Politically charged yet visually nostalgic, Amorim’s work depicts the historical and institutional construction of White male hegemony in the West. His practice is a reflection on the glorification of the normative Macho Man in the media, over the 20th Century, which also functioned as a form of Queer repression.
In his first major solo exhibition for a London based art gallery, Marcelo Amorim will present a retrospective that encapsulates over two decades of archival research resulting in a body of work composed of oil on canvas, prints and drawings. The artistic production draws on a collection of images extracted from newspapers, magazines, didactic books and the likes, appropriated to narrativize the historical, cultural and behavioural construction of the White, domineering male. After about two decades dedicated to building his national prominence, São Paulo-based Marcelo Amorim deserves this international solo show in a digital format that will ensure a far-reaching exposure.
Kalinca Costa Söderlund, the Chief-Curator of this Metaverse Art exhibition, is also the Director of Arrière-Garde. She has delved in her specialism in Brazilian art to outline the conceptual framework of the project. With a PhD in Brazilian art (University of Essex, 2018), she advocates that the political edge of art made in a country which both has rapidly moved from a dictatorial regime to an intense process of socio-economic globalisation, and possesses the cultural hybridity of an exceptionally diverse society, is unique and highly desirable in the international art market. Amorim’s art most certainly proves the point.
Kalinca firmly believes that the implications of today’s technology entail that our lives will increasingly diverge from the limitations of our bodies. Similarly, she also thinks that the implications of the Metaverse entail that curating must diverge from the limitations of the exhibition space. In this project, we are questioning the historically grounded practice of curating, which has heavily depended on the tyranny of the physicality of the exhibition premises. Curating in the Metaverse can mean much more than assigning meaning to artworks through a narrative that abides by the material configuration of the premises that will contain them. Hence, in this project, is the (virtual) space that is curated and idealised to match the qualities of a body of art works; not the other way around.
Marcelo Amorim said: “This is an incredibly exciting project for me and the most cutting edge way of having my work seen globally and outside of Brazil. I think that the Metaverse opens new and effective ways of reaching audiences across the Planet, and that it is allowing artists to have a cross-border visibility never seen before. We are certainly experiencing the digitalisation of the art market; a revolution that is far bigger than the biennalisation of our sector in the 1990s and that will benefit artists in a more inclusive way. When Arrière-Garde’s invitation to be the artist for the launch of its Metaverse Exhibition Programme came, I was thrilled. I have known Kalinca, Arrière-Garde’s Director since she came to my studio in São Paulo in 2018, and I find her transdisciplinary, collaborative, and technological approach to the art world not only exciting, but also a very innovative way of envisioning the future of the art world.”
Kalinca Costa Söderlund said: “The virtual format of the show will allow people from all over the world to experience Amorim’s art from anywhere. We are proud of launching Amorim on Spatial, a Metaverse platform that has about 50k monthly visitors in the UK and 340k in the US, with about 35% of its age demographics in the 24-35 years old bracket: the one in which a new tech-savvy, curious, democratic, open-minded, ecological, and ethically and politically engaged generation of collectors is mushrooming. All the paintings, prints and drawings on show can be purchased online through Arrière-Garde’s Salerooms, as well as a wider selection of items which corroborate the artist’s visual narrative. Our aim is to question and revise curatorial practice according to the unprecedented languages and possibilities that technology has brought about, to explore new visual media based on technological advancement, to reach a larger and more diverse audience, and to give collectors the opportunity to discover talent based in non-mainstream geographical locations.”
The exhibition project will be accompanied by the publication of an online catalogue, with critical essay by Kalinca Costa Söderlund, which can be found on Arrière-Garde’s Website from the 25th of February 2023 onwards.
