RENATO BEZERRADE MELLO

RENATO BEZERRA DE MELLOM a y 2 1 s t - J u n e 2 5 t h , 2 0 0 5

L E S H O W R O O M6, rue de Braque 75003 Par is

THE ARTIST p 1

SELECTION OF ART WORKS p 2

RESUME p 8

CONTACT INFORMATIONS p 9

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Renato Bezerra de Mello explores individualmythologies, like a poetical investigation of real andimaginary memories.

The artist collects words, images and objects. Hemanipulates them so as to appropriate them better.Like a memory maker, he seizes key moments thatlead to a story, his story, his family's, the Braziliansociety's history. Refusing to become a pale image, hefills his works with reminiscences, weaves a fictitiousmemory where dream and reality mingle. He createsimaginary diaries finding their source in buried secretsof his family intimacy, without ever trying to make orremake history.

His works rest on the desire to show without showing,to say without saying. He establishes a play onsecrets, considering the evidences are forgotten toosoon. He offers to the viewer clues to decipher hissigns and messages but leaves him actor of the work'smeaning.

Thus, each of his works echoes the viewer's ownexperience, playing on the confrontation betweenpersonal memory and collective conscience. RenatoBezerra de Mello is also sensitive to the question ofBrazil's memory. While working on his reminiscences,he tries to urge his country to restore hidden sides ofits history.

His works are tied the one to the other, each arisingfrom the previous. Nothing is lost. He exploits scrapsfrom his earlier pieces, nourishing an intentional link, acommon thread.

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BERÇO ESPLENDIDO, 2004Embroidery of red thread on a linen pillowcase. 60 x 60 cm.

On a pillowcase, Renato Bezerra de Mello embroidered with a red thread the waterways that run across South America withoutrespecting their orientation or the distances, as if he was drawing his own atlas, a love cartography confided in the bed'swarmth. Map of the continent's rivers or blood map of a loving heart that opens. The act of embroidering echoes those waitingfor their lovers who left to conquer the world, the heart tight and impatient, the heart crying.

VISIONARIOS / VISIONARIES, 2002Installation of 520 monocles (356 x 768 x 447 cm) hanging from the ceiling, with black andwhite slides.

The spectator is invited to wander through a shower of red and blue monocles, " hanging likea flight of birds ", and grab those within reach, stick an eye to it, thus discovering black andwhite portraits gleaned by the artist in the family albums. Renato Bezerra de Mello hasrecovered in Brazil those remains of an obsolete mode of representation, disappearing " littleobjects of popular vision " offered by itinerant photographers on markets and fairs to thoseunable to buy a camera. The artist replaced the images of Brazilian folklore by those of hisgrandparents, like an open door to his family memory. He plays on surprise effects and urgesthe viewer to become voyeur, peeping at his family's intimate secrets. He lets a feeling ofatemporality float, sending the spectator back to his own history. The monocles, asmemories, are more or less accessible, some close, others further. The work finds itsmeaning in the presence of absence, between showing and hiding, remembering andforgetting. The pictures chosen are the last marks of a lost era, remains of a great family ofRecife, sociological documents presented in makeshift cases. Thus Renato Bezerra de Mellobrings together two realities, a privileged family from Pernambuco and a trivial object ofpopular daily life.

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SOU PAI E AMIGO / I AM FATHER AND FRIEND, 2004Installation of 280 sheets of carbon paper hanged on the wall. Soundtrack.

Renato Bezerra de Mello received from his father, like a treasure to cherish, the correspondence his father wrote to hisgrandfather during his stay in the United States in the 40's. The artist decides to retranscribe these letters on sheets of carbonpaper with an old type-writer found in a Parisian flea-market. He intends the pages for his sisters, handing over piece by piecethe family story. The carbon paper and the type-writer are both objects fallen into disuse, giving to the work a taste of nostalgia.Nostalgia for a time that no longer is, but above all nostalgia for a trip in which he did not take part, for a complicity betweenfather and son he does not share. He interferes in the lines of a life he did not live, as if he was following an itinerary he willnever take. The carbon paper, fragile, suffers the violence of the keys that pierce it from time to time, rendering the readingchaotic, eroding the fluidity of the writing. The words disappear to reappear better, like a play between legible and illegible. Thespectator cannot satisfy his curiosity entirely, voyeuristic desire to penetrate in someone else's intimacy. He must choosebetween the frustration of not being able to decipher the sentences and the impulse of adding his own meaning, inventing astory. The installation comes with a soundtrack taking up the last sentence of the letters, " I am father and friend ". It is built asa variation on the same theme, " I am father and friend ; I am father and accomplice ; I am father and… ".

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DESLOCAMENTOS / DISPLACEMENTS, 2004Installation of 2000 sheets of cristal paper hanging from the ceiling. Soundtrack.

Deslocamentos is a vault of crystal sheets covered with imaginary shores and rivers, like the pages from an atlas of anotherworld. The sheets of paper are hanging like tight banderols echoing the banners in Brazilian popular festivals. This work arisesfrom Sou Pai e Amigo. The artist draws fantasized territories from memories borrowed to the correspondence between hisfather and his grandfather, thus creating the diary of a journey he will never go on, like a dream of paper. The spectator is invitedto raise his eyes and take hold of pieces of territories, stretch his arm and let his hand run between the sheets, thus makingarise the sound of the murmuring sea also broadcasted by a soundtrack.

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CORREIO AMOROSO / LOVE MAIL, 2003Installation of 52 squares of embroidered linen on hangers. Soundtrack.

The visitor is invited to wander between the squares of embroidered linen as in thepages of a diary, and thus, discover the artist's imaginary museum. The drawingsecho his repertoire of images nourished by the remnants of the daily, the Brazilianmemory and his personal universe: images as so many love words embroidered bythe artist in the secrecy of his studio. Renato Bezerra de Mello unveils and handsover, in a shameless gesture, his " love mail ". The title of the work echoes the loveletters passed on by homing pigeons, the installation being conceived for the Abbayedu Bon Repos where stands an old dovecot. It comes with a soundtrack broadcastingsounds and whispers from nature and snatches of conversations, reinforcing thesecret and intimate atmosphere violated by the presence of the spectator.

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CICATRIZ / SCAR, 2004Tarlatan and threads. 10 x 400 cm

Cicatriz is an extension of Love Mail. It is made with scraps of red thread sewn endto end on a tarlatan strip, thus creating a continuous and endless line, like theindelible trace of a love wound. The diaphanous fabric evokes the fragility of the skinmarked with an open scar.

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ESTRELAS DALVAS, 2003White gowns embroidered with red thread.

Renato Bezerra de Mello chants the name of those woman too often forgotten who, from generationin generation, have worked for his family. " Estrela Dalva ", the lucky star, represents the one whotakes care of others' well-being. Nilza, Dona Nena, Zétinha, as many names embroidered on a gown,as a tribute to those who shared the family intimacy, a final gesture of remembrance.

AUTOPORTRAIT IMAGINAIRE / IMAGINARY SELFPORTRAIT, 2004Video made from an argentic negative on a broken glass. Digitalized and worked-on negative.

The Imaginary Selfportrait arises from the picture of a relative, the oldest one the artist could find inthe family albums. Renato Bezerra de Mella sets down the face of his forebear as the original point,the one of a face - his - and of a story - his family's. The image unfolds slowly, so slowly the movementis imperceptible, letting believe in a still and fractured picture; the face can never be seen completely.

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RENATO BEZERRA DE MELLOBorn in 1960 in Recife, Brazil.Lives and works in Rio

BACKGROUND

2002 Mario et Marisa Merz's assistant for the preparation of their exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris.

2001 Cildo Meireles's assistant for the preparation of the exhibition Da Adversidade Vivemos at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris.

2001 - 2004 Annette Messager's studio assistant.

2000 Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Studio of Annette Messager, Paris2000 Quits architecture to dedicate himself to art. Arrives in Paris.1993 - 1997 Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Studio of Iole de Freitas, Nelson Leirner, Kate von

Scherpenberg and Joao Magalhaes, Rio de Janeiro. 1985 - 1986 Universidade Catolica, specialization in Brazilian art and architecture, Rio de Janeiro.1979 - 1983 Universidade Federal de Permanbuco, Master's degree in Architecture, Recife.

EXHIBITIONS

2004 Trajetórias 2004, curated by the Institute of Culture, Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, RecifeMemorias Heterogêneas, curated by Marcelo Campos, Castelinho do Flamengo Cultural Center, Rio de JaneiroL'Altro Intretejido, curated by Yves Sabourin, Musée Ethnographique et Folklorique, La Paz, Bolivie.

2003 Murmures, curated by Olivier Castaing, First Biennale of Contemporary Art, Abbaye de Bon Repos, Saint Gelven.

2002 Artissima 9, Rabouan Moussion Gallery, TurinPremière Vue, curated by Michel Nuridsany, Passage de Retz, Paris

2000 Portes Ouvertes, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts, Paris

1999 Grupo 14, curated by Joao Magalhaes, Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro

1997 Nova Pintura, Galeria Barra Shopping, Rio de JaneiroProjeto Universid'Arte IV, Instituto de Arte e Cultura, Universidade Estacio de Sa, Rio de Janeiro

1996 Vertentes, Casa de Cultura Laura Alvim, curated by Joao Magalhaes, Rio de JaneiroProjeto Universid'Arte I, Instituto de Arte e Cultura, Universidad Estacio de Sa, Rio de Janeiro.

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INFORMATIONS PRATIQUES

Le Showroom6 rue de Braque, 75003, [email protected] hours : from Tuesday to Saturday, from 02.00 pm to 07.00 pmwww.le-showroom.com

Gabriella Pessoa de Queiroz Tel +33 6 64 12 16 77 e-mail [email protected]

Laure PhélipFax +33 1 44 54 04 74 e-mail [email protected]

Dorothée Tramoni Tel +33 6 16 67 94 36 e-mail [email protected]