Unlike many of his peers, Luis Pérez-Oramas is not interested in separating artists by generation or medium. “We can be the contemporaries of whoever has existed, yesterday or today,” the Venezuelan art historian and curator says. “It is a matter of existential and intellectual decision.”
At Nara Roesler’s New York outpost, he has paired the Afro-Brazilian artists Alberto Pitta, 64, and Elian Almeida, 31, in a show that collapses those very boundaries. On view through early January, Pitta’s layered canvas silkscreens add symbolic folk flair to Almeida’s colorful yet uncluttered explorations of Brazil’s history in paint. (The former’s work is “an impressive catalytic force,” notes Pérez-Oramas, and apparently inspired Almeida to try his hand at screen printing during a studio visit between the two, arranged ahead of the show.)
Though Pérez-Oramas would argue for the atemporal nature of each practitioner’s work, the exhibition is particularly well-timed. Pitta is coming off of a sustained wave of intercontinental attention; four decades into his career, he was featured in last year’s Biennale of Sydney, a choral group show at the Palais de Tokyo this spring, and in the Bienal de São Paulo, which runs through January. Meanwhile, Almeida’s canvases have been cropping up in shows across Brazil since his debut solo with Nara Roesler in 2021, also curated by Pérez-Oramas. Artists of his age “have taken the courageous path of symbolically questioning the underrepresented presence of Black bodies and stories within the dominant art system in Brazil,” says Pérez-Oramas, who has enjoyed seeing the concurrent rise of Pitta’s profile. “This circumstance makes them contemporaries,” he says.
“Afro-Brazilian culture is an axis, not a margin for Brazilian culture,” continues Pérez-Oramas, “even if an elite-driven dominant form of representation has, until recently, lacked its monumental significance.” As visitors filter into the Chelsea gallery this winter, they’re greeted by a decidedly quotidian object, a functioning carrinho de café, or coffee cart, elevated to artwork status through Pitta’s polychrome lens. The teetering trolley cannot literally transport gallery-goers to Salvador, where the artist is based, but a sip of coffee may be all it takes to have them linger and see the work with fresh eyes.
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