WORDS AS FLEETING MATTER. SHIRLY PAES LEME AT ZIELINKSY

From 05/11/2023 to 06/30/2023
Zielinksy
Barcelona, Spain

Zielinsky presents the exhibition Vestigios de los días (Vestiges of the days) of Shirly Paes Leme. The Brazilian artist's first solo show in Spain brings together a series of bronze sculptures and installations produced in recent years.

WORDS AS FLEETING MATTER. SHIRLY PAES LEME AT ZIELINKSY

Since the 1970s, the artist has produced works in different media, including installation, video, drawing, painting, sculpture and works in public spaces. Over the years, the artist has been interested in the trace of fleeting and fluid matter, such as smoke, light, soot, gunpowder, blood, pollen and fungi. For the exhibition Vestigios de los días, words are the fleeting matter, which are captured by the artist through writing and then turned into sculpture. By materializing these words in bronze, the artist gives them an embodied body, using a component that weaves a desire for permanence in time: bronze, a determining material in the history of sculpture and which offers excellent resistance to corrosion.

 

In the exhibition four pieces-installations are present: a series of sculptures of proper names that designate people identified with the female gender and, also contain a poetic bridge to other semantics: Estrella, Aurora, Pilar, Sol, Alma, Luz (Star, Aurora, Pilar, Sun, Soul, Light).

 

Phrases and words descend from the ceiling into the exhibition space; the artist resorts to literature and textos from her own writing, poetic fragments in English and Portuguese (Paes Leme's mother tongue) charged with a sublime dimensional sense: You poured stars on my way; O instante é semente viva.

 

Finally, Garranchos, a set of bronze sticks that compose, by means of scribbles, an enigmatic writing of a non-rational order and Vivir desconcierta, an installation constituted by a reflecting pavement in which the spectator is a participant of a writing executed in space, are exhibited. The image of this walking body multiplies along with the walls and the statement that confesses that living is a way of undoing order.

Shirley Paes Leme (1955, Cachoeira Dourada, Brazil) lives and works in São Paulo. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions and biennals, among them: Lausanne Biennial (1993); Bienal de Polonia (1995); Bienal del Mercosur, Brasil (1999, 2005); Bienal de La Habana, Cuba (2000); Fundación Calouste Gulbenkian, Portugal (2000); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlín, Alemania (1997); Musée d'art contemporain, Burdeos, Francia (2001); Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brasil (2007); Vale Museum, Vitória, Brasil (2012) entre otros.

 

Her work can be found in numerous public and private collections, such as: MAM-Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil; MAC-Museo de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil; National Museum in Aalborg, Denmark; Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Brazil; Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil; Gilberto Chateaubriand/Museo de Arte Moderna de Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Inhotim, Minas Gerais, Brazil; Museu de Arte de Brasília, Brazil; Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Ceará, Brazil; Patricia Cisneros, New York.

 

Vestigios de los días. Solo exhibition by Shirley Paes Leme.

 

Through June 30, 2023.

 

Zielinsky Gallery. Passatge Mercader 10, 08008 Barcelona, Spain.