Macaparana (PE 1952)
Macaparana is a painter, designer and sculptor. Self-taught, José de Souza Oliveira Filho began his career as a figurative painter. He held his first individual show in Recife, in 1970, at the gallery of the Pernambuco Tourism Company (Empetur). In 1972, he moved to Rio de Janeiro and, in 1973, to São Paulo, where he settled definitively. For about ten years, he exhibited ex-voto-themed works in the two cities. In 1983, contact with Willys de Castro (1926–1988), an exponent of neoconcretism, was decisive for the change in his artistic production. He participated in the 21st São Paulo International Biennial in 1991.
Its individual and collective exhibitions have already been held in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Brasília, Mexico, Japan, New York and London. In 2009, he held an individual exhibition of sculptures, paintings and drawings at Galeria Cayón, in Madrid, and participated in the collective Materia Gris, in the same gallery. 1970, Macaparana performs paintings aimed at the aridity of its native region - the Pernambuco hinterland. Subsequently, he gains strength in his painting the theme of the ex-voto. This object of devotion, however, is not taken as a metaphor for Northeastern religiosity, not even as a manifestation of Brazilian archaic behavior, as pointed out by the critic Olívio Tavares de Araújo, but as a volume of wood whose textures enchant the artist. Gradually, the ex-voto theme is abandoned and Macaparana starts to reproduce only the textures of wood on the screen, in an increasing process of geometrization. At the same time, his interest in building volumes by using leftovers from this material arises. In relation to these works, the critic Frederico Morais evaluates that the artist manages to remove from the poverty of the material all his poetic and constructive strength, working with sidings, construction remains and deteriorated furniture. By joining these fragments or wood chips in a new order, it maintains the original colors and textures, which is left of old paint layers, irregularities and damage, as if it wanted to capture a temporal dimension in these residues of an urban archeology. The encounter with the work of Willys de Castro (1926-1988) represents an inflection in the work of the artist from Pernambuco. Thus begins a new phase in his career, of frank dialogue with neoconcretism, in which the segments of lines and the most elementary forms predominate, such as the triangle, the rectangle and the square. Staying in the field of geometry, Macaparana expands the range of materials used when working with polystyrene, acrylic and steel from the 2000s. to perfection. The background of these paintings also appeared to be wooden plates with their grooves, veins and nodules. It was a painting at the same time exquisite (in technique) and barbaric in the expression. Macaparana paintings. (...) The paintings are geometric constructions, structured with rigor and aiming at a set of planes and levels determined by the tonal variation of colors. imitation of wood, although without the imitative concern of the previous phase. The reliefs are made of even wood, remains of works, chips, fragments, sometimes with the color they had in the siding or the undone object".
Ferreira Gullar
GULLAR, Ferreira. Reunion with childhood: macaparana. that is, São Paulo, 8 May 1985.
"Macaparana (1952, Pernambuco) made a complete and pertinent journey with the evolution of contemporary art. But he experienced this path in himself and in a few years. He emerged as a very delicate painter of wild landscapes and, later, of wild figures. The only beings to populate this painting of desolation were lifeless beings. Death inhabited its painting through artificial characters or in disintegration. Of these characters in desolate landscapes, the artist He focused on the figure of the ex-voto. He gave the ex-voto the dubious role of an inorganic and lifeless character. Macaparana painted the Northeast as a world stripped of vital possibilities. stripped of vital existence. Of these ex-votos, inorganic and beautiful matter, Macaparana organized, with the composition of the work, a delicate constructive network to make it the very essence of painting. memories. And this construction yes, for the first time, full of life."
Jacob Klintowitz
Klintowitz, Jacob. The craft of art: painting. São Paulo, Sesc, 1987.
Corps
Brazilian Art Museum (MAB/FAAP) - São Paulo SP
Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC/USP) - São Paulo SP
Museum de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP) - São Paulo SP
Museum of Modern Art (MAM/SP) - São Paulo SP
Pinacoteca do Estado (Pesp) - São Paulo SP
Individual exhibitions
1970 - Recife PE - Individual, Empetur Gallery
1971 - Recife PE - Individual, Empetur Gallery
1972 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, Galeria Velha Mansion
1974 - Recife PE - Individual, Gallery Nega Fulô
1975 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Galeria Portal
1979 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Centro Campestre do Sesc
1979 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Museum of Art of São Paulo
1980 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Seta Gallery
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Macaparana: Paintings, Bonino Gallery
1983 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Galeria Mônica Filgueiras de Almeida Art Gallery
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Macaparana: Paintings and reliefs, Galeria Bonino
1985 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Brazilian Art Museum
1986 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Mônica Filgueiras de Almeida Galeria de Art
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Macaparana: Sculptures and reliefs, Bonino Gallery
1987 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Sesc Pompéia
1988 - São Paulo SP - Macaparana - Paintings Recents, Mônica Filgueiras de Almeida Art Gallery
1989 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Sala Mira Schendel
1991 - São Paulo SP - Individual, São Paulo Museum of Art
1994 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Pinacoteca do Estado
2000 - São Paulo SP - Macaparana: Recent Works, Dan Galeria
2002 - Campinas SP - Macaparana: Drawings and Paintings, Unicamp/IA Art Gallery
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, Double Art Gallery
2004 - São Paulo SP - Individual, Dan Galeria
2009 - Madrid (Spain) - Individual, Galería Cayón
2010 - São Paulo SP - Macaparana: Shapes Cut, Dan Galeria
2010 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Individual, Jorge Mara-La Ruche
2011 - Paris (France) - Individual, Galerie Denise René
Collective exhibitions
1972 - London (United Kingdom) - Collective, Portal Gallery
1973 - London (United Kingdom) - Collective, Williams & Son Gallery
1973 - São Paulo SP - 10 fantastic trend artists, at Sobrado Galerias de Arte
1984 - Mexico City (Mexico) - 4th Ibero-American Art Biennial - Guest Artist
1984 - São Paulo SP - Collective, Mokiti Okada Foundation
1985 - São Paulo SP - Collective, São Paulo Museum of Art
1985 - Tokyo (Japan) - 7th Fine Arts Exhibition Brazil-Japan, Mokiti Okada Foundation
1986 - São Paulo SP - 4th São Paulo Contemporary Art Salon, Biennial Foundation
1986 - São Paulo SP - Collective, São Paulo Museum of Art
1987 - Brasília DF - Paulistas in Brasília, Brasília Art Museum
1987 - São Paulo SP - 18 Contemporaries, Dan Galeria
1987 - São Paulo SP - The craft of art: painting, Sesc
1988 - São Paulo SP - MAC 25 years: Acquisitions and recent donations, Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo
1991 - São Paulo SP - 21st International Biennial of São Paulo, Bienal Foundation
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Constructive Trends In the MAC USP collection: construction, measure and proportion, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil
1996 - São Paulo SP - Collection Show, Sudameris Galleria
1997 - La Paz (Bolivia) - Contemporary Brazilian Art, Espaço Simón i. Patiño
1997 - Quito (Ecuador) - Contemporary Brazilian Art, Kingman Arts Foundation
1997 - São Paulo - SP - Dimensions of Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo
1997 - São Paulo SP - Contemporary collection at the Pinacoteca, Pinacoteca do Estado
1998 - São Paulo SP - 2nd Art Electromedia: Virtual Exhibition, Avenida Cidade Jardim x Avenida Brigadeiro Faria Lima
1998 - São Paulo SP - Recent donations 97/98, at the Museum of Modern Art
1998 - São Paulo SP - featured works, Dan Galeria
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - BrazilianArt Project, Almacén Art Gallery
2003 - São Paulo SP - ARTICLES: 70 years USP, Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo
2004 - São Paulo SP - Brazilians, Brazilians, Afro-Brazilian Museum
2005 - Curitiba PR - Art in Metropolis, Oscar Museum Niemeyer
2005 - São Paulo SP - Art in Metropolis, Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2006 - São Paulo SP - Brasiliana Masp: Modern Contemporary, São Paulo Museum of Art
2009 - Madrid (Spain) - 28th arco
2009 - Madrid (Spain) - Materia Gris, Galería Cayón
2009 - São Paulo SP - 40th Chapel Art Show, Escola Maria immaculate - Chapel School
2009 - São Paulo SP - white & Preto, Galeria Daslu
2010 - São Paulo SP - 6th SP-Arte, Bienal Foundation
2011 - São Paulo SP - 7th SP-Arte, Bienal Pavilion
Source: Itaú cultural
