The exhibition TAWAPAYERA curated by Alexandre Melo, featuring works by Júlio Pomar, Delameida Esilva, Igor Jesus e Tiago Alexandre, part of the Past and Present – Lisbon, Ibero-American Capital of Culture 2017 programme, at the Atelier-Museu Júlio Pomar, continues a programme of exhibitions at the Atelier-Museu that aims to connect Júlio Pomar’s work with the work of other artists and establish new linkages between the painter’s work and contemporaneity.

Again, this exhibition was conceived from the very beginning as a specific intervention in the Atelier-Museu’s space, where Júlio Pomar and three younger artists – Dealmeida Esilva Igor Jesus and Tiago Alexandre – explore different cultures and imagination through various mediums.

With regard to the purpose of the ‘Tawapayera’ exhibition, we may cite the words of its curator: “My relationship with Júlio Pomar is based on various points in his work and in my life. The interest which was stirred in me when I saw some of his works for the first time is revived in the clarity with which I recall them at unexpected times. This is what occurred with the Amazon paintings. When I bathed in the River Amazon, I remembered seeing them. When I participated in the Bois Bumba festivals in Parintins, they became still more significant. It is not a matter of realism. For artists, and for living persons in general, energy and life, and, if possible, happiness, are materials for an encounter and a challenge which, in this case, was taken up by Júlio Pomar, Dealmeida Esilva, Igor Jesus and Tiago Alexandre. This was also an encounter between a multiplicity of contemporary artistic practices, and of past and future Ibero-American cultures and imageries.”

Curator’s text:

“TAWAPAYÊRA” IN LISBOA
ALEXANDRE MELO

Come and feel the heat, Boi bumbá is our sound, anyone can learn the beat… The rhythm is Boi!

It was perhaps when I saw Júlio Pomar’s painting O banho das crianças no Tuatuari [Children Bathing in the Tuatuari] for the first time that I knew I would one day come to know the Amazon, that it would become, for me, a privileged place where imagination and joy could be endlessly renewed.

These sentiments revolve around the Parintins Folkloric Festival, one of the most moving manifestations of popular culture I have ever participated in.

“Táwapayêra” was the theme of the 2014 Festival presented by the Boi-bumbá Caprichoso Cultural Association. Since then and over the course of each successive edition of the three-day festival, I kept thinking of how good it would be to one day create something under this name and inspiration. Perhaps it could be an exhibition. I thought of the paintings Júlio Pomar made following his travels in the Brazilian state of Amazonia.

A stroke of good fortune in the form of an opportunity from the AMJP grew into the exhibition “TAWAPAYÊRA”. A selection of Júlio Pomar’s Amazonian works – three paintings and a series of never-before-seen drawings – are presented alongside new works created or selected for this occasion by three young contemporary artists. In these artists – as in so many points along Pomar’s trajectory – I recognise the vital energy, the creative freedom, the fearlessness and sense of transgression (ethical rather than formal), which make up the essence of what moves me in the world of art

Featured alongside the figures and bursting colours of Júlio Pomar’s ‘Indians’ are Dealmeida Esilva’s flair for pictorial licentiousness (perhaps gifted by Zeus himself, a mask for all of humankind?), the (post/punk/neo/pop/trash) rituals of Tiago Alexandre’s adolescent tribes, and the convulsions of Igor Jesus’s sequestered bodies (as seen in Pasolini’s Salò) in remembrance of unforgettable massacres.

Everyone jump! Get ready for the drumbeat of the crowd… Let the ritual dancing begin! ‘

Alexandre Melo

About the curator:

ALEXANDRE MELO
He was born in Lisbon, where he lives and works. He holds a degree in Economics and a PhD in Sociology, and is a professor at ISCTE, where he lectures in Sociology of Art and Contemporary Culture. Since the beginning of the 1980s, he has written about contemporary art for international newspapers and magazines. He organises exhibitions, participates in seminars and conferences, and writes for catalogues and anthologies both in Portugal and abroad. He has published various books, including Velocidades Contemporâneas, Julião Sarmento, Artes Plásticas em Portugal, Arte e Mercado em Portugal.

About the artists:

JÚLIO POMAR
Júlio Pomar was born in Lisbon in 1926. He attended the António Arroio Secondary Art School in Lisbon and the Fine Arts Academies of Lisbon and Porto. In 1942 he participated in his first group show, in Lisbon, and presented his first solo exhibition in Porto, in 1947, where he exhibited drawings. In these early years, his opposition to Salazar’s dictatorial regime gained him four months in prison, the confiscation of one of his paintings by the political police and the destruction of the 100 m2 mural painting he had executed for the Cinema Batalha in Porto, which was painted over. He lived in Portugal until 1963, when he moved to Paris. He presently lives between Paris and Lisbon. In the early 1990s, a sojourn in Alto Xingú in the Brazilian Amazon would result in the exhibitions ‘Los Indios’ (Galeria 111, ARCO, Madrid) and ‘Les Indiens’ (Galerie Georges Lavrov, Paris), in 1990, followed by ‘Pomar/Brasil’, a survey exhibition organised by the Modern Art Centre of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which travelled to Brasilia, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon.

IGOR JESUS
He was born in 1989, in Lisbon. He lives and works in Lisbon. He holds a degree in Sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon. He was recently selected for the artistic residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2016-2017). In 2017, he was nominated for the EDP Foundation New Artists Award. His individual exhibitions include: ‘Amar-te os ossos’ (2017), Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon; ‘Chessari’ (2016), Solar Galeria de Arte Cinemática, Vila do Conde; ‘A Última carta ao Pai Natal’ (2015), Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon; ‘Debaixo do Sol’ (2015), Appleton Square, Lisbon; and ‘Pinóquio’ (2014), Old School, Lisbon.

DEALMEIDA ESILVA
He was born in the 1980’s in Lisbon. He lives and works between Leipzig, Germany and Lisbon. He holds a degree in Painting (2011) from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon. He held the individual exhibition ‘Kippy Please Stay Dead’ (2013) at Old School #23, curated by Susana Pomba. He has participated in various collective exhibitions, including: ‘Gente Feliz com Lágrimas’ (2015), curated by João Pedro Vale & Nuno Alexandre Ferreira, Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Azores; ‘Bells are still ringing’ (2014), curated by Alexandre Melo, Galeria Graça Brandão, Lisbon; Collection Helene Zimmermann & Arm Der Cunst (2011), Hamburg, Germany; and FUSO Festival, Anual de Video Arte Internacional de Lisboa.

TIAGO ALEXANDRE
He was born in 1988. He lives and works in Lisbon. He holds a degree in Painting (2012) from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon. In 2012, he completed the Pé de Cabra artistic residency, ‘Its Not Basel But It Could Be’, in Lisbon. His individual exhibitions include: ‘O Filho do carro preto’ (2016), Bregas, Lisbon; and ‘Entre o Boné e os Ténis’ (2015), Galeria Graça Brandão, Lisbon. His work is represented in the following collections: António Cachola, Elvas; Figueiredo Ribeiro, Abrantes; Marin.Gaspar, Alvito; Norlinda and José Lima, São João da Madeira; and SONS Museum, Kruishoutem, Belgium.