This personal reflection is part of a series called Turning Points, in which writers explore what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead. You can read more by visiting the Turning Points series page.
Turning Point: In 2024, 150 years after the first Impressionist exhibition forever changed the art world, Adriano Pedrosa became the first Latin American curator in the history of the Venice Biennale.
The Impressionist movement, which began in the late 19th century and became a landmark in modern art, was the effort of artists who found that academic standards were stagnating their creative processes. Seeking liberation, they decided to follow their intuitions and perceptions. They were fundamentally guided by the cycles of nature.
Today, 150 years after the first Impressionist exhibition, this movement is still captivating because it inspires us to rethink cultural conventions and the power structures that rule as arbiters of taste. Visually, the legacy of Impressionism challenges us to find new artistic styles depicting our personal relationships with the surrounding world. Socially, this legacy helps us examine the people whose work — and stories — we choose to showcase at museums and galleries.
Back in 1874, after the Impressionists were rejected by the official government-sponsored Salons, they used the studio of the photographer Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (known as Nadar) for their first exhibition. The courage, determination and intelligence of these artists, especially Claude Monet, opened a rich field of questions about visual reasoning. This group of artists was mainly based in France, a country that dominated the art world and set the cultural, artistic and educational standards of that era.
In the 21st century, there is no longer room for isolated movements or overarching themes that define an entire era. Cultures, countries and continents don’t hold absolute economic power, which traditionally dictated intellectual supremacy and shaped historical development.
There will always be artists who stand out for developing innovative ideas and driving the ongoing evolution of art history. In the sensitive brilliance of artists like the post-Impressionist Vincent van Gogh, we see unique brushstrokes and intense Pointillism. Van Gogh used these techniques to express — through a chromatic palette created by almost fierce juxtapositions — the raw emotions he perceived in nature, and how those were reflected in interior settings and people.
Now, however, artists can emerge from any corner of the world, making the stories we tell through art truly global. Alongside economic and social changes, as well as the digital revolution, the art world has decentralized its intellectual, conceptual and economic power, transforming the development of international art history. Artists today are expanding beyond established European aesthetics and are diving into their regional lives and cultural experiences.
In 2024, for the first time in the history of the Venice Biennale, a celebrated international art exhibition, the curator was neither European nor North American. The curator, Adriano Pedrosa, is Brazilian. His curation for the 60th international exposition, titled “Stranieri Ovunque — Foreigners Everywhere,” reflected his extensive research and solid trajectory, informed by a perspective he considers relevant to the contemporary moment.
As a Brazilian artist, this first for the Venice Biennale especially resonates with me. In my experience of developing an artistic language, with painting as my primary medium, I draw inspiration from European and Brazilian modernism and place this in the context of Rio de Janeiro and my own heritage.
My work is informed by Henri Matisse’s organic patterns that celebrate life and Piet Mondrian’s exploration of natural structure versus urban construction.
I’m also influenced by Brazilian artists, including Tarsila do Amaral and her almost surrealist creations that were fundamental to the visual and aesthetic developments of Brazilian Modernism, and Fernando Pinto, who was dedicated to the art of Carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro.
Through my work, I seek to create something that can add new artistic thought to today’s art world. I embrace this challenge with a sense of boundless freedom and flexibility and with respect for the memory and legacy of art history. From my studio next to the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, I investigate what paintings from the past have shown me and figure out how to bring these lessons into the here and now.
In my artistic process, I observe the universe and the natural world around me. Nature is viscerally related to humans and our needs. There is also a human element of nature that is spiritual, sensitive and poetic. I put all this together with my own passions, joys and affections. I add in my love for art and belief that art has the power to make people think differently to help create a better world.
“Colorido Cósmico,” which means “Cosmic Colorful,” is one of the five paintings I specially developed for the Applied Arts Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale. This project was a collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which further speaks to the international scope of today’s art world. For political, social and technological reasons, this international interconnectivity didn’t yet exist during the age of the Impressionists.
To create “Colorido Cósmico,” I researched textiles and embroidery from different times and places around the world. I wanted to convey the essence of the hands who made these textiles and capture their dreams. To do this, I painted acrylic on linen and featured geometric shapes inspired by the natural world in vibrant, sometimes contrasting, colors. My chromatic joy comes from observing nature and charting the development of its representation in art.
Art always mirrors the profound changes of the present. More than any other cultural sphere, it innovates and engages with the latest reflections of contemporary humanity.
Impressionist artists championed artistic practice, finding meaning in their challenges and evoking the poetic, dramatic and unexpected as essential aspects of their processes. They keenly observed the world around them, cherished their experiences of nature and emphasized the need for freedom.
Today, we continue to learn from the past to cultivate the future. Like the Impressionists, let’s allow our creativity to drive us toward new ways of expressing ourselves and our worldview through art.
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