Cybèle Varela (Petrópolis RJ 1943)
Cybèle Varela is a painter, photographer, video artist and object maker. She began her painting studies at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM/RJ) between 1962 and 1966. In the same period she served as director of the Associação Amigos da Arte in Petrópolis, promoting various cultural events, including performances such as the opera La Bohème and the dancer Beatriz Consuelo.
She received a French government grant to study in Paris in 1968/1969 and 1971/1972, attending the École du Louvre. Between 1973 and 1974 she lived at the Cité Internationale des Arts and later studied at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, between 1976 and 1978, where she wrote a mémoire on Body Art. During the 1960s, still in Brazil, she stood out for her large panels with urban themes in synthetic enamel on wood, such as Grand Prix, awarded at the Salão de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro in 1969. She also created painted objects, such as Lousa Sepulcral [Sepulchral Slate], shown at the 9th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo.
In Paris her production came to focus on landscapes and the investigation of sunlight, using photographic and video techniques; she is the author of the video Imagem [Image], now in the collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou. In 1975 she took part in the exhibition 30 Créateurs d'Aujourd'hui, which toured France and brought together the most prominent artists of the year.
In the 1980s, living in Geneva, she concentrated her production on themes related to nature. In 1996 one of her works was donated by the Brazilian government to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. In her later phases she returned to figuration within a narrative approach, using painting, photography and video around shared themes. In this context she held notable solo exhibitions, such as at the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (MNBA) in 2003 and at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC/USP) in 2005.
Critiques
"Apparently neutral, and almost always given poetic titles ("landscapes"), Cybèle Varela's images must also be seen as something beyond mere pictures (...). This painter, (...) who invents her subjects, simply observes this: our society is made in such a way that we are no longer open to nature; on the contrary, thanks to glass and its abstraction, nature comes in, as a setting, to play with our environment. City dwellers have lost nature, and their ideal of reintegration is achieved - at best - by appropriating a view (panoramic if possible) within the domestic universe. The key material and support of the modern dream, glass has turned landscape into spectacle (...).
(...) Whether it is a window or, more precisely in Cybèle Varela's case, a wall, glass creates a transparency without transition: obliged to look but forbidden to touch! This formal satisfaction conceals a relationship of exclusion that this elegant work denounces with surprising vigor, precisely 'sans avoir l'air d'y toucher'".
Jean-Luc Chalumeau
CHALUMEAU, Jean-Luc. "Le constat par l'image réaliste". In: __________. Initiation à la lecture de l'art contemporain. Paris: Nathan, 1976, p. 82/84.
"The relationship thus established is multiple: what the painter conveys to us on her canvas is something like a ray of sunlight and its contrasting effects. This light structure, repeated countless times in different forms, constitutes the systematic foundation of the language this painting teaches us. The multiple Shadow/Light relationship acts on the representational unity of the image (something like a landscape), and this is how Cybele Varela's painting restores to us the multidimensional reality of the field of meaning. Cybele Varela's real exists only at the level of Language".
Pierre Restany
CYBELE Varela: fotografias e pinturas. Apresentação de Pierre Restany, Frederico Morais e René Deroudille. São Paulo: MAC/USP, 1981.
"If the urban landscape was an exercise in geometry in her Brazilian phase, from 1973 on the Impressionist landscape is a mere pretext for a discussion about the picture. What the artist does is turn the relationship between light and shadow into pictorial matter, a relationship that changes according to the greater or lesser distance of the viewing angle. A play of distances that allows the inclusion or exclusion, in the visual field, of a red stake, the only vertical element breaking the luminous horizontality of the landscape. And it is precisely this banal element within the pretext-theme - the stake and its shadow - that underlines the artist's concern, which is to discuss the relationship between picture and representation (...) Around 1980, Cybele added photography, directly and not as a medium, as part of this discussion about the image. Cut into strips, burned, multiplied or rephotographed, superimposed on or confronted with its own painted version, the matrix photo constantly reappears in a kind of abyssal game in which the real and the virtual merge. This vertigo, Cybele's 'mise-en-abîme', is a plunge upward, a form of growing distance from the naturalistic conception of art (...)".
Frederico Morais
CYBELE Varela: pinturas. Texto de Frederico Morais. Rio de Janeiro: Galeria Bonino, 1984.
"Rarely does one find, in such an intense and painful way, so anguished a contact with beauty. For those who live, there is always a warning that prevents fulfillment. And there is always a new utopia to oppose incompleteness. Everything is always beyond, unattainable, grandiose, yet perceptible, possible, within reach of apprehension or fantasy. Apprehension, yes, in its double sense: that of something grasped with the mind, gathered with the hands, kept close, and that of something that unsettles, frightens, threatens".
Artur da Távola
CYBELE Varela. Texto de Artur da Távola. Rio de Janeiro: Galeria Bonino, 1988.
Testimonials
"In the 1960s I worked with industrial paint on wood on urban themes, scenes in which apparently unconnected characters met in my painting and in my objects/puzzles. Since then I have always felt an absence of time, a certain unreality that life did not explain to me. In 1968 I went to Paris on a French government grant. There, the memory of my native country became fragments that vanished in the sunlight coming through the blinds of my studio. I felt even more the isolation from the nature that surrounds us. So I eliminated the figures. (...) And so time went by; I made works using various techniques, including Super 8, photos and video, but painting was and is my foundation. At the turn of the century I felt the characters had to reappear in my paintings. But since I never accepted a single reality, they mingle with those of the past. Some are well known, others invented by me. But what is the difference for those who see time as distant, suspended in the very infinity of the cosmos? My characters are flashes of moments lived by other beings and by myself. (...)"
Cybèle Varela
Cybèle Varela: Surroundings. Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, 2003.
Collections
Centre Georges Pompidou - Paris (France)
Centro Cultural São Paulo - CCSP - São Paulo SP
Embaixada do Brasil [Embassy of Brazil] - Paris (France)
Fonds de Décoration de la Ville de Genève - Geneva (Switzerland)
Fonds National d'Art Contemporain - Paris (France)
Fundação Cultural de Petrópolis - Petrópolis RJ
Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts - Lausanne (Switzerland)
Musée Voltaire - Geneva (Switzerland)
Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo - MAC/USP - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte Contemporânea - MAC-Niterói - Niterói RJ
Museu de Arte Contemporânea - MAC/PR - Curitiba PR
Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand - Masp - São Paulo SP
Museu de Arte Moderna de Belo Horizonte - MAM/BH - Belo Horizonte MG
Museu de Arte Moderna de Campinas - MAM de Campinas - Campinas 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
Museu Nacional de Belas Artes - MNBA - Rio de Janeiro RJ
Museum of Modern Art of Latin America - Washington D.C. (United States)
Observatório do Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Palais des Nations/ONU - Geneva (Switzerland)
Saginaw Art Museum - Michigan (United States)
Temple de l'Humanité/Musée Auguste Comte - Paris (France)
World Intellectual Property Organization - WIPO - Geneva (Switzerland)
Solo Exhibitions
1962 - Petrópolis RJ - Solo, at Hall Santa Isabel
1966 - Petrópolis RJ - Solo, at Museu Imperial
1968 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Goeldi
1970 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Copacabana Palace
1970 - Belo Horizonte MG - Solo, at Instituto Brasil-Estados Unidos
1971 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Copacabana Palace
1972 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Galeria Debret
1973 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Cité Internationale des Arts
1974 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Galerie Liliane François
1975 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Galerie Camille Renault
1975 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1975 - Bonn (Germany) - Solo, at Galeria Ibero-Americana
1976 - London (England) - Solo, at Canning House
1976 - Frankfurt (Germany) - Solo, at Deutsch-Amerikanische Institut
1977 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Galerie Camille Renault
1977 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Ipanema
1977 - São Paulo SP - Cybele Varela: Paintings, Photos, Films, at Galeria Arte Global
1980 - Lausanne (Switzerland) - Solo, at Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts
1980 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Solo, at Galerie Canon
1980 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAC/USP
1981 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Funarte, Galeria Sergio Milliet
1982 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Solo, at Centro de Arte y Comunicación (CAYC)
1982 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Solo, at Galeria Engelberts
1983 - Milan (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria Bonaparte
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1984 - Grenchen (Switzerland) - Solo, at Galerie Brechbuhl
1985 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Solo, at Galeria Engelberts
1985 - Lausanne (Switzerland) - Solo, at Galerie Focus
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1986 - Riehen (Switzerland) - Solo, at Galeria Demenga
1986 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Seta
1987 - Washington (United States) - Solo, at Museum of Modern Art of Latin America
1987 - Washington (United States) - Solo, at Wallace Wentworth Gallery
1988 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1989 - Riehen (Switzerland) - Solo, at Galeria Demenga
1990 - Chicago (United States) - Solo, at Clausen Art Gallery
1990 - Michigan (United States) - Solo, at T. C. Downtown Gallery
1990 - Basel (Switzerland) - Solo, at Galeria Demenga
1991 - Bourg-en-Bresse (France) - Solo, at Galerie Lévy
1992 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Renato Magalhães Gouvêa Escritório de Arte
1992 - Brussels (Belgium) - Solo, at Galerie Zinzen
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Bonino
1992 - Petrópolis RJ - Solo, at Museu Imperial
1994 - Brussels (Belgium) - Solo, at Galeria Cimaises Mercator
2001 - Berlin (Germany) - Solo, at Galeria Demenga
2001 - Basel (Switzerland) - Solo, at Galeria Demenga
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at MNBA
2005 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at MAC/USP
2007 - Rome (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria Candido Portinari, Palazzo Pamphilj
Group Exhibitions
1959 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salon of the Brazilian Artists Association, at MNBA - honorable mention
1961 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salon of the Brazilian Artists Association, at MNBA
1962 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salon of the Brazilian Artists Association, at MNBA - bronze medal
1964 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Group show, 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 - Campinas SP - 3rd Campinas Contemporary Art Salon, at MACC
1967 - São Paulo SP - 1st Young Contemporary Art, at MAC/USP - acquisition prize
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1967 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Box Competition, at Petite Galerie
1967 - Belo Horizonte MG - 13th Belo Horizonte Salon, at MAP
1967 - Curitiba PR - 24th Paraná Salon, at MAC/PR - acquisition prize
1968 - South America - Traveling Exhibition Contemporary Aspects of Brazilian Painting
1968 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 2nd Esso Salon of Young Artists, at MAM/RJ
1968 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 17th National Salon of Modern Art, at MAM/RJ
1968 - Salvador BA - 2nd National Visual Arts Biennial
1968 - São Paulo SP - 17th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art
1968 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Mass Iconography, at Esdi
1969 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão da Bússola [Compass Salon], at MAM/RJ - Aroldo Propaganda Internship Prize
1969 - São Paulo SP - 10th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1969 - São Paulo SP - Modern Art Salon - silver medal
1970 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1970 - São Paulo SP - São Paulo Pre-Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1970 - Montevideo (Uruguay) - Montevideo Biennial
1970 - Belo Horizonte MG - Belo Horizonte Salon - acquisition prize
1971 - Campinas SP - 7th Campinas Contemporary Art Salon, at MACC - acquisition prize
1971 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Light and Movement Salon, at MAM/RJ
1972 - Paris (France) - Salon Comparaisons, at Grand Palais
1972 - São Paulo SP - Art Exhibition for the Sesquicentennial of Independence and Brasil Plástica - 72, at Fundação Bienal
1972 - São Paulo SP - 4th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1972 - Paris (France) - Forum des Arts, at O.R.T.F.
1972 - Paris (France) - Salon Société Internationale des Beaux-Arts, at Grand Palais - Bernheim de Villers Prize
1972 - Vincennes (France) - Boursiers du Gouvernement Français, at Parc Floral
1972 - Paris (France) - Group show, at Cité Internationale des Arts
1972 - Paris (France) - Group show, at Galerie l'Oeil de Boeuf
1974 - Paris (France) - Salon de Mai
1974 - Paris (France) - Group show, at Galerie Rencontres, Paysages
1974 - Paris (France) - Société Internationale des Beaux-Arts, at Grand Palais
1974 - Paris (France) - Salon Comparaisons, at Grand Palais
1974 - Paris (France) - Festival du Marais
1974 - Vascoeuil (France) - Hyperréalistes français et étrangers, at Château de Vascoeuil
1974 - Ascona (Switzerland) - Group show, at Galeria Internazionale d'Arte
1975 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Aspects of European Realism, at Galeria Gordillo
1975 - Paris (France) - Salon des Femmes Peintres, at Unesco
1975 - Paris (France) - Salon La Nationale
1975 - Paris (France) - Mai à la Défense
1975 - Paris (France) - Grands et Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui, at Grand Palais
1975 - Cagnes-sur-Mer (France) - Festival de Cagnes-sur-Mer
1975 - France - Traveling Exhibition 30 Créateurs, Sélection 1975
1975 - Villeparisis (France) - La Foire de l'Estampe
1975 - Paris (France) - Salon Comparaisons, at Grand Palais
1975 - Kuwait - Group show, at Galerie des Arts Dhabiat Abdulla al Salem
1975 - Paris (France) - Salon Dialogues
1977 - Bellême (France) - Artistes en Liberté dans la Perche
1980 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Artistes de Genève, at Musée Rath
1980 - Milan (Italy) - Group show, at Galeria Cenobio Visualità
1981 - São Paulo SP - 16th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1981 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Post Tenebras Lux, Video Circuit, at Salle Simon Patiño
1982 - Nishinomiya (Japan) - Mail Art
1982 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Artistes Genevois
1984 - Morges (Switzerland) - Group show, at Galerie Kasper
1985 - Ragusa (Italy) - Mail Art, Pace e Libertà dei Popoli
1985 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Group show, at Centre d'Art Visuel
1987 - Los Angeles (United States) - Art LA 87
1987 - Basel (Switzerland) - Art Basel 87
1987 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Group show, at Galerie Editart
1988 - Los Angeles (United States) - Art LA 88
1988 - Basel (Switzerland) - Art Basel 88
1988 - Nice (France) - Art Jonction International
1990 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Group show, at Espaço BNDES
1991 - São Paulo SP - What Are You Doing Now, Generation 60?: Young Contemporary Art of the 1960s Revisited, at MAC/USP
1991 - Basel (Switzerland) - Group show, at Galeria Demenga
1991 - Thonon-les-Bains (France) - Group show, at Galerie Patrice Alexis
1992 - São Paulo SP - Group show, at MAC/USP
1993 - Brussels (Belgium) - Group show, at Galerie Zinzen
1994 - Geneva (Switzerland) - Europ'Art
1994 - Annemasse (France) - Villa du Parc
1996 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art: 50 Years of History in the MAC/USP Collection: 1920-1970, at MAC/USP
1997 - São Paulo SP - The Artists' City, at MAC/USP
1999 - Basel (Switzerland) - Das 20 Jahrhundert, at Galerie Demenga
1999 - São Paulo SP - Brazil in the Century of Art, at MAC/USP
2001 - Zurich (Switzerland) - Art Affair
2003 - São Paulo SP - Arteconhecimento: 70 Years of USP, at MAC/USP
2004 - Niterói RJ - The 1960s in the Sattamini Collection, at MAC-Niterói
2006 - Curitiba PR - Other 60's, at MAC/PR
Source: Itaú Cultural
