MON holds the third edition of "Affinities", an initiative that brings its collection closer to the public
The exhibition “Afinidades III – Cochicho” (Affinities III - Whispering) will open on November 22, the 22nd anniversary of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum. This is the third edition of a MON project, which began in 2021. Curated by Marc Pottier, contemporary artist Luiz Zerbini has selected works by five important names in Paraná art to be presented alongside his own in Room 7.
For the Secretary of State for Culture, Luciana Casagrande Pereira, "Afinidades III - Cochicho" reinforces the Oscar Niemeyer Museum's commitment to valuing the collection from Paraná and promoting dialogues between different generations of artists. "This is a project that brings the public closer to Paraná's rich cultural heritage, as well as creating new connections based on Luiz Zerbini's view of nature and the Brazilian and Paraná landscapes," she says.
"It's much more than an exhibition. This is the third edition of an important event organized by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, which aims to value and give visibility to its collection," explains MON's director, Juliana Vosnika.
She recalls that the first edition of the "Affinities" project invited artists from Paraná, or with a strong connection to our state, to immerse themselves in MON's collection. "From there, affinities emerged between works, artists and curators," she says.
The second edition, in 2022, brought together only women artists from different regions of Brazil, who immersed themselves in the Museum's permanent collection. "The female gaze of the guests gave the exhibition a great diversity of works, spanning different eras and themes. The result instigated and sensitized the viewer, based on different approaches," says Juliana.
This time, Zerbini has selected works by five important names in Paraná art that are in the MON collection: Guido Viaro, Miguel Bakun, Bruno Lechowski, Guilherme William Michaud and Theodoro de Bona. "In common, or by affinity, just like their works presented here, all the works chosen have nature as their theme," explains the director. "The result is surprising."
Curatorship
Luiz Zerbini's work includes 44 paintings, 11 watercolors and 12 monotypes. "With these works, he takes us into his intimacy," explains curator Marc Pottier. According to him, after visiting MON's collections, the artist decided to present for the first time what he calls "travel diaries": works of his in which nature is always the main theme.
"In MON's collection, Zerbini found landscape artists whose visions touched him," explains the curator. Pottier says that Zerbini was always attentive to this type of work, looking closely, for instance, at the mining landscapes of Guignard (1896-1962), the chromatic dialogues of the São Paulo artist Rodrigo Andrade (1962-), the seascapes of Pancetti (1902-1958), the works of the French landscape artist Corot (1796-1875) and the American artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910), known for his seascapes, among others.
"With 'Afinidades III - Cochicho', he brings to MON this delicate and intimate look at nature, thus creating a moment to stop and meditate before it's too late," says the curator.
The artist Luiz Zerbini explains that, for him, "cochicho" is a conversation between landscape artists who have spent many hours alone, in silence, painting, looking at nature, the horizon, the mountains and the Brazilian coast. "Whispering is an opportunity to give voice to silence," he says.
