CONDO PROJECT: LISETTA CARMI AND AMALIA PICA

Condo Project

Condo is a collaborative project between art galleries which establishes an international exchange program with galleries from several countries. The project has taken place annually in London and New York since 2016. At each edition, art spaces from the same city invite international artists and galleries to occupy their rooms. In the 2019 São Paulo edition, Galeria Marilia Razuk welcomes two important artists: Lisetta Carmi, from Galerie Antoine Levi, in Paris, and AmaliaPica, from Instituto de Vision, in Bogotá. 

About the ARTISTS

Lisetta Carmi (born in Genoa, Italy, in 1924. Currently lives in Cistenino, Italy)

Exhibiting her work for the first time in Brazil, photographer Lisetta Carmi is a crucial artist on the Italian scene and an international photographer. In this exhibition, six photos will be shown from her most notable series “I travestiti”, from the 1960s, where she portrayed everyday scenes from transvestites and transsexuals in Italy.

Carmi was the first artist to document anItalian LGBTQ community. She narrated and humanized marginalized groups in the middle of the twentieth century in her home town and its surroundings, deliberately ignoring social-political taboos. These days, as the contemporary cultural conversation on gender identity is becoming more and more complex, this specific series has an even more significant impact. The raw honesty of her perspective has been compared to the spirit of photographers such as Nan Goldin.

Born in 1924 in Genoa in a Jewish family; at the age of 95, she is still vibrant and sharp. Before becoming a photographer, she used to be a highly successful pianist; later, Carmi became a disciple of the guru Babaji Mahavatar Himalaya, who she met in Jaipur, and who inspired her to found an ashram in Puglia. Even though her photographic work had gone unnoticed for several decades, she went through a late rebirth: Lisetta Carmi was the theme of a 2010 movie, shown at the 67th VeniceInternational Film Festival, Lisette Carmi, un anima in cammino, and her photos were shown in several exhibitions throughout the world.

Amalia Pica (Born in Neuquén, Argentina, in 1978. She lives and works in London, England) 

The Argentinean artist, rooted in London,explores the metaphor, the communication and civic participation through sculptures, installations, photos, projections, sketches and performances. For the exhibition in São Paulo, a sketch from the series “Al papeleo, alegria” will be shown, as well as found objects “Catachresis”, and the installation “Mobilize”,produced in a partnership with artist Otto Berchem, comprising paper sheets, molded in acrylic, suspended from the ceiling as stagnant structures. The title comes from a variant of the verb “to mobilize”, a term which evokes dynamic resistance. The falling paper sheets indicate the idea of the sheer weight of bureaucracy, how life can be decided or defined by a mere piece of paper.

Amalia has already shown her solo work in several museums such as the Cc Foundation, Shanghai (2019), Tate Modern, London, (2016) in the Tamayo Museum, in Mexico City (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, (2013), among others. She has also taken part in important group exhibitions in museums such as the Guggenheim, in Nova York, the Berardo Museum, in Lisbon, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and NC Arte, in Bogotá,