Caciporé Torres (Araçatuba SP 1935)
Caciporé Torres is a sculptor, draftsman and teacher. He traveled to Europe on a scholarship awarded at the 1st Bienal Internacional de São Paulo [São Paulo International Biennial], in 1951, and for two years attended the sculpture studios of Marino Marini (1901–1980) and Alexander Calder (1898–1976). He returned to Brazil in 1953, took part in exhibitions and later went back to Europe. In 1954, he studied art history at the Sorbonne, in Paris, and worked in a studio for four years, a period in which he developed an abstract body of work. He began to build massive organic and geometric forms, using industrial-looking metal pieces in steel, bronze and iron. Many of his sculptures are large-scale and belong to museums and public spaces in several cities, such as the works in Praça da Sé and at Santa Cecília metro station, in São Paulo, and a sculptural panel in Miami, in the United States.
Between 1961 and 1971, he taught sculpture at the Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado (Faap) and, from 1971, at the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo of the Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, both in São Paulo. In 1970, he was elected president of the International Association of Art/Unesco and, in 1980 and 1982, was named best Brazilian sculptor by the Associação Paulista de Críticos de Artes (APCA) [São Paulo Art Critics Association]. He received the Comenda Mário de Andrade [Mário de Andrade Commendation] from the São Paulo State Government during the administration of Paulo Egydio Martins.
Critiques
"Caciporé Torres, who studied in Europe in the 1950s (above all in Paris), reached maturity when he settled on massive, non-representational and expressionist constructions. He made use of cast iron and, conceiving sculpture as a public thing, began to produce it in large volumes joined by welding, using stainless steel in the form of scrap. The cylindrical form has been a basic element for this sculptor of metal, of 'brutalist' conception, convinced that his art has a social purpose, an aim scarcely pursued in our milieu. Indeed, when that intention was pursued on a large scale, as in the participation of sculptors in the difficult spatiality of the new Praça da Sé, in São Paulo, a lack of better adaptation between works and setting was often observed".
Walter Zanini
Zanini, Walter, org. História geral da arte no Brasil. v. 2, p. 769.
"(...) Caciporé Torres (Araçatuba, São Paulo, 1932) is one of the sculptors of the monument. He works with raw industrial materials, things that look as if they had been found in a scrapyard. Objects that would not catch the attention of our eyes, tired and bombarded by incessant images. And yet everything takes on life and meaning, and the steel, the wires, the iron and sometimes the bronze form a set of revealing signs. The language of our time. It is a work made of hardness, rigor and roughness. And this comes so unexpectedly, with sudden tenderness, a reference to the human condition, reminders of the human animal, of the fragility and permanence of everything. A surface chosen and planned, extended and developing, eruptions, colors, fierce masses and, at the center of this larval material of our society, the memory of the torso, the legs, the genitals. At times, Caciporé interrupts this volcanic action to work on bronze plates, recalling the drapery Phidias fitted to the Greek body, highlighting a fringe. He reminds us that the dream has a double face, Janus. And the full manifesto of the era includes the tortured face of the moon, the bowels of incandescent metal and the childlike step of man released from gravity. Caciporé Torres set out to mark this moment of eruption. We do not know whether he is the volcano or the lava, the eruption or Pompeii. He is probably all of these and, at this very moment, a spectator of himself and of us all. What can be verified is that his work has become one of the strongest testimonies of our country, a record of transformation and a beckoning of basic emotions and memories. Burning magma".
Jacob Klintowitz
Klintowitz, Jacob. O ofício da arte: a escultura. p. 196.
"An artist with a strong personality and a sculptural language of his own, which departs unusually from the standards we are used to seeing, Caciporé produces a monumental body of work, even when smaller in size, rigorously planned, which sometimes synthesizes a tortured gesture, a cry frozen in the air, a controlled and beautiful expansion in rough, coarse form, and at other times the delicate relationships of form, volume and space".
Enock Sacramento
Sacramento, Enock. Crítica review. In: Aguilar, Nelson, org. Bienal Brasil século XX. p. 344.
Collections
Museu de Arte Brasileira da Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado - MAB/Faap - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand - Masp - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro - MAM/RJ - Rio de Janeiro RJ
Solo Exhibitions
1954 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAM/SP
1955 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAM/SP
1968 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAM/SP
1959 - Sydney (Australia) - Solo, at Terry Clune Gallery
1980 - Solo, at Galeria Arte Aplicada
1991 - Guarujá SP - Solo, at Galeria de Arte do Banco do Brasil
1991 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Arte Vital
1992 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Mube
Group Exhibitions
1948 - São Paulo SP - 12th Salon of the Visual Artists' Union
1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão do Trianon - foreign travel prize
1952 - Venice (Italy) - 26th Venice Biennale
1953 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Drawings Show, at MAM/RJ
1953 - São Paulo SP - 2nd São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão dos Estados - acquisition prize
1954 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary Art: Exhibition of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo Collection, at MAM/SP
1955 - Neuchâtel (Switzerland) - Group show, organizada pelo Itamaraty
1955 - São Paulo SP - 3rd São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão das Nações
1955 - São Paulo SP - 4th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1956 - Paris (France) - Exhibition, at Maison de L'Amérique Latine
1961 - São Paulo SP - 6th São Paulo International Biennial, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1964 - Campinas SP - Grupo 6 Group Show
1964 - Santos SP - Grupo 6 Group Show
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Esso Salon of Young Artists, at MAM/RJ
1965 - Paris (France) - 4th Paris Biennale
1965 - São Paulo SP - 1st Esso Salon of Young Artists, at MAC/USP
1965 - São Paulo SP - 8th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal - Itamaraty Acquisition Prize
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Salão de Abril [April Salon], at MAM/RJ
1966 - Salvador BA - 1st National Visual Arts Biennial
1967 - Brasília DF - 4th Federal District Salon of Modern Art, at Teatro Nacional Cláudio Santoro
1967 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão das Caixas [Salon of Boxes], at Petite Galerie
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1967 - São Paulo SP - 1st Young Contemporary Art, at MAC/USP
1968 - São Paulo SP - 17th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art
1972 - São Paulo SP - 4th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
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 - Penápolis SP - 2nd Noroeste Visual Arts Salon, at Fundação Educacional de Penápolis. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis
1978 - Penápolis SP - 3rd Noroeste Visual Arts Salon, at Fundação Educacional de Penápolis. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis
1978 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Sculpture in Urban Space: 50 Years, at Praça Nossa Senhora da Paz
1978 - São Paulo SP - 10th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1978 - São Paulo SP - 1st Show of Furniture and Unusual Objects, at Paço das Artes
1979 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Sculptors, at Galeria Aktuell
1980 - Penápolis SP - 4th Noroeste Visual Arts Salon, at Fundação Educacional de Penápolis. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis - guest artist
1980 - São Paulo SP - Panorama of 20th-Century Brazilian Sculpture, organized by Sesc
1981 - Guarujá SP - Open-Air Sculpture, at Hotel Jequitimar
1981 - São Paulo SP - 13th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1982 - Penápolis SP - 5th Noroeste Visual Arts Salon, at Fundação Educacional de Penápolis. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis - guest artist
1982 - São Paulo SP - A Century of Sculpture in Brazil, at Masp
1985 - Penápolis SP - 6th Noroeste Visual Arts Salon, at Fundação Educacional de Penápolis. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Penápolis
1985 - São Paulo SP - 16th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Biennials in the MAC Collection: 1951 to 1985, at MAC/USP
1988 - São Paulo SP - 19th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1991 - Santos SP - 3rd Santos National Biennial, at Centro Cultural Patrícia Galvão
1991 - São Paulo SP - 22nd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1992 - São Paulo SP - The Seduction of Volumes: The Three-Dimensional Works of the MAC, at MAC/USP
1993 - São Paulo SP - Luso-Japanese-Brazilian Exhibition, at MAB/Faap
1994 - Poços de Caldas MG - Unibanco Collection: Exhibition Celebrating Unibanco's 70th Anniversary, at Casa da Cultura
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século XX, at Fundação Bienal
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Unibanco Collection: Exhibition Celebrating Unibanco's 70th Anniversary, at MAM/RJ
1995 - São Paulo SP - Visual Road, at Renato Magalhães Gouvêa - Escritório de Arte
1996 - São Paulo SP - 1st Off Bienal, at Mube
1996 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art: 50 Years of History in the MAC/USP Collection: 1920-1970, at MAC/USP
1996 - São Paulo SP - 1st Off Bienal, at Mube
1997 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Sculpture: Profile of an Identity, at Banco Safra
1997 - Washington (United States) - Brazilian Sculpture: Profile of an Identity, at Centro Cultural do BID
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Art of Sculpture at Conjunto Nacional, at Conjunto Nacional
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Sculpture: From the Pinacoteca to the Jardim da Luz, at Pinacoteca do Estado
2000 - São Paulo SP - The Artists' Bardi, at Galeria Marta Traba - Memorial da América Latina
2001 - São Paulo SP - Art Today, at Arvani Arte
2001 - São Paulo SP - Museu de Arte Brasileira: 40 Years, at MAB/Faap
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilianart Project, at Almacén Galeria de Arte
2004 - São Paulo SP - 450 X 45, at Nova André Galeria
2004 - São Paulo SP - 22nd Exhibition of Contemporary Artists, at Esporte Clube Sírio
2004 - São Paulo SP - Group Show of Contemporary Artists, at Esporte Clube Sírio
2005 - São Paulo SP - Ship of Fools, at MAC/USP
2005 - São Paulo SP - Small Great Works, at Cultural Blue Life
Source: Itaú Cultural
