Rosângela Rennó
Nuptias 

November 23–December 23, 2017and 
January 8–January 12, 2018

Vermelho
Rua Minas Gerais, 350 
01244010, São Paulo, SP
Brazil
Hours: Monday–Friday 10am–7pm, 
Saturday 11am–5pm

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In Nuptias, Rosângela Rennó celebrates the 25th anniversary of the project Arquivo Universal [Universal Archive] and the 20th anniversary of the series “Cerimônia do Adeus” [Farewell Ceremony] with commentaries about alliances, valuation and gender, based on four new series of artworks and on the exhibition of the complete set of the first digital printing of “Cerimônia do Adeus,” 1997–2003.

The series that lends its title to Rosângela Rennó’s exhibition consists of 86 photo-paintings made by Rennó based on wedding photographs. Besides referring to the plurality of affective unions without regard to belief, race, sexual orientation or any other convention, the artist revisits various icons of the culture of visuality, in both the Occident and the Orient. 

A list of 100 words is what can be seen and read at the installation that Rosângela Rennó presents on the gallery’s façade. On a silver background, the 100 wedding anniversaries and their respective materials are listed in an exercise of cataloguing that represents the temporal line spanning from year one to the centennial. Highlighted in the list are the anniversaries for the 1st, 20th and 25th years, pointing to the celebrations that orient the exhibition within the gallery.
 
Begun in 1992, the project Arquivo Universal, by Rosângela Rennó, is an archive of journalistic texts containing short reports or excerpts from personal stories made public through newspapers, always involving the presence or existence of a photographic image and dealing with amorous, political, criminal or everyday questions.

The series “Bodas de prata, do Arquivo Universal” [Silver Anniversary, from the Universal Archive], 1992–2017, consists of a set of six texts written on silver commemorative plates; all the texts concern situations involving love, marriage and photographic depiction. One of the texts of the “Bodas de prata” series is precisely the first text of the Arquivo Universal project and describes the curious case of a divorced female farmer who sued her husband to recover half of her wedding photograph—precisely the part where she was depicted.

The series “Bodas de porcelana,” 2017, consists of a series of 20 porcelain objects, made in the style of decorative plates that are shown on the wall and celebrate the 20 years of the “Cerimônia do Adeus” series. Pairs of superimposed plates evidence their different provenances, formats, cultures and ages. On the side facing the spectator, Rennó engraved the title of the original work and a small icon of an automobile from the 1950s.

Cerimônia do adeus was made by Rennó on the occasion of the VI Bienal de Havana, Cuba. When the artist had visited the city to participate in the previous edition of the event, a local photographer had given Rennó a large quantity of negatives of wedding portraits that show a tradition shared by Cubans and Brazilians: the portrait of the bride and groom, in the car, at the end of the ceremony. About this recurring image, Rennó states: “that last photo symbolizes, in some way, the end of the rite of passage and it occurs in almost all the documentation of marriages in Brazil and in Cuba, especially after World War II. At least in our respective countries, cars always represent new and prosperous lives, related to the “American way of life.” What interested me, however, was something that was much larger than the framed scene: no one could escape from the island using a car. The connection between the symbolism of bidding farewell to the old and a consequent acceptance of the new seems to be broken. Moreover, these specific cars—American models from the 1950s, reminiscent of the pre-revolution era—signified everything that the Cuban political system wanted to negate or combat. Even so, they remained as strong symbols of a change of life.”

Exhibition
Rooms 1, 2 and Façade

Film
Rosângela Rennó: Círculo Mágico [Magic Circle] (Sala Antonio screening room), 27 minutes
Rating: suitable for all ages Seating capacity: 35