Amelia Toledo: I Remembered That I Forgot

An exhibition that explores the different aspects of the career of the artist —sculptor, painter, draftswoman and designer— from São Paulo, and serves as an homage to her 60-year career.

View of the exhibition room (2017) by Amélia ToledoCentro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo

I Remembered That I Forgot

This exhibition offers a significant view of her oeuvre which uses a wide range of materials such as stones, stainless steel, tubes with liquid, paper, and others to work with meanings to present perceptions about time, space, the future or memory.

Singing Dragons (2007) by Amélia ToledoCentro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo

The Cave

The artworks by Amelia Toledo explore the feelings and seek uncommon truths based on the sensitive and intelligent contact they promote. Each one of us harbors a permanent curiosity about the essence of things. We must break free from our bonds, and, as Plato teaches us, transcend the limits of the cave in order to understand the various appearances and different realities of the world constructed by images.

Singing Dragons, Amélia Toledo, 2007, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Singing Dragons, Amélia Toledo, 2007, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Singing Dragons, Amélia Toledo, 2007, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Stone of Light Stone of Light, Amélia Toledo, 1999, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Stone of Light Stone of Light, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Square of Colors of the Dark Square of Colors of the Dark (2017) by Amélia ToledoCentro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo

The Encounter

In the contemporary world, velocity is the driver of life. We are obliged to race along the city streets without being aware that time should be elastic and that observation is the key that opens the doors to discovery and human transformation. It is necessary to give time to time, teaches Amelia Toledo; it is necessary to walk, it is necessary to move through, it is necessary to cross the paths that lead to enchantment. “Sailing is necessary, living is not necessary.”

Square of Colors of the Dark Square of Colors of the Dark, Amélia Toledo, 2017, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Square of Colors of the Dark Square of Colors of the Dark, Amélia Toledo, 2017, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Square of Colors of the Dark Square of Colors of the Dark, Amélia Toledo, 2017, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Square of Colors of the Dark Color Mine, Amélia Toledo, 2006, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Square of Colors of the Dark Square of Colors of the Dark, Amélia Toledo, 2017, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Slices of the Horizon Slices of the Horizon, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Slices of the Horizon Slices of the Horizon, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Square of Colors of the Dark Color Mine (2006) by Amélia ToledoCentro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo

The Passage

The world is a tangle of threads, of translucent, mirrored, blue communicating vessels. Amelia Toledo is engulfed before the drawing of the human form, and her body, our body, is invited to participate and move along the pathway of the surprise. Together, we walk on this road inhabited by shapes, colors, smells, touches, feelings, sensations. “The world is large, but within us it is deep like the sea,” teaches Rilke.

Blue Color Field, Amélia Toledo, 1999, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Medusa Medusa, Amélia Toledo, 1967, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Medusa Medusa, Amélia Toledo, 1967, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Medusa Medusa, Amélia Toledo, 1967, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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PVC tubes filled with water, oil, colorings and air are interlaced, creating a tangle of colors, shapes, textures and subtle movements that allude to the mythological figure.

Kaleidoscope Kaleidoscope, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Kaleidoscope Kaleidoscope, Amélia Toledo, 1993, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Cuts in Color, Amélia Toledo, 1989, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Kaleidoscope Kaleidoscope, Amélia Toledo, 1993, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Haptic Spheres (1969) by Amélia ToledoCentro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo

The Memory

The artistic operation consists of a curious equation in which the memory of the material is the path to the origin of truths created by the objectivity of science and by the surprise of invention. The artist’s entire path in art is defined by her respect for and fascination with the material, for its potential, its challenges, its limits, its destiny. Remembering is forgetting, knowing is asking; looking is revealing. This is the aim of art nowadays, concepts generated and fed by a history told and retold by the life of Amelia Toledo.

Glug-Glug Glug-Glug, Amélia Toledo, 1968, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Glu-Glu [Glug-Glug] series, which seeks to make close contact with the spectator based on a bold delving into the playful dimension of art.

Elastic Space Elastic Space, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Jewels, Amélia Toledo, 1947, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Jewels, Amélia Toledo, 1958, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Prism Necklace 2, Amélia Toledo, 1966, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Jewels, Amélia Toledo, 1946, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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The Reverse of Your ear, Amélia Toledo, 1975, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Jewels, Amélia Toledo, 1975, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Jewels, Amélia Toledo, 1947, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Jewels, Amélia Toledo, 1947, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Jewels, Amélia Toledo, 1947, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Plane Volume I, Amélia Toledo, 1959, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Waves, Amélia Toledo, 2003, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Yo-Yo, Amélia Toledo, 1968, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Construction Book, Amélia Toledo, 1959, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Little Box of Endlessness, Amélia Toledo, 2004, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Meeting, Amélia Toledo, 1975, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Emergencies, Amélia Toledo, 1975, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Mirror World, Amélia Toledo, 1966, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Little Box of Endlessness, Amélia Toledo, 2004, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Pool of Memory — Dedicated to My Father Pool of Memory — Dedicated to My Father, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Pool of Memory — Dedicated to My Father Pool of Memory — Dedicated to My Father, Amélia Toledo, 1973, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Waterfall, Amélia Toledo, 1982, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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The artist used seashells to create objects of intense poetic vigor, creating curious relations with plastic resins and utensils that arose in the history through the extraction of petroleum.

Earth Penetrable (2014) by Amélia ToledoCentro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo

The Light

Strings, threads, rags, fragments, scraps, rags. With surgical precision, the artist defibers the material and silently repeats the feminine gesture, the daily handicraft of washing, sewing, cutting and silencing. In liquid times, Amelia Toledo subverts the female’s subservient condition by understanding the phenomenon of artistic creation as an outcome and essence of the feminine. Life is a wind, and the shape is transfigured in the rhythm of the tides and the clouds.

Whisps Movement, Amélia Toledo, 2001, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Metal engraving, Amélia Toledo, 1961, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Metal engraving, Amélia Toledo, 1961, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Collage 7, Amélia Toledo, 1958, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Collages, Amélia Toledo, 1958, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Whisps, Amélia Toledo, 1987, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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The Wave or the Refreshing Pool Can Be an Abyss (1969) by Amélia ToledoCentro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo

Destiny

The idea of art as a laboratory of aesthetic researches to be later appropriated by the productive instances gives way to a world ruled by the velocity of communication. Today, the materiality of art is transmuted, and can be high-tech, digital, or even virtual, performing new roles in the globalized world. The enormous challenges of a place dominated by the communication industry require the construction of a unique and transformative language. It is necessary to see and resee artworks and concepts from our recent past and to identify communication channels with which it is currently produced, creating strategies that provide the public with new perceptions of the world, acting in it, as citizens, in transformative ways. The regenerative action of art is essential in the process of humanizing the technological advances.

Bubble Balls, 1968, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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An installation in which the visitor is invited to participate in a curious game of movements aimed at discovering the changing interior of the balls and their bubbles.

Eustáquio, Amelia, Mo e Ruth Toledo no parque Hampstead, LondresCentro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo

Timeline

In cynical or apocalyptic times, the works by Amelia Toledo constitute a hopeful and optimistic art. But instead of affirming an unrestricted belief in the system of traditional art, her artworks seek to flow organically on the uneven and changing terrain of contemporary art in its multicultural and liberating essence, harvesting not only solid truths, but valuable uncertainties. And it is in the porous character of her pictorial skins, in the ambiguity and in the subtle liquefied movements of her objects that Amelia Toledo seeks to bend the exclusionist, rigid rationality in order to create an affectionate, transformative art, based on research, poetry, and the certainty that only through innovation and creativity can the human overcome the limits and miserableness of existence.

Amelia and her parents, Lucília e Moacyr de Freitas Amorim,in Germany, Amélia Toledo, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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Eustáquio, Amelia, Mo e Ruth Toledo no parque Hampstead, Londres, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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1950 - 1956 - Her children Ruth and Mo are born; makes Joias of metal and enamel; produces her first constructivist Joias; has show at Galeria Ambiente, SP.

Gouache, Amélia Toledo, 1959, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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1957-1959 - Takes a sculpture course with William Turnbull; makes her first book-objects, collages and gouaches, executes her works of the Plano-Volume [Plane-Volume] series in copper sheets.

Amelia dressed in one of the vestments in her thesis “Vestes Litúrgicas” [Liturgical Vestments], Amélia Toledo, 1964, From the collection of: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil São Paulo
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