VITRA - The Brazilian Artist Who Listens to Minerals

 

 

 "“We have a culture that is made from iron,” Vitra said. “What our ancestors lived inside the mines made us the way we are now.” People in Minas Gerais, she said, were shaped by a legacy of watching out for others and forming survival strategies in mines where labor was exploited and collapses were frequent. Her grandfather, she added, attributed his longevity to the prayer to Saint George — who is associated in Afro-Brazilian religion with Ogun, the spirit of iron and metallurgy — that he kept tucked in his helmet. “Iron is very much in my history,” she said.

The daughter of a carpenter and a teacher, Vitra grew up in Contagem, a city in the Belo Horizonte agglomeration known for its concentration of heavy industry. Now, at 30, she has emerged as one of the most visible and distinctive — in Brazil and abroad — of a wave of young Black Brazilian artists who are finding new languages with which to explore their histories and connect to the world.

She places her region’s materials — particularly iron ore and copper — at the heart of elegant, often room-scaled installations, their characteristic reddish tones set against deep blue fabric or painted backgrounds. The compositions extend to beads, ceramics, glass and clean-drawn lines on various surfaces. They favor symmetry, with a ritual feel that nods to Afro-Brazilian religion — the metal arrows, the talismans — but also to broader and nonspecific sacred geometries."

Read report By Siddhartha Mitter