MISAKO & ROSEN is pleased to announce our next exhibition, a two-person show featuring new sculptures by two Brazilian artists, Tiago Carneiro da Cunha and Erika Verzutti. Verzutti’s work was recently on view in Tokyo as part of the group exhibition, “Neo Tropicalia When Lives Become Form”, presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art as well as the exhibition “Haptic” curated by Vik Muniz for Tokyo Wonder Site Hongo; this is Tiago’s debut Tokyo exhibition.

The exhibition, a continuation of a series of two-person shows presented by the gallery, contrasts the resolved sculptures of Carneiro da Cunha with the more process-oriented work of Verzutti. Both artists utilize a traditional art vocabulary -that of sculpture- and each deals in representation, yet each also maintains a distinct art practice.

Tiago Carneiro da Cunha’s most recent work is essentially a subversive form of pottery; faience as abject art object. While da Cunha’s past sculptures offered a more direct critique of the precious – his past works were realized in resin, their jewel-like form in opposition to their less elevated content, da Cunha’s sculptures for MISAKO & ROSEN are consistent in theme; however, they foreground the manual nature of their production. In continuing to explore, through formal means, the positive potential of incongruity within the language of contemporary sculpture, da Cunha provides an engaging example of a possible contemporary sculptural strategy.

Erika Verzutti’s work complicates issues of sculptural representation by foregrounding process yet ultimately presenting an object of recognizable form. Typically producing an image of an organic object (such as a vegetable or animal), Erika’s work is a resolved byproduct of an infectiously playful use of basic art materials such as clay, paint and the materials used in the production of art-works (such as paint brushes, rulers and pencils). Erika’s works revel in an unfinishedness suggesting play as a possible means to reinvigorate contemporary sculptural practice.

Both artists work in a common medium accessible to a general audience – representational sculpture and each produces works that engage issues of craft thus engaging in an ongoing attempt to call attention to the inherently confused distinction between cultural categories. This blurring of cultural boundaries is also the goal of MISAKO & ROSEN; we thus hope that you will have an opportunity to enjoy this special exhibition and dialogue between two young Brazilian artists in a Tokyo gallery.

“Neo Tropicalia When Lives Become Form”
January 24, 2008 – March 1, 2009
http://www.hcmca.cf.city.hiroshima.jp/web/main_e/exhibitions.html