GERMANA MONTE-MÓR: DA CABRA

Starting on February 20th, the Marilia Razuk gallery will present an unprecedented collection of works by Germana Monte-Mór, the artist born in Rio de Janeiro and currently living in São Paulo, titled "Da cabra" ["Of the goat"]. Curated by Tiago Mesquita, the exhibition occupies both the gallery's halls, where previously unseen examples of Monte-Mór's recent production will be shown.

The larger area contains a set of seven large works, made with asphalt on canvas, comprising five 150 x 150 cm panels and two measuring 150 x 200 cm. The other space presents six, smaller (70 x 56 cm) works in paraffin and asphalt on paper, as well as a further six pieces in lead and asphalt on canvas. The exhibition will also feature a pair of three-dimensional "bench" objects sculpted by Monte-Mór in wood and paraffin.

The collection of drawings and sculptures chosen for this exhibition is an extension of the line of research developed by the artist. For her, the materials used in the execution of a piece are chosen not only for the expression of drawings or objects, but to be a part of the actual conception the work itself.

The exhibition's title - "Da cabra" ["Of the goat"] -, refers to verses by João Cabral de Melo Neto, which dialogue with the drawings proposed by Monte-Mór.

The blackness is the hardness found deep down

in the goat. Of its nature.

Like at the bottom of the earth there is rock,

at the bottom of the rock, metal/

The blackness is the hardness found deep down

in the dewless nature

of the goat, this animal

without leaves, just roots and stem,

of the goat, this animal

of the soul-kernel, of the corneal soul,

with no gizzards, moist, lips,

bread with no crumb, just crust.

The exhibition will be open to the public between February 20th and March 16th, 2013.

Germana Monte-Mór (Rio de Janeiro, 1958). Artist who works in the mediums of drawing, engraving, painting, sculpting and photography. She studied social science at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and engraving at the Escolinha de Arte do Brasil. In 1983, she moved to São Paulo, beginning a degree in plastic arts at the Armando Álvares Penteado Foundation (FAAP) two years later and graduating in 1989. In 2002, she concluded her Master's in visual poetics at São Paulo University's School of Communications and Arts (ECA-USP), for which her dissertation was Lugares do Desenho [The Place of Drawing], and her tutor was Marco Giannotti (1966). In 1989, she received the Ateliê II grant from the São Paulo Oficina Cultural Oswald de Andrade and the 1st Canson Award acquisition prize from the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art, and again at the National Biennial of Santos, in 1993. In 2004, she received the Vitae Arts Grant from the Vitae Foundation. Research into new materials is one of the main characteristics of the artist's work.

Monte-Mór's works have been shown to a variety of audiences, being exhibited at the 5th Mercosur Biennial (Porto Alegre, 2005); São Paulo State Pinacoteca (São Paulo, 2005); The Friends of Engraving Project (Rio de Janeiro, 2004/05); Paço Imperial (Rio de Janeiro, 2005); Maria Antonia University Center (São Paulo, 2002); Capela do Morumbi (São Paulo, 2000); São Paulo Cultural Center (São Paulo, 1995); and Itaú Galeria (São Paulo, 1994) - the last two as an invited artist.