João Luiz Musa: 24x36 / Vila Prudente

The analogy between the eye of the traveller and photographer is the subject that has been approached by João Luiz Musa throughout his career. After six years after his last show at Luciana Brito Galeria, the artist revisits the theme in the essay "24 x 36", this time emphasizing the act of portraying and highlighting the presence of the photographer in the scene. Still as part of the exhibition, the artist presents "Vila Prudente" series, held in São Paulo neighbourhood, between 1979 and 1981.

“24 x 36”

To accurately direct his poetic intentions, João Luiz Musa thinks it is absolutely indispensable to dominate all photographic processes. In these images, after travelling through cities such as Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, London, Barcelona and São Paulo, the artist continued the photographic essay "24 x 36", being developed since 2004, where an intense experimentation with light prevails, along with the rigorous editing. According to the philosopher Luiz Armando Bagolin, "his oblique and mobile glance fits into the context observed by multiplying the points of views and perspectives, capturing particularities through the transparency of the window panes and buses, alleys, buildings, gardens, urban facades and other details. "They are fragmented and inconclusive views obtained from the first eye of the photographer in relation to people and their daily lives.

These images are part of a homonymous publication, to be launched during the exhibition opening. The book, which has a critical text of Luis Armando Bagolin, brings the full photographic essay, with 24 images.

“Vila Prudente”

This essay emerged from the obstinacy of João Luiz Musa in establishing a living relationship with the inhabitants of Vila Renato and Jardim Elba, then part of the village of Vila Prudente, nowadays, a neighbourhood in the eastern city of Sao Paulo, in the late 1970's. There were two years of weekly visits to the communities, during which the artist worked the various forms of photographic research at laboratory in the Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de São Paulo. His persistence, both with the residents themselves, as with the technical development, resulted in the original documentation about his relationship with the universe of the real life of these people. With a showcase of photographs taken, João Luiz Musa offered to all residents the various examples of images that were being held in the neighbourhood, and gradually he was being led to the interiors of houses.

The essay "Vila Prudente" will be shown in two versions, including 'vintages’ works (original enlargements of that time), plus the latest impressions on a larger scale, 102 x 102 cm each.

About João Luiz Musa

He graduated from Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo, in 1974. In 1990 and 1999, obtained a Master degree and PhD, respectively, in the Escola de Comunicação de Artes (USP). He had his first exhibitions in the 70s. Since then, he has presented his work in galleries of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, and the Museu de Imagem e Som, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Instituto Itaú Cultural and Centro Cultural Maria Antonia. His works have also been seen in other countries such as France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Argentina and Venezuela. In 2006, he presented a solo exhibition at Galeria Brito Cimino, and in 2010, showed his works in solo exhibition at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in Sao Paulo.