30 RAT/ART: Curated by Tiago Tebet

The myth of turning thirty years old is omnipresent in the collective unconscious. If in our twenties we are still on the threshold of adulthood, when turning thirty, not only we make our definitive enter into the mature world as the door slams itself shut forever behind us. A reflexion on the consequences of this transition to the artistic production is in the origins of the exhibition "30 RAT/ART", the first curatorship of São Paulo based artist Tiago Tebet. Opening on June 27, the show can be seen until August 1st at Luciana Brito Galeria.

In "30 RAT/ART", Adriano Costa, Hugo Frasa, Jac Leirner, Leda Catunda, Marcelo Cidade and Nicolás Robbio are each represented by two periods of their production: one prior to their 30th birthday and one after the date. Following the same rule, Tiago Tebet becomes the only exception: at 29 years old, the artist has not yet completed the transition to life’s great second act.

All invited artists are important references to Tiago’s production, and it’s possible to establish between them generational lines of influence. Despite developing deeply authorial research, many times with very different plastic results, the curator sees key similarities in their works, especially a tendency to reflect about the city where all of them are based. The chronologic criteria followed by the curatorship is, then, completed by a geographic/territorial axis: all of the exhibiting artists are from São Paulo, a fact that is sensible in their works by the presence of urban signs.

There isn’t, however, any direct allusion to the city nor a literal or narrative approach of its issues. Marcelo Cidade, for instance, develops a series of pieces by appropriation of wooden boxes used in construction for preparing concrete, transfiguring them in aesthetic objects; Nicolás Robbio creates an inverted tent, fixed to the ceiling by construction pendulums. The city, technics and time are essential elements of these works that, nevertheless, do not hold any representational aspects. According to the curator, “the exhibited pieces are fruit of very sophisticated processes and thinking, but, in their formal resolution, they are simple, primordial. Through an urban look, these artists turn their attention to essential aspects of existence. And art in itself is of course one of them”.

About Tiago Tebet

Tiago Tebet was born in 1986, in São Paulo, where he lives and works. He graduated in Fine Arts from Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in 2009, when he was awarded FAAP’s 40th Fine Arts Annual Prize. He presented solo shows at Luciana Brito Galeria in 2013, 2012 and 2011. Amongst the group shows in which he participated, we can highlight the 28th São Paulo Biennial (as part of Anarcademia group), in 2008, Paralela 2010, at Liceu de Artes e Ofícios (São Paulo), in 2010, and Os Primeiros Dez Anos, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake (São Paulo), in 2011.