Rubem Grilo (Pouso Alegre MG 1946)
Printmaker, illustrator, teacher, curator.
In 1963, Rubem Campos Grilo moves to Itaguaí, Rio de Janeiro, and at 23 completes a degree in agronomy at the Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro - UFRRJ. In 1970, he studies woodcut with José Altino (1946) at the Escolinha de Arte do Brasil, in Rio de Janeiro. The following year, he begins to frequent the Iconography Section of the Biblioteca Nacional, where he discovers the prints of Oswaldo Goeldi (1895 - 1961), Lívio Abramo (1903 - 1992) and Marcelo Grassmann (1925 - 2013), among others. During this period, he takes a woodcut course at the Escola de Belas Artes of UFRJ under the guidance of Adir Botelho (1932). On visits to the studio of Iberê Camargo (1914 - 1994), he receives lessons in intaglio printmaking and, at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage - EAV/Parque Lage, studies lithography with Antonio Grosso (1935). In the early 1970s, he illustrates newspapers such as Opinião, Movimento, Versus, Pasquim and Jornal do Brasil. For the Folha de S. Paulo, he creates illustrations for the installments of the Retrato do Brasil [Portrait of Brazil] collection. In 1985, he publishes the book Grilo: Xilogravuras [Grilo: Woodcuts], through Circo Editorial. In 1990, he wins a prize at Xylon International, in Switzerland. In 1998, he takes part in the 24th São Paulo International Biennial with a special room and, the following year, is chief curator of the Mostra Rio Gravura. His work has been published in specialized magazines such as Graphis and Who's Who in Graphic Art (Switzerland), Idea (Japan) and Print (United States).
Critical Commentary
In the 1970s and 1980s, woodcut emerges for Rubem Grilo not as a merely aesthetic or formal choice, but as a technique with popular reach that allows him to act politically. In keeping with this ideal is his decision to illustrate periodicals and to work with themes from Brazilian daily life, such as the military dictatorship, bureaucracy, social security, the Constituent Assembly and the political system. In this choice of subject, Grilo seeks a direct communication in which political criticism is heightened by the closeness of text and image, as in Burocracia [Bureaucracy], 1979, Relações de Trabalho [Labor Relations], 1980, Sociedade Civil [Civil Society], 1983, and Golpe Militar [Military Coup], 1984. The fine, contrasting line transfigures and re-creates vigorous forms that fill every space of the plane, allowing no vanishing point that might draw the reader's eye away from the image.
In the 1990s, once the years of military repression have passed, Rubem Grilo stops illustrating periodicals. In his new independent output, social criticism remains, but his attention turns to graphic simplicity. The ironic ambiguity of the series Obra Menor [Minor Work] reflects a concern with detail, present in objects depicted at reduced scale, measuring just a few centimeters. In this series, Grilo raises questions by displacing the function of objects. In Relógio [Clock], 7 x 5.5 cm, 1994, for example, he replaces the circular order of the numbers with a spiral one. In doing so, he alters the logic of the object and acts as a would-be scientist proposing reflections on the measurement of time and its importance in everyday life.
Critiques
"A fact: through Grilo, contemporary Brazilian woodcut recovers its greatest dimension within the tradition established by the work of Oswaldo Goeldi. This dimension - that of the masterful oeuvre - which today becomes increasingly evident when one appreciates Rubem Grilo's work, results from a creative process in which productive intensity has managed to establish the difficult but possible balance between invention and intelligibility. Creation, in Rubem Grilo's prints, is a time of image construction/deconstruction in which the continuous composing/decomposing/recomposing of the work establishes the basic premise of mastery: eternal learning. Making the work to learn from the work, says Grilo, placing himself in the perplexity of the eternal apprentice before the mystery of creation. This perplexity, far from diminishing, only tends to intensify in the growing complexity of a body of work that has managed, in its specific tension, to preserve its commitment to invention without falling into hermeticism."
George Kornis
KORNIS, George. Apresentação do livro Grilo xilogravuras. In: IMAGEM gráfica. Rio de Janeiro: Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, 1995. p. 152.
"It is in another space, between investment and dissolution, that Rubem Grilo's work will now be projected. Dispersion is a way of keeping the personal relationship with time, the flow of action, cohesive, while at the same time decentering it in the images, eliding the seduction of virtuosity and the excess of investment in a single work. It is in this territory that Grilo's woodcuts would have to find their new poetics. It is between two extremes of his graphic action - the highly detailed image or the simple images - that Rubem Grilo reconfirms Riva Castleman's statement that there were few stylistic changes in black-line images, so that their medieval character represented a timeless element without conscious artistic intent. 'I repeat a gesture that has already been exhausted millions and millions of times,' says Rubem Grilo. (...) At times Rubem Grilo seems to work as if words were lacking for a universe and it were necessary to make it present in an image. It is as if Grilo thought with the engraving knife, thought by engraving. Thinking would be a cut in the block."
Paulo Herkenhoff
HERKENHOFF, Paulo. Rubem Grilo: caminhos da razão. In: GRILO, Rubem. Arte menor: xilogravuras. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 1996. p. 5-9.
"Producing neither portraits nor caricatures, Grilo presents types, characters who operate graphically juxtaposed in a scene, which in turn is juxtaposed to the textual narration. In the juxtapositions of his scenes, figures and objects intensify the narrative through enumeration or accumulation: emphatic, the figures are graphically burst open by disproportion in the drawing and in the lights that make them massive yet fragile, cracked by incisive lines and lashed by displacing forces. The exacerbation of destructive forces contradicts the compactness of the figures which, the scenes being static, appear exploded within themselves. These effects are reinforced by lines that, outside the figures, draw rapid movements, as in comics, whose mark on Grilo's work is also confirmed by his use of speech balloons. Ferocious, the humor is that of a chewed laugh, which beckons while repelling, with which Grilo addresses his viewers.
Although some of his prints extend those made for periodicals, Grilo gives new meaning to his choice of wood: a superseded art, woodcut brings nothing experimental, for in the incision it digs a subjective deepening. In him, external novelty - that of experimental printmaking, say mixed media - flees, being understood as static from the subject's perspective, which immobilizes all technicism: hence woodcut, as something simple and traditional, is no more than a docile instrument of an absolute subjectivity. For Rubem Grilo, Antonio Henrique Amaral or Anna Carolina, the low prestige of woodcut, whether in the market or through technical prejudice, can favor subjectivity. In Grilo, this accelerates to the maximum as an incessant search of the self by the self. The Grilo-subject keeps emerging ever different, because ever more Grilo: the centering of the subject and the circumference of the print are forever fixed; the thought of Nicholas of Cusa, for whom center and circumference are everywhere and nowhere, is therefore inapplicable. As with Antonio Henrique Amaral, Rubem Grilo raises the difficult question of the way out of political printmaking: the former does so through painting, in which allegory ends up rotting; the latter, through the fixing of a center that accelerates as the identity of the self."
Leon Kossovitch e Mayra Laudanna
KOSSOVITCH, Leon; LAUDANNA, Mayra. Sobre o político. In: GRAVURA: arte brasileira do século XX. Apresentação Ricardo Ribenboim; texto Leon Kossovitch, Mayra Laudanna, Ricardo Resende. São Paulo: Itaú Cultural: Cosac & Naify, 2000. p. 13.
Testimonials
"Art's great achievement was to become aware of its intrinsic questions, of things that concern art alone. But, on the other hand, it is complicated to reduce all art to forms, colors, lines. Because, in expressing themselves, certain people convey their life experience. I think it comes down to authenticity, to being true to oneself and fulfilling oneself according to one's particular needs. I am conditioned by a certain kind of culture and, at the same time, I try to grow within it. What I have been doing so far is answering this question. Taking a highly critical view of my process while knowing that the path has to go where I feel my ground. (...)
Some of my works come close to Expressionism. When one says Expressionism, the reference is German Expressionism, the great hall in which that language became universally known.
If you think of Expressionism not only as a representation of exacerbated, anguished images, but above all as a poetics of the self, an individual poetics in which the artist breaks away from the collective and becomes, in action and thought, a person, the consciousness of the self - then I would say that my work has to do with Expressionism. But, on the other hand, I do not force myself to be an Expressionist as an aesthetic option. (...)
The press was the beginning of maturity. Work only begins when you discover a reason in it. It is not when you make a drawing, it is when that drawing turns into something meaningful. From the 1970s, for fifteen years, I contributed to the alternative press, which was a vehicle of opposition to Brazil's military governments. That trench in a way deepened the urgency of the work. From 1973 to 1975 I published in the weekly Opinião, and from 1975 to 1979 in the newspaper Movimento. From 1980 to 1982 I published in the Folha de S.Paulo, in a section called Folhetim. And I made small contributions to Jornal do Brasil, O Globo, O Pasquim, Versus - in short, all kinds of press. My last contribution was a collection of installments called Retratos do Brasil [Portraits of Brazil], an assessment of what the country went through during the military period.
And throughout all that time I kept, as a point of honor, the habit of making woodcuts precisely to distinguish them from a form appropriated by the press. Gradually, my work became slower and more complex."
Rubem Grilo
Senac Nacional 1999
GRILO, Rubem. Gravura, linguagem e vida. In: OFICINAS: gravura. Rio de Janeiro: SENAC, 1999. p. 113-118.
Solo Exhibitions
1972 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - First solo exhibition, at Marina Lima Presentes
1973 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria Atelier
1981 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at EAV/Parque Lage
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1983 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Sesc Pompeia
1984 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Espace Latino-Américain
1984 - Vitória ES - Rubem Grilo: xilogravuras [Rubem Grilo: Woodcuts], at Ufes. Galeria de Arte e Pesquisa
1985 - Curitiba PR - Solo, at Casa da Gravura Solar do Barão
1985 - Joinville SC - Solo, at Museu de Arte de Joinville
1985 - Porto Alegre RS - Solo, at Margs
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Funarte. Galeria Sérgio Milliet
1986 - Brasília DF - Solo, at Galeria Oswaldo Goeldi
1986 - Campinas SP - Solo, at Galeria Aquarela
1986 - Cuiabá MT - Solo, at Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso. Instituto de Linguagens
1986 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Suzanna Sassoun
1989 - Asunción (Paraguay) - Solo, at Centro de Estudos Brasileiros
1992 - São Paulo SP - Arte Menor [Minor Art], at Masp
1993 - Brasília DF - Solo, at Espaço Cultural 508 Sul
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Rubem Grilo: xilogravuras [Rubem Grilo: Woodcuts], at EAV/Parque Lage
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Rubem Grilo: xilogravuras [Rubem Grilo: Woodcuts], at UERJ. Centro de Educação e Humanidades
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Arte Menor: xilogravuras [Minor Art: Woodcuts], at CCBB
1997 - Belo Horizonte MG - Solo, at Galeria Guignard
1997 - Vitória ES - Solo, at Ufes. Galeria de Arte e Pesquisa
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Pensar Gráfico [Graphic Thinking], at Paço Imperial
1998 - Salvador BA - Solo, at MAM/BA
1999 - Florianópolis SC - Solo, at Masc
2000 - Novo Hamburgo RS - Solo, at Centro Universitário Feevale
2000 - Pelotas RS - Solo, at Museu de Arte Leopoldo Gotuzzo
2000 - Porto Alegre RS - Arte Menor: xilogravuras [Minor Art: Woodcuts], at Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana. Galeria Sotéro Cosme
2001 - Fortaleza CE - Arte Menor: xilogravuras [Minor Art: Woodcuts], at Mauc
2004 - Passo Fundo RS - Rubem Grilo: Coleção Paulo Dalacorte [Rubem Grilo: Paulo Dalacorte Collection], at Museu de Artes Visuais Ruth Schneider
2004 - Recife PE - Arte Menor [Minor Art], at UFPE. Instituto de Arte Contemporânea. Centro Cultural Benfica
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at Anita Schwartz Galeria
Group Exhibitions
1972 - Capri (Italy) - 2nd Triennale Internazionale della Xilografia Contemporanea [International Triennial of Contemporary Woodcut] - acquisition prize
1972 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 21st National Salon of Modern Art, at MEC
1972 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4th Summer Salon, at MAM/RJ
1973 - Niterói RJ - 2nd Visual Arts Show of the State of Rio de Janeiro
1973 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 22nd National Salon of Modern Art
1973 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 5th Summer Salon, at MAM/RJ
1974 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Grafikos, at Livraria Carlitos
1976 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Arte Gráfica na Imprensa [Graphic Art in the Press], at ABI
1976 - São Paulo SP - Exhibition with illustrators from the newspaper Movimento, at Aliança Francesa
1982 - Curitiba PR - 5th Curitiba Annual Printmaking Show, at Casa da Gravura Solar do Barão
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 5th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ - acquisition prize
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 6th Rio Art Salon, at Estação Carioca do Metrô
1982 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Universe of Football, at MAM/RJ
1983 - Curitiba PR - Printmaking Salon - 1st prize
1983 - Mexico - 31 Artistas Gráficos Brasileiros [31 Brazilian Graphic Artists]
1983 - Colombia - 31 Artistas Gráficos Brasileiros [31 Brazilian Graphic Artists]
1983 - Montevideo (Uruguay) - 1st Ibero-American Printmaking Biennial, at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo - special foreign travel prize
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 6th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ
1983 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 7th Rio Art Salon, at Estação Carioca do Metrô
1983 - São Paulo SP - Exhibition on Human Rights, at CCSP
1983 - Taipei (Taiwan) - 1st International Biennial Print Exhibition, at Taipei Fine Arts Museum
1984 - Brno (Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic) - 11th Biennial of Graphic Design
1984 - Curitiba PR - 6th Curitiba City Printmaking Show. Woodcut in the History of Brazilian Art, at Casa Romário Martins - award winner
1984 - Fortaleza CE - 7th National Visual Arts Salon
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 7th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ - award winner
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Face and the Work, at Galeria do Ibeu Copacabana
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - O Universo da Xilogravura [The Universe of Woodcut], at Funarte. Centro Nacional de Folclore e Cultura Popular
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Woodcut in the History of Brazilian Art, at Funarte. Galeria Sérgio Milliet
1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th Rio Art Salon, at Estação Carioca do Metrô
1984 - São Paulo SP - 15th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Art Construction: 21 Contemporary Artists, at Galeria do Centro Empresarial Rio
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th National Visual Arts Salon, at MAM/RJ
1985 - São Paulo SP - 18th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1986 - Bogotá (Colombia) - 5th American Biennial of Graphic Arts
1986 - Bogotá (Colombia) - Nuevos Nombres: 4 artistas brasileños [New Names: 4 Brazilian Artists], at Banco de La República. Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango
1987 - Berlin (Germany) - Intergrafik: Internationale Biennale der Grafik - 3rd prize
1987 - Brasília DF - Missions 300 Years: The Artist's View, at Teatro Nacional Cláudio Santoro
1987 - Campinas SP - 1st International Printmaking Biennial, at MACC
1987 - Porto Alegre RS - Missions 300 Years: The Artist's View, at UFRGS. Centro Cultural
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Missions 300 Years: The Artist's View, at EAV/Parque Lage
1987 - São Paulo SP - Missions 300 Years: The Artist's View, at Masp
1987 - Taipei (Taiwan) - 3rd International Biennial Print Exhibition, at Taipei Fine Arts Museum
1988 - Brno (Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic) - 13th Biennial of Graphic Design
1988 - Curitiba PR - 8th Curitiba City Printmaking Show. Adir Botelho and Rubem Grilo, at Museu de Arte do Paraná
1988 - Porto Alegre RS - Missions 300 Years: The Artist's View
1988 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Missions 300 Years: The Artist's View, at EAV/Parque Lage
1988 - São Paulo SP - Missions 300 Years: The Artist's View, at Masp
1989 - Belo Horizonte MG - 21st UFMG Winter Festival
1989 - Havana (Cuba) - 3rd Havana Biennial
1989 - Ljubljana (Yugoslavia - now Slovenia) - 18th International Print Biennial, at Moderna Galerija Ljubljana
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Printmaking: 4 Themes, at EAV/Parque Lage
1990 - Amadora (Portugal) - 2nd Print Biennial
1990 - Berlin (Germany) - Intergrafik: Internationale Triennale Grafik
1990 - Biella (Italy) - Premio Internazionale Biella per l'Incisione
1990 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Encuentro de Grabado Latinoamericano
1990 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Armadilhas Indígenas [Indigenous Traps], at Funarte
1990 - São Paulo SP - Armadilhas Indígenas [Indigenous Traps], at Masp
1990 - Tuzla (Yugoslavia, now Bosnia and Herzegovina) - 6th International Biennial Exhibition of Portrait, Drawings and Graphics
1990 - Winterthur (Switzerland) - 11th Xylon: International Triennial Exhibition of Artists' Relief Printing - 2nd prize
1991 - Campinas SP - Imaginário Popular [Popular Imagination], at Galeria Aquarela de Arte Contemporânea
1991 - São José do Rio Pardo SP - Imaginário Popular [Popular Imagination], at Museu Rio Pardense
1992 - Curitiba PR - 10th Curitiba City Printmaking Show. Mostra América, at Museu da Gravura (Curitiba, PR)
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Fine Art Printmaking in Brazil: A Proposal for Mapping, at CCBB
1993 - Biella (Italy) - 12th Premio Internazionale Biella per l'Incisione
1993 - Helsinki (Finland) - International Print Triennial, at Alvar Aalto Museum
1993 - João Pessoa PB - Woodcut: From Cordel to the Gallery, at Funesc
1993 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Brazilian Matrices and Prints: Guita and José Mindlin Collection, at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
1994 - Belgrade (Yugoslavia - now Serbia and Montenegro) - 3rd Print Biennial Belgrade
1994 - Mexico City (Mexico) - 9th Ibero-American Art Biennial
1994 - São Paulo SP - Woodcut: From Cordel to the Gallery, at Metrô
1995 - Belo Horizonte MG - Imagem Derivada: um olhar acerca do desdobramento da gravura hoje [Derived Image: A Look at the Unfolding of Printmaking Today], at MAP
1995 - Biella (Italy) - Premio Internazionale Biella per L'Incisione
1996 - Mexico City (Mexico) - 10th Ibero-American Art Biennial
1996 - Winterthur (Switzerland) - 13th Xylon: International Triennial Exhibition of Artists' Relief Printing
1997 - Barra Mansa RJ - Contemporary Lines: Tribute to Brazilian Printmaking, at Centro Universitário de Barra Mansa
1997 - Kraków (Poland) - International Print Triennial
1997 - Curitiba PR - Contemporary Printmaking, at Museu Metropolitano de Arte de Curitiba
1997 - Irving (United States) - Contemporary Brazilian Prints, at University of Dallas. Haggar Art Gallery
1997 - Ljubljana (Slovenia) - 22nd International Biennial of Graphic Art
1997 - Odessa (United States) - Contemporary Brazilian Prints, at Gallery at The University of Texas of the Permian Basin
1997 - Plano (United States) - Contemporary Brazilian Prints, at Collin County Community College. Spring Creek Art Gallery
1997 - Wichita Falls (United States) - Contemporary Brazilian Prints, at Midwestern State University Art Gallery
1998 - Abilene (United States) - Contemporary Brazilian Prints, at Abilene Christian University Shore Art Gallery
1998 - Baton Rouge (United States) - Contemporary Brazilian Prints, at Louisiana State University
1998 - Mexico City (Mexico) - 11th Ibero-American Art Biennial, at Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - A Imagem do Som de Caetano Veloso [The Image of the Sound of Caetano Veloso], at Paço Imperial
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Theory of Values, at MAM/RJ
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - A Imagem do Som de Caetano Veloso [The Image of the Sound of Caetano Veloso] (1998 : Rio de Janeiro, RJ) - Paço Imperial (Rio de Janeiro, RJ)
1998 - São Paulo SP - 24th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Collectors - Guita and José Mindlin: Matrices and Prints, at Galeria de Arte do Sesi
1998 - São Paulo SP - Theory of Values, at MAM/SP
1999 - Niterói RJ - Rio Printmaking Show. Banerj Collection, at Museu do Ingá
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Mostra Rio Gravura [Rio Printmaking Show] (curator). Guita e José Mindlin Collection, at Centro Cultural Correios
2000 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - 1st Argentine Biennial of Latin American Graphic Art, at Museo Nacional del Grabado
2000 - Hanover (Germany) - Expo 2000 Hannover
2000 - São Paulo SP - Investigations. Brazilian Printmaking, at Itaú Cultural
2001 - Brasília DF - Investigations. Brazilian Printmaking, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
2001 - Penápolis SP - Investigations. Brazilian Printmaking, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
2001 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Culture 1, at Casa das Rosas
2002 - Brasília DF - Fragments to Their Magnet, at Espaço Cultural Contemporâneo Venâncio
2002 - Passo Fundo RS - Prints: Paulo Dalacorte Collection, at Museu de Artes Visuais Ruth Schneider
2002 - Porto Alegre RS - Prints: Paulo Dalacorte Collection, at Museu do Trabalho
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Paths of the Contemporary 1952-2002, at Paço Imperial
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Art in Motion, at Espaço BNDES
2003 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Grande Orlândia: artistas abaixo da linha do equador [Greater Orlândia: Artists below the Equator]
2003 - São Paulo SP - Art and Society: A Controversial Relationship, at Itaú Cultural
2003 - São Paulo SP - MAC USP 40 Years: Contemporary Interfaces, at MAC/USP
Source: Itaú Cultural
