ANA MARIA TAVARES
[1958, Brazil]
“We have left, but we have not yet arrived.”
Looking to the legacies of modernist architecture in Brazil, Ana Maria Tavares creates futuristic non-places, and meditations on institutions, systems, and information. Her intricate installations are fantastically urban in their visual vocabulary, suggesting parallels with not only Oscar Niemeyer, but also with Giovanni Piranesi--the 18th-century Italian artist who created fictitious architectural landscapes--and with the labrynthine world of M. C. Escher.
Writing about her work, curator Dan Cameron notes, “Tavares has not set out to critique the situation in which she finds herself, so much as to suggest that within each collectively understood interpretation of a public space, there is always another possibility, often contradictory and sometimes filled with wonder, waiting to be explored. Sometimes, the only thing required to draw out this hidden reality is the simple act of treating all public spaces like empty sets, waiting to be filled with actors whose parts have not yet been written.”
Tavares earned her bachelor’s degree in fine arts in 1982 from the Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation in São Paulo. She completed her MFA in 1986 from the Art Institute of Chicago, and PhD in Art from the University of São Paulo in 2000. She was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002. She is currently Professor of Art at the University of São Paulo. In 2005, she was artist-lecturer at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, and she was the Ida Ely Rubin Artist-in-Residence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006-2007. In 2014, she was the Lynette Autrey Visiting Professor at the Humanities Research Center at Rice University.
2023
Sortir du Silence: au-delà de la modernité, Galleria Continua, Paris, France
2022
Ana Maria Tavares: Insane Façades, Galleria Continua, São Paulo, Brazil
2021
Campo Fraturado, SOS. Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM SP), São Paulo, Brazil
2019
O Real Intocável, Galeria Silvia Cintra + Box4, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2018
Rotações Infinitas, Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brazil
2016
No Lugar Mesmo: Uma Antologia de Ana Maria Tavares, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil
Ana Maria Tavares, Forgotten Mantras, Silvia Cintra + Box4, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2015
Cárceres a Duas Vozes: Piranesi e Ana Maria Tavares, Museu Lasar Segall, São Paulo, Brazil
Deviating Utopias from Paxton to Burle Max (from the Social Hieroglyphs series), Galerie Stöckle Hauser, Stuttgart, Germany
Deviating Utopias with Victoria Regias, Rolls Royce Studio, Galerie Weekend, Berlin, Germany
Sinfonia Tropical para Loos, Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brazil
2014
Atlântica Moderna: Purus e Negros, Museu Vale, Espírito Santo, Brazil
Euryale Amazonica, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
2013
Natural Natural: Paisagem e Artifício, Centro Cultural Banco do Nordeste, Fortaleza, Brazil; Centro de Arte e Cultura Dragão do Mar, Fortaleza, Brazil
Ana Maria Tavares: Deviating Utopias, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN, USA
Tautorama, Paço das Artes, São Paulo, Brazil
2011
Desviantes, Galeria Silvia Cintra, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brazil
2010
Paisagens Perdidas (Para Lina Bo Bardi), Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brazil
2008
Ana Maria Tavares, Schusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow, Russia
Fortuna e Recusa ou Ukiyo-e (a imagem de um mundo flutuante), Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brazil
Ana Maria Tavares, Kröller-Müller Musuem, Arnhem, Holland
2005
Paisagem para Exit II, Culturgest, Porto, Portugal
2004
Enigmas de uma Noite com Midnight Daydreams, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil
Noturnos (da série Caça-Palavras), Centro Cultural São Paulo (CCSP), Brazil
2002
Entrückte Körper_GRU/TXL, Galerie Vostell, Berlin, Germany
Numinosum, Galeria Brito Cimino, São Paulo, Brazil
2001
Middelburg Airport Lounge with Parede Niemeyer, De Vleeshall, Middelburg, Holland
Numinoso, De Kabineeten van de Vleeshal, Middelburg, Holland
2000
Projeto Zona Instável, Pavilhão das Cavalariças, Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Estação II, Centro Universitário Mariantonia, São Paulo, Brazil
1998
Relax’o’visions, Museu Brasileiro da Escultura (MuBE), São Paulo, Brazil
1997
Porto Pampulha, Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
1996
Rotatórias, Galeria Millan, São Paulo, Brazil
1994
Chicotes, Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1993
Chicotes, Gabinete de Arte Raquel Arnaud, São Paulo, Brazil
1990
Ana Maria Tavares, Gabinete de Arte Raquel Arnaud, São Paulo, Brazil
1986
Ana Maria Tavares, Superior Street Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
1982
Objetos e Interferências, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Culturgest, Lisboa, Portugal
Casa da Cultura de Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
Coleção Projeto Leonilson. São Paulo, Brazil
Fundação ARCO, Madrid, Spain
Fundação Marcantônio Vilaça. São Paulo, Brazil
Fundação Serralves, Porto, Portugal
Haute Normandie, Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain (FRAC), Ville de Sotteville-lès-Rouen, France
Kröller-Müller Museum (KMM), Arnhem, Holland
Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói, Brazil
Museu de Arte Contemporânea de São Paulo (MAC), Brazil
Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Museu de Arte de Brasília (MAB), Brazil
Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM), Brazil
Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (MuHKA), Belgium
Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil
SESC Collection
Stichting Sonsbeek Internationaal, Arnhem, Holland
Universidade de Uberlândia (UFU), Brazil