ART | LIFE

carnival on canvas
The paper-on-cardboard collage
O Passeio will be on show at
Milhazes Hong Kong exhibition

Her Name is Rio

Brazils leading contemporary artist,
Beatriz Milhazes, brings her unique work
to White Cube during Art Basel in Hong
Kong. Claire Rigby explores her motifs
ts a sultry november in Rio de Janeiro, and
although summers height is still a couple of
months away, the day is hot, sticky and humid,
thanks to Rios tropical location, its lengthy,
lovely shoreline and the dark, iconic mountains
that surround it. In a house on a pretty street
close to the citys lush botanical gardens, artist
Beatriz Milhazes is shuffling through a stack of just-finished
collages on a table in the ground-floor space beneath her
painting studio. Clad in a fine-knit electric-blue jersey and a
pencil skirt, she pulls out one after another of the colourful
artworks, pointing out their different elementsthree kinds
of leaf-shaped cut-outs, colourful fields of printed gift wrap
and foil, and the odd candy wrapper.
Once recurring elements in her collage work, the wrappers
appear only occasionally in this series. They arent as central
as they used to be, says Milhazes. Theyre there as part of the
texture, rather than being so prominent. I used to name some
of my collages after those sweets and chocolatesit was much
easier then, she says with a laugh. But Ive had to come up
with lots of new names for these works.
Milhazes points out a set of metal weights on the floor,
explaining that she uses them to press the collages, flattening
them to perfection underneath heavy boards. As she points,
gold rings glitter on each fingertheres a sovereign ring with
a lions head, and a deep pink tourmaline, while in her ears are
a pair of gold rings, setting off soft curls and brightening her
animated face as she speaks.
These are the first collages Ive made since 2011, she says,
handling the artworks affectionately and without ceremony,
running her fingers over them to illustrate her points as she
speaks. The collages, together with one new painting, are
destined for Hong Kong, where they will be shown until May
at White Cube, in Milhazess first show in Asia since her 2006
participation in the Shanghai Biennale.
Since starting out in the 1980s as a student at Rios Parque
Lage School of Visual Arts, Milhazes has won dizzying wealth
and fame as a painterher canvases have sold for more than
US$1 million at auction on four different occasions since 2012.
But collage, too, has always been an integral part of her artistic
practice. A major retrospective of her work at the Perz Art

LIFE | ART

ACROSS THE
OCEAN

works. She produces only a small number of

paintings each year, at prices well out of the
grasp of all but the wealthiest of collectors.
The collages, on the other hand, start at
around a tenth of the price of the paintings,
and include a rare black-and-white specimen,
one of three Milhazes has recently made.
Collage has always been a fundamental
part of Milhazess practice, says White Cube
associate director Peter Brandt, speaking by
phone from his London base. Shes one of the
top artists in the world today, so its incredibly
important to be showing the breadth and
scope of her work, and bringing it to new
locations. Milhazes is represented by galleries
in New York, Berlin and So Paulo, and in
London by the Stephen Friedman Gallery.
The partnership with White Cube is a oneoff, and part of a series of versatile shows by
the London gallery with increasingly global
aspirations, which opened spaces in Hong
Kong in 2012 and So Paulo in 2013. In a
way, this show takes us into a new phase,
says Brandt. Weve already brought artists
from Asia and Brazil to show in London,

SP-Arte, the foremost Brazilian art fair, as well

as featuring a highly international roster of
artists at the world-class Bienal de So Paulo.
Top-drawer Brazilian galleries like Vermelho,
Nara Roesler, Casa Tringulo and Luisa Strina
travel to global art fairs, and show both
Brazilian and foreign artists at their galleries
as part of the non-stop whirl that is So
Paulos art scene.
For Milhazes, the time she spends in Paris
each year is a hard habit to break. She has
family there, and takes the opportunity to
visit museums and galleries, to rest and to
read, and to attend the opera, one of her great
passions. Would she ever consider creating a
stage set for an opera? Hmm, she ponders.
Im quite a traditionalist when it comes to
opera, so Im not sure that would work. I
like doing stage sets for my sister, but its not
something Id seek to do more.
Milhazes has been creating the stage
sets for her sisters dance company, Mrcia
Milhazes Dana Contempornea, for more
than two decades. That work took the sisters
to Mainland China in 1987, when her sisters
company at the time, Ballet Carioca, was

invited to tour a dance piece created for the

centenary of the Brazilian composer Heitor
Villa-Lobos. We spent a month there,
performing in five different cities, including
Beijing, says Milhazes. We travelled as
far as the border with Siberia. For us, it
was an absolutely memorable journey
unforgettable. She reminisces about the long
train journeys, and the warm welcome they
encountered at each new destination. We
were invited via the embassy, so it was an
official visit and we were received very kindly.
But at the same time, it was a very rigid
systemwe werent allowed to do anything
on our own. We werent allowed to leave the
hotel without being accompanied.
Milhazes returned to China in 2006 to take
part in the Shanghai Biennale, but this will be
her first visit to Hong Kong. Curious, she asks
what Hong Kong is like, and smiles happily
at the idea that it might have something in
common with Rio de Janeirothe humidity,
the verdant tropical plantlife, the high-rise
buildings against a landscape studded with
mountains and the ever-present sea. I cant
wait to see it.

and vice versa. Mainland Chinas Liu Wei

and Brazils Jac Leirner have had shows at
the Masons Yard space in London; Tracy
Emin and Damien Hirst, among others, have
had exhibitions in So Paulo; and Antony
Gormley and Gilbert & George have shown in
Hong Kong. With this Milhazes show, were
expanding our reach, taking Brazilian artists
to Asia, says Brandt.
Utterly in her element in her native Rio
de Janeiro, Milhazes also spends part of each
year in Paris. I got into the habit of going
abroad every year a long time ago, she says,
I needed to in those days, if I wanted to
meet people, see art and plan new projects.
Only 10 years ago, she says, Brazil was still
well and truly off the international art radar.
No one came here at all. I had to travel to
them. Today, Brazil is part of an increasingly
globalised art market, and attracts galleries
from all over the world to show at events like

Three Brazilian galleries

are making the journey to
Art Basel in Hong Kong,
and theyre bringing
international names and
undiscovered local talent
along for the ride.
One of So Paulos
edgiest, most consistently
surprising galleries, Casa
Tringulo is attending
following its debut
appearance at Art HK in
2012. This year, the gallery
brings works by Brazilian
artists Mariana Palma and
Sandra Cinto. Portuguese
star Joana Vasconcelos
will also be unveiling
her biggest Valkyrie (a
stunning, sculptural,
octopus-like installation)
yet at MGM Macau.
Young So Paulo gallery
Mendes Wood will be
showing beautifully muted
paintings by local painter
Lucas Arruda, while Nara
Roesler gallery follows on
recent successful shows
by British installation artist
Isaac Julien and Brazilian
artist Vik Muniz to bring
their work to a Hong
Kong audience. Muniz is
perhaps best known for
his large-scale trompe-lil
photographs, created from
carefully arranged materials
ranging from chocolate
and toys to obsolete
computers and trash.
This year, works from the
other end of the scale
will be on showMuniz
has been working with
biotechnologists to create
images using bacteria.

Milhazes has won dizzying wealth

and fame as a painterher canvases
have sold for more than US$1 million
at auction

images: motivo (o passeio); vicente de paulo (portrait);

all images beatriz Milhazes/courtesy of white cube

Museum Miami last year, timed to coincide

with Art Basel in Miami Beach, featured some
of her most iconic paintings from the last 25
years, as well as a room dedicated to collage.
Indeed, theres an element of collage to
her painting, too. Using a technique she
developed herself in order to achieve the
overlaying whorls, circles and other forms
in her unmistakable paintings, Milhazes
paints each shape onto clear plastic sheeting,
letting it dry overnight before gluing it to the
canvas in a kind of decal process that she calls
monotransfer. The results are powerfully
graphic images with both sharp precision
and, in some cases, textural imperfections
as a result of the paint left behind in the
decal process. One of the collages destined
for the Hong Kong show features a handful
of Milhazes monotransfers, applied amid
the paper cut-outs. All the collages have
elements of a motif she has been developing
for some time now: that of a central trunk
with elements blossoming out from it, like
a tree. In the 2014 collages, the tree motif is
becoming abstract and geometric, following a
tendency her painting has also taken in recent
years, so that the trunk has become little
more than a vestigea dividing vertical field.
For Hong Kong art lovers, this is a chance
to get acquainted with one of the stars of
Brazils vibrant art sceneand perhaps one to
acquire one of Milhazes hotly disputed

White Cube isnt

the only gallery
looking to bring
Brazilian art to the
Asian market

mix and match From left: Milhazes in front of a mood board filled with inspirations for pieces;
Yellow Sunshine, which will also feature in the artists Hong Kong show