Joaquim Paiva (Vitória ES 1946)
Photographer.
Joaquim Arnaldo de Paiva Oliveira studied law, first at the Universidade do Estado da Guanabara, in Rio de Janeiro, and then at the Universidade de Brasília, where he graduated in 1970. In 1968 and 1969, he took the diplomatic career preparation course at the Instituto Rio Branco, in Rio de Janeiro. His first photographic work was on the Núcleo Bandeirante (which housed the workers who had built Brasília), but he gradually moved from essays devoted to the people and architecture of the cities where he lived to works of personal expression with an autobiographical focus. He is the largest collector of contemporary Brazilian photography, with nearly 2,000 images by more than 130 different photographers; he has exhibited this collection several times in Brazil and abroad. He has also carried out important research, having translated Susan Sontag's famous work On Photography into Portuguese in 1981, and in 1989 he published a book of interviews with 25 Brazilian photographers: Olhares Refletidos [Reflected Gazes].
Critiques
"Joaquim Paiva creates photographic mosaics. One - the various moments of man in the water - suggests the attempt to recover a temporal continuity of pleasure and playfulness: the joy of once again remaining a child in the bosom of maternal water. The juxtaposition of discontinuous moments, captured in photographic 'snapshots', tries to hold on to that joy. Now covering his sex, now revealing it naturally, the man, made childlike by the aquatic game, is innocent: he shows an ordinary body, but without guilt. The other panel, by contrast, composes a serial vision of the body as beautiful: so beautiful that it tends toward deification and worship. They are several stanzas of a photographic song to the beauty of the body."
José Américo Motta Pessanha
A imagem do corpo, José Américo Motta Pessanha.
"A work by Joaquim Paiva is characterized by the articulation of diverse images. The photographer composes a position. His method aligns with Hugo Denizart's photography in defining the regions of desire, or with a certain part of Miguel Rio Branco's work. The portrait is the kaleidoscopic gaze on the Other, in its multiple moments. The concept of photography as image collides with the path of the gaze, unspooled in time/space, between one instant and another. It is a logic of wandering, in which we perceive the Other only in fragments. Desire then presents itself. Joaquim Paiva overcomes a history of photography revealed as repression and sublimation of the forbidden image of the body. This resexualization of the body, in which the camera is a medium of the libido, affirms the photographer's own full presence as a desiring subject. We could bring in Lacan here if we saw photographic images as 'thoughts about the body', and Lacan might then say: 'The body should dazzle you more.' Joaquim Paiva's gaze did not deny itself the dazzlement of the eroticization of the gaze."
Paulo Herkenhoff
Fantasmas de Prata e Gelatina, Paulo Herkenhoff.
Testimonials
"For me, photography is a form of communication with the world, of participation in the contemporary cultural process and of contribution to Brazil's visual heritage.
My work as a photographer has been related to my emotional and family experience (variations on a character, identity-boxes, objects with self-portraits and family portraits) and to life in some of the cities where I have lived, such as Brasília (Núcleo Bandeirante, Trípticos, Pacotão-Carnaval and Por detrás da Cortina).
My work as a collector made me discover the richness of current Brazilian photographic production and how revealing it is of individual expressions and of the country's cultural diversity.
My activities in photography have unfolded in several directions: as photographer, collector, essayist, lecturer, teacher, and organizer and curator of exhibitions. Since 1970 photography has occupied an important place in my life, and my name has become closely associated with it. I have exhibited my personal work and the collection of Brazilian photographers, and taken part in national and international photography meetings."
Joaquim Paiva
Collections
Museu de Arte de São Paulo - Masp - São Paulo SP
Biblioteca Nacional de Venezuela - Venezuela
Museu da Memória Candanga - Brasília DF
Museu Nacional de Belas Artes - MNBA - Rio de Janeiro RJ
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro - MAM/RJ - Rio de Janeiro RJ
Musée Français de la Photographie - Bièvres (France)
Solo Exhibitions
2001 - São Paulo SP - Variações em Torno de um Personagem [Variations on a Character], at CCSP
Group Exhibitions
1972 - Brasília DF - Série Abstrações [Abstractions Series], at Clube das Nações
1973 - Brasília DF - Group show, at Galeria Múltipla
1973 - Brussels (Belgium) - Brazil Export Fair
1973 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 5th Summer Salon
1973 - São Paulo SP - 12th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1973 - São Paulo SP - Série Abstrações [Abstractions Series], at Masp
1973 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Série Abstrações [Abstractions Series], at Galeria Studius
1976 - Toronto (Canada) - Série Abstrações e Núcleo Bandeirante [Abstractions and Núcleo Bandeirante Series], at Informal Art Gallery
1979 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Venezuelan Photography Council
1980 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Série Una Visión de Caracas [A Vision of Caracas Series], at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo
1981 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Série Una Visión de Caracas [A Vision of Caracas Series], at Biblioteca Nacional de Venezuela
1982 - Brasília DF - Série do Núcleo Bandeirante [Núcleo Bandeirante Series], at Galeria da Empresa de Correios e Telégrafos
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Mostra Exteriores [Exteriors Show], at Funarte
1982 - Curitiba PR - Mostra Exteriores [Exteriors Show]
1982 - São Paulo SP - Mostra Exteriores [Exteriors Show]
1982 - Brasília DF - Mostra Exteriores [Exteriors Show]
1982 - Goiânia GO - Mostra Exteriores [Exteriors Show]
1982 - Diamantina MG - Mostra Exteriores [Exteriors Show]
1982 - Belo Horizonte MG - Mostra Exteriores [Exteriors Show]
1983 - Brasília DF - 1st Central-West Photo Show, at Funarte
1983 - Brasília DF - Série Via-Sacra de Juazeiro [Juazeiro Stations of the Cross Series], 2nd National Photography Week, at Conjunto Cultural da Caixa Econômica Federal
1983 - Brasília DF - Série do Núcleo Bandeirante [Núcleo Bandeirante Series], at Administração Regional do Núcleo Bandeirante
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Série do Núcleo Bandeirante [Núcleo Bandeirante Series], at Solar Grandjean de Montigny
1983 - Paris (France) - Le Brésil des Brésiliens, at Centre Georges Pompidou
1983 - São Paulo SP - 1st International Biennial of Photographic Art
1984 - Brasília DF - Brasília, Luz de Alvorada [Brasília, Dawn Light], at Congresso Nacional
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ - acquisition prize
1986 - Brasília DF - Série Trípticos de Brasília [Brasília Triptychs Series], at Galeria da Empresa de Correios e Telégrafos
1986 - Brasília DF - Os Cinco de Brasília [The Five from Brasília], at Galeria Espaço Capital
1986 - Belo Horizonte MG - Os Cinco de Brasília [The Five from Brasília], at Galeria Cemig
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - A Imagem do Corpo Nu [The Image of the Naked Body], at Funarte
1987 - Brasília DF - Série Carnaval: Pacotão [Carnival Series: Pacotão], 1st Latin American Festival of Arts and Culture, at Teatro Nacional
1987 - Ouro Preto MG - A Imagem do Corpo Nu [The Image of the Naked Body], 4th National Photography Week
1988 - Brasília DF - Série por detrás da Cortina [Behind the Curtain Series], at Teatro Nacional
1989 - Brussels (Belgium) - Série Carnaval: Pacotão [Carnival Series: Pacotão], at Galeria Seul
1989 - Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) - Série Carnaval: Pacotão [Carnival Series: Pacotão], at Point de Repère
1989 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Seis Fotógrafos Portugueses e Brasileiros [Six Portuguese and Brazilian Photographers], at Galeria Diferença
1990 - Mohammedia (Morocco) - Série Raios de Luz [Rays of Light Series], at Hassan II University
1990 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Fotógrafos Brasileiros no Acervo do MAM [Brazilian Photographers in the MAM Collection], at MAM/RJ
1992 - Bièvres (France) - Musée Français de la Photographie
1992 - Brasília DF - Contrastes e Confrontos [Contrasts and Confrontations], 10 Photographers from Brasília, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
1992 - Niterói RJ - Identidade: Do Analógico ao Digital [Identity: From Analog to Digital], at UFF. Galeria de Arte
1993 - Brasília DF - 3x4 Um Retrato da Cidade [3x4 A Portrait of the City], at Espaço Cultural 508 Sul
1993 - Brasília DF - Identidade: Do Analógico ao Digital [Identity: From Analog to Digital], at Galeria ECT
1993 - Curitiba PR - Identidade: Do Analógico ao Digital [Identity: From Analog to Digital], at Sala de Exposições da PUC
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Contrastes e Confrontos [Contrasts and Confrontations], at Funarte. Galeria de Fotografia
1993 - Salvador BA - Bahia Photographic Art Salon, at Escola de Belas Artes
1993 - São Paulo SP - Fotografia Brasileira [Brazilian Photography], 1st International Photography Month, at Sesc Pompeia
1994 - Florianópolis SC - Identidade: Do Analógico ao Digital [Identity: From Analog to Digital]
1994 - João Pessoa PB - Identidade: Do Analógico ao Digital [Identity: From Analog to Digital]
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Série Variações em Torno de um Personagem [Variations on a Character Series], at Funarte
1996 - Niterói RJ - Série Variações em Torno de um Personagem [Variations on a Character Series], at UFF. Centro de Artes Visuais
1997 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Las Utopías del Amor [The Utopias of Love], at Centro Borges
1997 - Quilmes (Argentina) - Las Utopías del Amor [The Utopias of Love], at Centro Borges
1997 - Rosario (Argentina) - Las Utopías del Amor [The Utopias of Love], at Centro Borges
1997 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - UniversidArte, at Universidade Estácio de Sá
2002 - São Paulo SP - Visões e Alumbramentos: fotografia contemporânea brasileira da coleção Joaquim Paiva [Visions and Illuminations: Brazilian Contemporary Photography from the Joaquim Paiva Collection], at Oca
2003 - Brasília DF - Vice-Versa: Eixo Brasília/Linha Imaginária [Vice-Versa: Brasília Axis/Imaginary Line], at Espaço Cultural Contemporâneo Venâncio
2003 - Frankfurt (Germany) - Art Frankfurt 2003
2003 - Niterói RJ - Da Pele Que Quer Ser Vista ao Sentido Invisível [From the Skin That Wants to Be Seen to the Invisible Sense], at Espaço Cultural - TCE
2006 - Berlin (Germany) - Brasil e Berlim: arte contemporânea brasileira em Berlim [Brazil and Berlin: Brazilian Contemporary Art in Berlin]
Source: Itaú Cultural
