Exhibition by Master Engraver Gilvan Samico to Open This Weekend in NYC

The work of Gilvan Samico will be the theme of the exhibition "Samico Between Worlds - Rumors of War in Times of Peace" presented by Dream Box Art Lab in the city's Lower East Side, curated by Marcio Harum, from February 4th to March 5th.

Focusing on the metaphysics of Samico's Brazilian engraver artwork in 14 woodcuts, the exhibit will start on february 4th and will be open for visitation until March 5th, introducing the local public to the oeuvre of one of the most important Latin American artists, whose career comprises 300 exhibitions in 30 different countries, awards in the Venice Biennale and works acquired by NYC MoMA.

Born in Recife, Northeastern Brazil, Samico has been "rediscovered" since his death in 2013 by means of various solo and collective exhibitions throughout Brazil, including all the latest biennials that took place in the country. His work stands out and differentiates from his peers due to its universality. Tapping from legends and myths and reinventing the popular arts of his birthplace by adding elements and themes from many other cultures, Samico has touched - according to himself and some critics - what Jung called the "Collective Unconscious," a kind of common knowledge shared between human beings that is contained in legends, imagery and symbols from different cultures: "Some people around here ask me about my fascination for Egyptian art, because they see Egyptian influences in my prints. I've got nothing to say [in return]. Unless it is a part of my experience of The Collective Unconscious, I do not know. It's as if these are old stories that repeat themselves in [our] genes until they reach me. A certain critic once said that my woodcutting is presently impregnated with the essential symbols of popular culture. I think he is right." - Samico quoted by Tânia Nogueira in the book "Mythology and Cordel".

For Júlia Rebouças, curator of the last São Paulo Biennial where 51 artworks by Samico were presented, there was enormous repercussion among the Biennial public and this evidentiated the contemporaneity of the artist: "Samico is very 'current' and his work is very much universal. It had a huge impact on the public and international curators." Reports from the Biennial mediators are: "I followed an approach that I found very interesting and beautiful, which was to ask the [visiting] group what nationality they thought the artist was from. I think it is a beautiful approach when we think that Samico with his prints takes us back to archetypical, "original", symbolic references that could have been from anywhere in the world, from just any remote past (...) The visitors often associate them to card decks and Egyptian drawings. Also to religious narratives and feminism."

Considered to be one of the icons of the Movimento Armorial, which sought to create a Brazilian art that would stem from the indigenous, African and European elements that had founded the culture from his birthplace, Samico got a more authoral interpretation of this universe in the later works presented in the NY exhibition: "Please understand, I don't do illustration work. I am tapping from legend to create a new world", Samico declared to press in 2011.

To highlight the theme of the exhibit, Marcio Harum - who has been in charge of the São Paulo Cultural Center's curatorship , one of the most important venues for contemporary art in Brazil, for the last four years - added scheduled tarot readings to the exhibit program. The idea is to evidentiate the recurring identification of Samico's work with the aesthetic of tarot cards, and connect it to the practice of the artist's widow, D. Célida Samico, a ballerina and yoga teacher who also reads the tarot.

With the production of Grupo Om, Dream Box Lab Art and Juliana Freire, the exhibit is presented at 319 Grand Street, Lower East Side, a "pop-up" gallery in New York's most important visual arts district, close to the New Museum, The Tenement Museum and other 40 galleries.

Further information at info@dreambox.nyc, www.dreambox.nyc, and www.samico.art.br.

IF YOU GO:

Exhibition "Samico Between Worlds"

Ffebruary 4th until March 5th

At 319 Grand Street - Lower East Side - New York City

Contact/Information: info@dreambox.nyc