On 22nd August at Casa Nova gallery, in the projects room, is the opening solo project “Postcards from Brazil” by the Brazilian artist Gilvan Barreto. The artist is awarded this year from “Photography Award Marc Ferrez 2017”.
“Postcards from Brazil” is a kind of an atlas about the national violence, practised in the military dictatorships period in Brazil. Maps are made with rectangular holes on Brazilian landscapes photography’s and show sites that once were scenarios for practising torture, murder and corpses occultation. It is reported that 434 people were lethal victims of the military regime. Most of the crimes had the natural sites as the stage of bloodsheds. In the natural landscape, the famous national showcase is hidden profound cicatrizes caused by the governmental crimes. Violence constitutes the nature of this violent paradise.
The series “Postcards from Brazil” derives from a recently released report made by the Brazilian National True Committee (Comitê Nacional da Verdade). The postcards are discussing the emblematic crimes that had occurred in the vast national territory. Some of these touristic sites were massively released by the Embratur agency. The Embratur agency was found during the dictatorships period in 1966 and its mission was evolved abroad the good image from the military regime. Some of the images presented in this project is an appropriation result from Embratur’s images data and from others official touristic offices. Each rectangular hole made on the postcards represents, at least, a person that was murdered in that landscape.
Part of this exhibition there is a video “O Guarani” that discuss the institutional violence in Brazil specifically the violence against the Indians people. While the record plays the opera made by Carlos Gomes in 1887, a red-bloody liquid flood the record as well as distort the sonority of this national classic. The music is the theme from “The Voice of Brazil” (“A Voz do Brasil) a state-owned radio that the daily broadcast is obligatory. Founded in 1935 the broadcast is the oldest from South America. It had served as a propaganda medium and also as a tool for the New State (Estado Novo) and the subsequent dictatorships. The video is one version between others for this exhibition at Casa Nova Arte.
