Grada Kilomba: O Barco / Paulo Nazareth: Esconjuro

Starting April 13, 2024, Instituto Inhotim, the largest open-air museum and botanical garden in Latin America, is hosting two solo exhibitions and a group exhibition. Grada Kilomba presents for the first time in Brazil her acclaimed work O Barco [The Boat], 2021, while Paulo Nazareth brings us into contact with Esconjuro [Conjuration], 2024, a monographic exhibition with new works, and reinterpretations of his pieces. The group exhibition Ensaios sobre paisagem [Essays on Landscape], features works by Aislan Pankararu, Ana Cláudia Almeida, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro and Zé Carlos Garcia. Júlia Rebouças, Inhotim’s Artistic Director, together with the curators Beatriz Lemos, Douglas de Freitas, Marilia Loureiro, Deri Andrade and Lucas Menezes, is responsible for the new exhibitions. 

O Barco (2021), presented for the first time in Brazil, is a sculptural, performatic and poetic work by Grada Kilomba comprising 134 blocks of burned wood spread over an area of more than 220 square meters, extending 32 meters in length. The piece painstakingly outlines the silhouette of the bottom of a large ship, revealing the archaeology of the space created at the bottom of boats to accommodate the bodies of millions of enslaved African people. Resting on 18 blocks of wood ritually burned over the fire, there lies engraved in gold a poem written by Kilomba and translated into Yoruba, Kimbundu, Cape Verdean Creole, Portuguese, English and Syrian Arabic. At Inhotim, the work occupies the space of Galeria Galpão. The sculptural installation is also accompanied by a performance directed by Grada Kilomba which unfolds at Inhotim in three acts, over the period it will be exhibited at the museum. The first act features an ensemble of Lisbon-based singers, dancers and percussionists who come to Brazil to perform from 12 to 14 of April. For the following acts, Kilomba will restage the performance with a group formed by local artists from Brumadinho and the area, who will continue with the work.  

Stemming from the relations between history, territory and movement from one place to another, Paulo Nazareth brings to Inhotim the solo exhibition Esconjuro (2024), in which time-space is expanded and combined in four seasons: autumn and spring in 2024, summer and winter in 2025, confirming the artist’s work as a living and dynamic presence over the course of 18 months at Instituto Inhotim. Starting at Galeria Praça and also occupying other spaces at Inhotim, the first configuration of Esconjuro is made up of works that point to different ways of relating to the earth, its cycles and the transformations they bring about in the environment. But they also point to the historically known practices of exploitation and dispute in the territory. Over the course of its months, the exhibition will be modified through actions called reforms. Each of these reforms will be based on the exchange of works in the gallery, as well as the inclusion of works in the outside areas of Inhotim.  

The relationship between art and nature is at the heart of Inhotim’s creation, a place of unique characteristics inserted in the landscape of Minas Gerais, often the subject of works that delve into this language as a classic category of Brazilian art history. Ensaios sobre paisagem features artists who amplify discussions about nature in their various artistic practices. Aislan Pankararu, Ana Cláudia Almeida, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro and Zé Carlos Garcia look into these statements in different ways and materialities. Engaged in a global agenda that has increasingly focused on discussions, research and the effects of climate change that appear irreversible, art resignifies the landscape through works that deal with these issues in an expansive way.  

Media contact 
Amanda Viana, T +55 (31) 99764-6440 / amanda.viana [​at​] inhotim.org.br