O DESERTO AMERICANO
curated by Sol Camacho
2947 Rua da Consoloação SAO PAULO, BRAZIL
September 4 - 16 , 2018
With the classic tools of an architect, the artist Bruna Canepa combines landscape, geography and time on paper. Through easily recognizable elements of architecture - columns, windows, doors - she traces worlds that leaves the viewer thinking where that place might exist.
These places have already been seen, but it is not known whether here or far away; it is not distinguishable whether it is present, past or future.
The drawings depict fragments of architectures that are repeated throughout the American continent, pieces of culture - mainly North American - materialized in icons of the urban and suburban context that conform the landscape from Arizona to Atacama. A car or a person gives a scale reference to the modernist and neoclassical pillars that support generic roofs and neon signs, to window frames that show a distant horizon.
All these elements explore the material and symbolic construction of the continent. The architectural pieces are displaced from their origin to question the physical context in which they are found and also the meaning of the diverse appropriations that happen throughout the territory.
“Everything is there, I do not invent anything” says Bruna, describing the drawings she paints in the studio where she works in the center of São Paulo. Right by the Copan Building and the old Hilton, Bruna sketches in a notebook the preparatory plan of the small elements that later with rotring, airbrush, pen, paint, brushes, letraset, white sheets, translucent and colored papers transforms into fascinating architectural landscapes.
The exhibition includes a video installation by the artist Bruno Dicolla.