José Bento (Salvador BA 1962)
sculptor.
In 1966, José Bento Franco Chaves Transfers with his family to Belo Horizonte. Self-taught, between 1981 and 1988, creates a series of scenes and miniature environments with popsicle sticks. He exhibits part of these pieces at the Palácio das Artes, in Belo Horizonte, in 1989. In that year, he makes small wooden and glass boxes in whose interior he draws with mercury. At that time, he began to produce sculptures with naturally fallen logs, often with rare and secular trees, which he collects in the Atlantic Forest region between Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo. In 1990 and 1991, he developed a wheel, a work that distances itself from previous works and boosts its participation in several collective exhibitions in Brazil. It receives the Brasília Award for Plastic Arts at the 12th National Salon of Plastic Arts (1991-1992), in Rio de Janeiro. In 1993, he held an individual show at Casa Guignard, in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais. As of 2000, it also works with glass, mirror and granite. In 2004, he exhibits his sculptures at the Pampulha Art Museum - MAP, in Belo Horizonte.
Critical Comment
In the 1980s, José Bento makes small sculptures, with materials such as sticks of Popsicle, creating everyday scenes that sometimes take on a surrealist character. As the critic Agnaldo Farias notes, these works are interesting for their diminished scale, the finishing and the inventiveness, as in Ping-Pong (1981/1982), in which he captures the speed and trajectory of a ball in a static environment. It also creates boxes in glass and wood, in which it works with mercury, and explores projections or reflections of figures and geometric shapes. Wooden sticks juxtaposed and connected by nylon threads, which, spiraled around, constitute a disk about one and a half meters high. Unrolled, the wooden slats form a ribbon that unfolds in soft undulations in space. In Alphabet (1994), it presents small pieces of wood, with intriguing and mysterious shapes that, presented in series and arranged on a horizontal plane, reveal the artist's source of inspiration: the view of the domes of chapels of the cemetery located close to their home. As art historian Aracy Amaral points out, the presence of symbols related to death and religiosity is a constant in José Bento's poetics. Atlantic, which bear marks of time. The works, which sometimes reveal a constructive rigor, also bring in them a mysterious character. In the "hollowed towers", created from 1993 onwards with stacked wood slats, linearity and an infrequent lightness in its production predominate.
In pieces produced from 2000 onwards, José Bento resumes Previous works in wooden boxes, creating small installations with mirror and glass modules, on a modular, granite floor. In these works, the artist explores the ambiguity and surprise resulting from the difficulty of distinguishing between reflection and transparency, as differentiated visual fields. Still in the opinion of Aracy Amaral, his most recent works, which refer to modern architecture and reveal an illusionistic character, seem to indicate a new development in his production.
Fixes
Banco Itaú collection S.A. - São Paulo SP
Collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo/Brazil - São Paulo SP
Collection of the Pampulha Art Museum - MAP - Belo Horizonte MG
National Museum of Fine Arts - MNBA - Rio de Janeiro RJ
Criticism
"His initial works, small ironic objects, are a kind of 'three-dimensional design' since wood repeats the function of the line; now he seems to develop his work in the sense of seeking a more direct and less Literary with the concepts of contemporary art without losing, however, the ironic character that permeates its professional path".
marcus de ottern Costa
Costa, Marcus de Lontra. In: The Mountain and the Sea: Octaviano Moniz Barreto, Adrianne Gallinari, José Bento. Text by Marcus de Otter Costa. Salvador: MAM, 1992. n. P.
Individual exhibitions
1989 - Belo Horizonte MG - Individual, at Palácio das Artes, Sala Arlinda Corrêa
1992 - Belo Horizonte MG - Individual, at Pace Galeria
1993 - Ouro Preto MG - Individual, at Casa Guignard
1994 - Belo Horizonte MG - Individual, at Galeria Manoel Macedo
2001 - São Paulo SP - Individual, at Marília Razuk Art Gallery
2003 - Belo Horizonte MG - José Bento: Recent works, at Celma Albuquerque Art Gallery
2003 - São Paulo SP - José Bento: Recent works, at Marília Razuk Art Gallery
2004 - Belo Horizonte MG - José Bento, at MAP
Collective exhibitions
1988 - Belo Horizonte MG - 20th National Art Salon at the Belo Horizonte Art Museum
1989 - Belo Horizonte MG - 22nd National Art Salon, at the Belo Horizonte Art Museum
1990 - São Paulo SP - Prospecting 90, at the Subdistrict Gallery
1991 - Belo Horizonte MG - 23rd National Art Salon, at the Belo Horizonte Art Museum - Acquisition Award
1991 - Belo Horizonte MG - Prova dos Nine, at Companhia de Energia de Minas Gerais. Cultural Space Art Gallery
1991 - Belo Horizonte MG - Bonfim, in the grand gallery of the Palace of Arts
1991 - Belo Horizonte MG - Murilo Rubião Projeto Memória Viva, at Palácio das Artes
1991 - Brasília DF - 2nd National Salon of Brasília, at the Museum of Modern Art, of the Brazilian Institute of Culture - Travel to Brazil Award
1991 - Brasília DF - Brasília Award for Plastic Arts 1991/XII National Salon of Plastic Arts, at the Museu de Arte de Brasília
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Bonfim, at EAV/Parque Lage
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brasília Award for Plastic Arts 1991/XII National Salon of Plastic Arts, at Funarte
1992 - Salvador BA - The mountain and the sea, at MAM/BA
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 13th National Salon of Plastic Arts, at IBAC - Awarded
1993 - São Paulo SP - Meetings and Trends, at MAC/USP
1994 - Belo Horizonte MG - Abjectos, at the UFMG Cultural Center
1994 - Juiz de Fora MG - America, at UFJF
1994 - Ouro Preto MG - The virtual identity, at the da Inconfidência
1995 - São Paulo SP - Miningações - Ações de Mim, de Minas, Mineral/Mineering, at the LR Art Office
1996 - Brasília DF - Art and Urban Space: fifteen proposals, in the 5th Brasília Forum of Visual Arts, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Palace. Palácio do Itamaraty
1996 - Lisbon (Portugal) - five artists from Minas Gerais, at the monastery of Gerônimos
1996 - Madrid (Spain) - five artists from Minas Gerais, in the House of America
1997 - Belo Horizonte MG - 25th Belo Horizonte National Art Salon
1997 - Belo Horizonte MG - five artists from Minas Gerais, at Ponteio Lar Shopping
1997 - Belo Horizonte MG - Prospections: Art in the 80s and 90s, at Fundação Clovis Salgado. Palácio das Artes
1997 - Lima (Peru) - 1st Ibero-American Biennial
1997 - São Paulo SP - Diversity of contemporary Brazilian sculpture - Ministry of Culture/Itaú Cultural, on Avenida Paulista
1997 - São Paulo SP - Three-dimensionality in Brazilian art in the 20th century, at Itaú Cultural
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 16th National Salon of Plastic Arts, at MAM/RJ
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian sculpture: from the Pinacoteca to Jardim da Luz, at the Pinacoteca do Estado
2000 - São Paulo SP - Marcos Coelho Benjamim, José Bento and Fernando Lucchesi, at the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture
2001 - São Paulo SP - Arco das Rosas: Marchand as curator, at Casa das Rosas
2002 - Madrid (Spain) - ARCO/2002, at Parque Ferial Juan Carlos I
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Caminhos do Contemporânea 1952-2002, in Paço Imperial
2002 - São Paulo SP - 10 years Marília Razuk, at Marília Razuk Art Gallery
2002 - São Paulo SP - Amilcar de Castro and five artists from Minas Gerais, at Marília Razuk Art Gallery
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - BrazilianArt Project, at Almacén Art Gallery
2004 - Belo Horizonte MG - Pampulha, work collected: 1943-2003, at MAP
Source: Itaú Cultural
