Pop art brought back into the art scene certain representations that had been despised by modernism. By valuing the so called ‘negative avant-gardes’, young artists from then recovered figuration and established new relations between art and the industrial world through the aesthetics of publicity and communication. If, until then, art research had invested in concepts related to the avant-garde and, with this, they later fed the world of publicity and communication, as of the 60’s, this relation began to work both ways, in a dialogue of reciprocity. Half a century later, contemporary art began to incorporate these situations with aplomb, having heterodoxy as a formal, theoretical and instrumental reference. Therefore, the former spaces for the promotion of each sphere of visuality, having been so well-organized in the modern world, have been contaminated by the interference of distinct actors and behaviors, valuing diversity as the main source of discoveries of knowledge.

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While the official art system sought the production of artistic artifacts committed to the history of western art, justified by concepts of philosophical origin, muralism, graffiti, and street art stem from procedures based on communication. This occurs in the manipulation of identifiable figurative elements and in the creation of messages that can be recognized, which are identified by the spectator, triggering them through dissonance and surprises. This dialogue between areas, between distinct institutional spheres, between public and private, between collective visibility and the traditional system of museums and galleries, allows qualified actors to circulate among them, creating new adaptations of messages to different publics and situations. This permeability allows for the uprising of names that are internationally distinguished, which flirt with the market, such as Kobra e Os Gêmeos, in Brazil, and the extremely famous Basquiat and Bansky, within the international sphere.

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In Brazil, some artists who came from street art and from a popular standpoint, have been establishing themselves within the contemporary art scene day after day. This is the case of the artist Tinho, whose works have strong visual impact, associating, with precision, direct information from pop art with

 

impacting scenarios, world metaphors where fantasy, dreams, reality and impeccable technique coexist. Tinho’s work is this cauldron of information: Japan and Latin America, center and outskirts, manga and comics, which vigorously take in artistic and erudite references. The theme of the works presented by Tinho in this exhibit are oceans of toys, integrating an audacious project from the artist about the “7 Seas” which must be understood as elements deriving from reminiscence. Within this garden of delicacies elaborated by Tinho, a curious strategy of confrontation persists – dialectics that passes through time and its information. His toys, shreds of fabric that allude to artisanal work and precariousness, are strangely human, presenting themselves as a technological “éclat”, which is at the same time inspiring and provocative. They come in as counterpoints for their human figures, in which the presence of something less human is insinuated; a machine, a ghost, a mystery or – who knows- cyborgs? As a matter of fact, the artist’s strategy is echoed in artistic aspects initiated by Bosch, within the delirious sceneries of Eckhout all the way to Rousseau, and Salvador Dali, among so many others. Tinho’s oceans talk about a lost childhood, a Rosebud that burns in the flames of our memories, but which also precisely incorporates the perversity of a childhood that is not visited, of a cruel tenderness; tragic beauty. Thus are Tinho’s wild oceans, and the paths of art are full of sphinxes, of deserts and discoveries that only the adventurer can find. For that, it is necessary to be enchanted.

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"To sail is necessary, to live is not".

 

 

 

Marcus de Lontra Costa

curator