, 2007, Casa França-Brasil, 2024/Photo: Pat Kilgore
Based on what you said, what are his most significant works on show?
One of the main highlights is the 3.8-meter-high-by-fifteen-meter-long (12.5-foot-high by forty-nine-foot-long) installation “Artigo 3º” (Article 3). Created especially for the main free span space under the dome of Casa França-Brasil, it is an intricate jewel-like composition of thin copper foils with finely incised names and letters made from acid corrosion using traditional print metal techniques. The work relates to Article Three of the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, which guarantees equal rights to all Brazilian citizens. Another significant work is the “Sherazade” (Scheherazade) installation, an ocean of books or a rhizome of communication, referencing the artist’s appropriation of memories and fables of his ancestors from Syria. Another work that recalls his family’s origin and the tragedy of the Syrian civil war is “Aleppo,” a series of monotype prints on artisanal cotton paper with fragments, common objects and gold-covered debris.
Hilal Sami Hilal, detail of “Artigo 3º” (Article 3), 2024, metal structure, copper and oxidation, 16.4′ x 65.6′/Photo: Pat Kilgore
Hilal has quite a unique oeuvre, where do you insert his narrative in Brazilian art?
Hilal’s work has a contemporary narrative built on the ruins of modernity. He appropriates traditional techniques and artisanal processes in his theoretical reflections. Hilal’s production dialogues with Mira Schendel, Amelia Toledo, Cildo Meireles and Tunga, the celebrated motley crew of Brazilian art, as well as Icelandic Olafur Eliasson.
“Hilal Sami Hilal: Lugar de Passagem” (Place of Passage)
Through October 20, 2024
Casa França-Brasil
Rua Visconde de Itaboraí, 78, Centro, Rio de Janeiro
Instagram: @casafrancabrasiloficial
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.
Contact: cynthiagarciabr@gmail.com, www.cynthiagarcia.biz
