23 Nov 2010

Jose Rufino: AENIGMA at Galeria Millan, Sao Paulo

AENIGMA – JOSÉ RUFINO
AT GALERIA MILLAN

Opening: November 18, at 8pm – until Dezembre 18 2010

In the year in which José Rufino won the 6th Prêmio Bravo! de Cultura 2010 for Best Exhibition (Faustus, at Palácio da Aclamação, Salvador, BA), his exhibit AENIGMA marks the start of the artist in the Galeria Millan team. The exhibit brings new works that highlight the artist's conversation between literature and the visual arts. The works provide the viewer with different experiences, embedded in the mystery of the artist's creative process. The new series follows the first novel written by Rufino, Desviver, with the support of Bolsa FUNARTE de Criação Literária.

In the words of the artist, 'The works have escaped from the writing process. I allowed them to free themselves from narrative, building strength from words, as if they bloomed from an underlying layer of text, tearing the paper with the sharp threads of their cutlasses, permitting that the black blood of the letters drained'. According to Rufino the text remains full of invisible wounds and the works contain pieces of occulted text.

AENIGMA gathers unseen works: objects, sculptures and six display tables. The six small narratives, created inside the display tables by using miniatures of tables, tripods, chairs, bins, boxes and tools, result in enigmatic and anachronistic scenes. Such scenes, protected by glass, can be seen from all sides and from above. 'I consider them six small rebel tales from a bigger narrative, from a story with no beginning or end. They are also small stages where miniaturized drama has just happened or are still waiting for the moment to start happening', explains Rufino. Each one of theses scenes has been projected in a small scale with great detail and each object has been delicately cut, glued, sanded, dyed and mounted. 'At a certain time, if they were not real tools from my workshop, I would have believed I was a giant', comments Rufino.

The works from AENIGMA, as is the text of Desviver, are completely contaminated by an early taste for machinery and workshops from the artist's childhood in Engenho Vaca-Brava, in the countryside of the state of Paraíba. 'AENIGMA has a bit of my grandfather's office, from the locksmiths, from the carpentry, from the tasks of working with animals, the work in the grass fields, with reed and the boy's inventions, always imitating the work of men.'