Ana Maria Tavares finds inspiration in the architecture of the modern city, particularly the stylistic grammar of Oscar Niemeyer and other utopian modernist Brazilian architects who have transformed urban Brazil in the post World War II years. She employs materials such as steel, glass, and mirrors, often alluding to building interiors and product design, to make structures that occupy the border between design and fine art. Airports and departure lounges—places that symbolize exit from everyday life—are a recurrent theme in her work, evoking feelings relating to floating and falling, meditating, and the co-existence of the real and virtual.
The centerpiece of this exhibition is her four-sided immersive video, Airshaft (to Piranesi), 2008, comprising sequences of elaborate interiors as seen from multiple perspectives in constant motion.
Tavares’s immersive video is accompanied by Nashville composer Brian Siskind’s Niterói, water that hides. This sonic collage brings together mid-century/post-war orchestral vinyl, recontextualized into a dark, deep, and teeming sound environment.
This exhibition is organized by the Frist Art Museum and curated by Frist Art Museum Chief Curator Mark Scala.
Location: Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery
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