Bené Fonteles (Bragança PA 1953)
Visual artist, journalist, editor, writer, poet and composer.
José Benedito Fonteles begins his career in 1971, exhibiting at the 3rd Salão Nacional de Artes Plásticas do Ceará. In Fortaleza, he works as a journalist. During the 1970s and 1980s, he takes part every year in numerous group exhibitions in Brazil and abroad linked to mail art and to research into new means of expression. In this period, he participates in four editions of the São Paulo International Biennial (1973, 1975, 1977 and 1981). From 1974, he also holds several solo exhibitions in Brazil and abroad.
From 1983 to 1986, he directs the Museu de Arte e de Cultura Popular (MACP) of the Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso (UFMT). In the 1980s, he becomes involved in projects and movements devoted to environmental preservation, seeking to unite them with artistic creation. In 1991, he moves to Brasília, where he continues his work as an environmental activist and organizer of art events. In 1997, he organizes the installation of the special room devoted to the Bahian artist Rubem Valentim at the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia (MAM/BA). Among the books he publishes are O Livro do Ser [The Book of Being] (1994) and O Artista da Luz [The Artist of Light] (2001), on Rubem Valentim. His work as a composer is collected on the CD Benditos, released in 2003, which brings together three earlier albums, Bendito (1983), Silencioso (1989) and Aê (1991). In 2003, he receives the Order of Cultural Merit from the Presidency of the Republic.
Critical Commentary
Bené Fonteles's text for the catalogue of his exhibition Palavras e Obras [Words and Works] opens with the sentence: "I like this doubt of moving between what is art and what is craft"1. It says a great deal about the artist's visual work, based above all on transforming simple and often fragile materials, natural or barely worked by human hands, such as stones, pieces of tree trunks, ropes, rough fabrics and wire. Besides this kind of support, Fonteles works with appropriated objects, always aiming to transfigure them by evoking their poetic potential, whether by intervening in them or by combining them in installations. It should be noted that most of the materials chosen by the artist are bound up with the Brazilian land, a choice that stems from his political stance as an environmental activist.
Fonteles seeks to put people back in touch with the poetic energy contained in nature, stimulating the viewer's imagination so as to escape the conventional concepts and uses associated with the objects he employs. As the artist himself acknowledges, this stance draws on more than one generation of 20th-century artists who sought inspiration in the relationship between humankind, nature and the universe.
Note
1 FONTELES, Bené. Palavras e obras (1998 a 2004). São Paulo: Pinacoteca do Estado, 2004.
Critiques
"For his photocopy works, Bené draws above all on photojournalism, since his subject matter remains based on external visual information (as in the case of the strikes, Lula, the series on Lennon and Yoko Ono, etc.). At the same time, he keeps his craftsmanship in the cutting of the images, in their composition and arrangement, in their juxtaposition and overlapping - that is, the appropriated photo is manipulated by hand and then submitted to the machine, which gives it a graphic dignity absent from simple collage. What is more, once the image has been photocopied, with the distortions and effects that Bené already explores and knows how to obtain, he returns once again to handwork, crumpling the xerographically printed paper or cutting out the photocopied images before reinserting them into an alternative composition, which in turn is submitted to the photocopier as a 'matrix' for an image he can regard as final - in an edition that may be repeated countless times.
The result, in some works, such as the series of Lula speaking with his finger raised, is without doubt the best use of the photocopier we have seen among us."
Aracy Amaral
AMARAL, Aracy. Arte e meio artístico: entre a feijoada e o x-burguer: 1961 - 1981. Apresentação Ana Maria de Moraes Belluzzo. São Paulo: Nobel, 1983. 423 p.
"Bené Fonteles has been building a body of work that always has nature as its fulcrum and core. Few Brazilian artists follow the Indigenous way of feeling as Fonteles does. For Indigenous peoples there is no difference between 'art' and life... Bené's art is ecological and entirely centered on signs of nature, that is, signifiers that change meaning as soon as they leave the forests and savannas where they truly exist in full...
Like Indigenous peoples, Bené makes art as an expression of joy, of the purity of living, of the beauty of being moved. With the Chapada dos Guimarães as his studio, and using local materials with the clear intention of showing homo urbanus the delights of natural living, Bené makes us Indigenous, purifies us and creates an unusual body of work... Art without artificiality, whether with urban technology or with the technology of the jungle."
Alberto Beuttenmüller, 1986
BEUTTENMÜLLER, Alberto. [Texto crítico]. In: FONTELES, Bené. Antes arte do que tarde: Bené Fonteles. Fortaleza: Museu de Arte da Universidade Federal do Ceará, 1990. [p. 4].
Testimonials
"It is just a matter of putting technology to the artist's use: a photocopier, scissors, Letraset, glue, pencil, ruler, Ecoline, offset printing on paper/color - using it to reinvent the landscapes and events it has destroyed, to denounce suspicious atmospheres. Art is an exercise of lucidity in the face of the reality of oppressed people anywhere on the planet. May the single principle of art be created through amorality: a democracy of multiple creative conceptions; may it spring from each being in art: an alternative - lulled to sleep by the numbness of routine; may each spirit give birth to its ancestral desires...
Art as experiment, a vehicle-medium of artistic production with no intention of immediate consumption, but of activism of ideas, to propose and decipher contemporary enigmas; it thus assumes a true function within the historical process: not to see man within a showcase process, but to be with him inside the showcase and then awaken in him, silence and noise, his consciousness to break the glass separating life from art, and from that reaction we would lose the language of fear and return to the true sensitive function - biological, philosophical, political perception - of balance with the environment in which we were reproduced, within the nature-mind structure - the normal evolution from which we were led astray.
Urban experimental art is a witness to tragic times; and, using the means of expression of advanced technology - unrealistic advances in the face of hunger, I said 'the general hunger' that still threatens us - it was necessary to solve, through science x art, the spiritual and material problem of human evolution. Sowing a new consciousness in the minds of oppressed peoples, so that, through the very exercise of critical reflection on their condition, the instinct for liberation is born. Better art than late."
Bené Fonteles
FONTELES, Bené. Antes arte do que tarde: Bené Fonteles. Fortaleza: Museu de Arte da Universidade Federal do Ceará, 1990. [p. 14].
Collections
Acervo da Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo/Brasil - São Paulo SP
Fundação Nacional de Arte - Funarte - Rio de Janeiro RJ
Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Porto Alegre - MAC - Curitiba PR
Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo - MAC/USP - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro - MAM/RJ - Rio de Janeiro RJ
Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte da Universidade Federal do Ceará - Mauc - Fortaleza CE
Minimuseu Firmeza - Fortaleza CE
Museu Nacional de Belas Artes - MNBA - Rio de Janeiro RJ
Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris - Paris (França)
Museu da Universidade Federal do Pará - Museu da UFPA - Belém PA
Museu de Arte Contemporânea José Pancetti - MACC - Campinas SP
Museu de Arte e de Cultura Popular - Cuiabá MT
Museum of Modern Art - MoMA - Nova York (Estados Unidos)
Solo Exhibitions
1974 - Fortaleza CE - Solo, at Galeria da Casa de Cultura Raimundo Cela
1974 - Fortaleza CE - First solo exhibition, at Galeria Gauguin
1975 - Salvador BA - Solo, at Galeria do ICBA
1976 - Salvador BA - Solo, at Galeria do ICBA
1977 - Salvador BA - Solo, at Galeria do ICBA
1978 - Fortaleza CE - Investigações [Investigations], at Sala Interarte
1979 - Fortaleza CE - Resultado [Result], at Sala Interarte
1979 - São Paulo SP - Bené Fonteles: audiovisuais [Bené Fonteles: Audiovisuals], at MAC/USP
1980 - Belém PA - Bené Fonteles: xerografias e colagens [Bené Fonteles: Xerographs and Collages], at Galeria Um
1980 - Belém PA - Experimentos [Experiments], at Universidade Federal do Pará
1980 - Belém PA - Gravuras Experimentais [Experimental Prints], at Galeria Theodoro Braga
1980 - Curitiba PR - Bené Fonteles: audiovisuais [Bené Fonteles: Audiovisuals], at Museu Guido Viaro
1980 - Fortaleza CE - Exercícios Visuais [Visual Exercises], at Universidade Federal do Ceará
1980 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Bené Fonteles: xerografias [Bené Fonteles: Xerographs], at Galeria Gravura Brasileira
1980 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Em Extermínio [In Extermination], at Funarte. Galeria Rodrigo Mello Franco de Andrade
1980 - San Salvador (El Salvador) - Ejercicios Visuales [Visual Exercises], at Sala Nacional de Exposiciones
1980 - São Paulo SP - Bené Fonteles: audiovisuais [Bené Fonteles: Audiovisuals], at Pinacoteca do Estado
1981 - Cuiabá MT - Solo, at Galeria Laila Zahran
1981 - Porto Alegre RS - Yokos, at Espaço N.O.
1981 - São Paulo SP - Bené Fonteles: xerografias [Bené Fonteles: Xerographs], colagens e outdoors, at Galeria Suzanna Sassoun
1981 - São Paulo SP - O Cartaz e a Obra [The Poster and the Work], at Café Paris
1981 - São Paulo SP - Relações [Relations], at Gabinete Fotográfico da Pinacoteca do Estado
1982 - Cuiabá MT - Bené Fonteles: xerografias e colagens [Bené Fonteles: Xerographs and Collages], at Estação Rodoviária de Cuiabá
1982 - São Paulo SP - Terra [Earth], at Pinacoteca do Estado
1983 - São Paulo SP - A Natureza do Artista [The Nature of the Artist], at CCSP
1984 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Paço das Artes
1985 - Cuiabá MT - Mágicas [Magic], at Artegaleria
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at EAV/Parque Lage
1986 - São Paulo SP - Antes Arte do que Tarde [Better Art than Late], at Galeria Unidade Dois
1986 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Paço das Artes
1987 - Porto Alegre RS - Antes Arte do que Tarde [Better Art than Late], at Cambona Centro de Artes
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Antes Arte do que Tarde [Better Art than Late], at Montesanti Galleria
1988 - Brasília DF - Antes Arte do que Tarde [Better Art than Late], at Galeria Espaço Capital
1988 - São Paulo SP - Antes Arte do que Tarde [Better Art than Late], at Paulo Figueiredo Galeria de Arte
1990 - Fortaleza CE - Antes Arte do que Tarde [Better Art than Late], at Museu de Arte da Universidade Federal do Ceará
1990 - São Paulo SP - Antes Arte do que Tarde [Better Art than Late], at Masp
2001 - Brasília DF - Bené Fonteles: sudários, autorretratos e obras de 1996 a 2001 [Bené Fonteles: Shrouds, Self-Portraits and Works from 1996 to 2001], at Espaço Cultural Contemporâneo Venâncio
2001 - Brasília DF - Solo, at Referência Galeria de Arte
2004 - São Paulo SP - Ausência e Presença em Gameleira do Assuruá [Absence and Presence in Gameleira do Assuruá], at Sesc Pompeia
2004 - São Paulo SP - Palavras e Obras [Words and Works], at Estação Pinacoteca
Group Exhibitions
1971 - Fortaleza CE - 1st University Art Expo - special prize
1971 - Fortaleza CE - 3rd Ceará National Visual Arts Salon
1971 - Fortaleza CE - Salão de Abril [April Salon]
1972 - Fortaleza CE - 22nd April Municipal Salon - special room
1972 - Fortaleza CE - 2nd University Art Expo
1973 - São Paulo SP - 12th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1974 - São Paulo SP - 8th Young Contemporary Art, at MAC/USP
1974 - São Paulo SP - National Biennial 74, at Fundação Bienal
1975 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 7th Summer Salon, at MAM/RJ
1975 - São Paulo SP - 13th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1975 - São Paulo SP - 7th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1976 - Lansing (United States) - Modern Art in Brazil, at Kresge Art Museum
1976 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Arte Agora [Art Now], at MAM/RJ
1977 - Amsterdam (Netherlands) - Mail Art Exposition
1977 - São Paulo SP - 14th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1977 - São Paulo SP - Poéticas Visuais [Visual Poetics], at MAC/USP
1979 - New York (United States) - Contemporary Brazilian Works on Paper: 49 artists, at Nobé Gallery
1980 - João Pessoa PB - Xerographs, at Núcleo de Arte Contemporânea
1980 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Mostra Internacional de Arte Postal [International Mail Art Show], at Galeria Quadrum
1980 - Porto Alegre RS - Xerographs, at Espaço N.O.
1980 - São Paulo SP - 12th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1980 - São Paulo SP - Destaque do Ano [Highlight of the Year], at Masp
1980 - São Paulo SP - Fotografia como Suporte [Photography as Support], at Foto Galeria
1980 - São Paulo SP - Few and Rare
1980 - São Paulo SP - Xerographs, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1981 - Boston (United States) - Current Myths, at Art Institute of Boston
1981 - Cuiabá MT - Papel da Arte sobre Papel [The Role of Art on Paper], at Galeria Laila Zahran
1981 - Curitiba PR - 38th Paraná Salon, at Teatro Guaíra - special room
1981 - Los Angeles (United States) - International Mail-Art Show, at Otis Art Institute
1981 - Recife PE - 1st International Exhibition of Visual Poems on Billboards, in the city's urban space
1981 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ
1981 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - From the Modern to the Contemporary: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at MAM/RJ
1981 - São Paulo SP - 16th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1981 - São Paulo SP - Heliography Show, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1981 - Vista (United States) - Erotica-Exotica, at New Vistas Gallery
1982 - Caxias do Sul RS - Artemicro, at Universidade de Caxias do Sul
1982 - Coimbra (Portugal) - Microarte, at Círculo das Artes Plásticas
1982 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Brazil 60 Years of Modern Art: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
1982 - Lisbon (Portugal) - From the Modern to the Contemporary: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
1982 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Microarte, at Cooperativa Diferença
1982 - London (England) - Brazil 60 Years of Modern Art: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Barbican Art Gallery
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Artemicro, at MAM/RJ
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Universe of Football, at MAM/RJ
1982 - São Paulo SP - Artemicro, at MIS/SP
1982 - São Paulo SP - Intercomunicável/Intercomunicabile [Intercommunicable], at MAC/USP
1983 - Dallas (United States) - Artemicro, at Bath House Cultural Center
1983 - Los Angeles (United States) - Target Earget, at Double Rocking Gallery
1984 - São Paulo SP - 15th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1984 - São Paulo SP - Art in the Street 2
1984 - São Paulo SP - Xerox Art Brazil, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1985 - Amsterdam (Netherlands) - Art on the Move, at The Art Exhibition Foundation
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Caligrafias e Escrituras [Calligraphies and Writings], at Funarte. Galeria Sérgio Milliet
1985 - São Paulo SP - Art New Media/Multimedia: Brazil 70/80, at MAB/Faap
1985 - São Paulo SP - Trends of the Artist's Book in Brazil, at CCSP
1985 - Waregem (Belgium) - Participate, at Museum of Museums
1986 - Edmonton (Canada) - Images of Peace, at University of Alberta. Ring House Gallery
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Artistas da Bolsa Ivan Serpa [Ivan Serpa Grant Artists], at Funarte
1986 - São Paulo SP - The New Dimension of the Object, at MAC/USP
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - To the Collector: Tribute to Gilberto Chateaubriand, at MAM/RJ
1987 - São Paulo SP - 18th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Fabric of Taste: Another Look at Everyday Life, at Fundação Bienal
1987 - Washington (United States) - Contemporary Artists from Brazil-Portugal, at Brazilian-American Cultural Institute
1988 - Campinas SP - 13th Campinas Contemporary Art Salon, at MACC
1988 - São Paulo SP - 19th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1988 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Artists, at Masp
1988 - São Paulo SP - Civilidades da Selva: mitos e iconografias indígenas [Civilities of the Jungle: Indigenous Myths and Iconographies], at MAC/USP
1988 - São Paulo SP - Rhythms and Forms: Contemporary Brazilian Art, at Sesc Pompeia
1989 - Copenhagen (Denmark) - Rhythms and Forms: Contemporary Brazilian Art, at Museu Charlottenborg
1989 - London (England) - No Boundaries on the Planet of Tupis-Toris, at London Ecology Centre
1989 - São Paulo SP - A Estética do Candomblé [The Aesthetics of Candomblé], at MAC/USP
1989 - São Paulo SP - Papel Artesanal na América Latina [Handmade Paper in Latin America], at Pinacoteca do Estado
1990 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Armadilhas Indígenas [Indigenous Traps], at Funarte
1990 - São Paulo SP - Armadilhas Indígenas [Indigenous Traps], at Masp
1990 - São Paulo SP - Gente de Fibra [People of Fiber], at Sesc Pompeia
1991 - São Paulo SP - National x International in Brazilian Art, at Paço das Artes
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Reciclo [Recycle], at Funarte
1993 - Belém PA - 2nd Pará Contemporary Art Salon, at Fundação Cultural do Pará Tancredo Neves
1993 - Brasília DF - A Look at Joseph Beuys, at Fundação Athos Bulcão
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século XX, at Fundação Bienal
1997 - São Paulo SP - 3rd United Artists: luz [Light], at Casa das Rosas
1998 - Brasília DF - Cien Recuerdos para García Lorca [A Hundred Memories for García Lorca], at Espaço Cultural 508 Sul
1999 - São Paulo SP - The Resacralization of Art, at Sesc Pompeia
2000 - Brasília DF - Athos Criativos [Creative Athos], at Conjunto Nacional Brasília
2000 - São Bento do Sapucaí SP - Athos Criativos [Creative Athos], at O Casarão
2000 - São Paulo SP - Arte Conceitual e Conceitualismos: anos 70 no acervo do MAC/USP [Conceptual Art and Conceptualisms: The 1970s in the MAC/USP Collection], at Galeria de Arte do Sesi
2000 - São Paulo SP - The Role of Art, at Galeria de Arte do Sesi
2001 - Fortaleza CE - Portraits: Belchior Seen by Great Names and by Himself, at Centro Cultural Oboé
2002 - Austin (United States) - Brazilian Visual Poetry, at Mexic-Arte Museum
2002 - Brasília DF - Fragments to Their Magnet, at Espaço Cultural Contemporâneo Venâncio
2002 - Brasília DF - JK - An Aesthetic Adventure, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
2002 - Curitiba PR - São ou Não São Gravuras [Are They or Aren't They Prints?], Museu de Arte de Londrina
2002 - Fortaleza CE - Portraits: Belchior Seen by Great Names and by Himself, at Centro Cultural Oboé
2002 - Londrina PR - Are They or Aren't They Prints?, at Museu de Arte de Londrina
2002 - São Paulo SP - Arte e Política [Art and Politics], at MAM/SP
2002 - São Paulo SP - Imaginary Mexico: The Gaze of the Brazilian Artist, at Casa das Rosas
2003 - Brasília DF - Obranome [Worknamed], at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Belchior: retratos e autorretratos [Belchior: Portraits and Self-Portraits], at Centro Cultural da Justiça Federal
2003 - São Paulo SP - The Subversion of Media, at Itaú Cultural
2003 - São Paulo SP - Art and Society: A Controversial Relationship, at Itaú Cultural
2003 - São Paulo SP - Meeting Place: Amélia Toledo among Us, at Unicid
2003 - São Paulo SP - MAC USP 40 Years: Contemporary Interfaces, at MAC/USP
2003 - São Paulo SP - Tomie Ohtake in the Spiritual Fabric of Brazilian Art, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Tomie Ohtake in the Spiritual Fabric of Brazilian Art, at MNBA
Source: Itaú Cultural
