ESCONJURO by Paulo Nazareth at Inhotim

"Esconjuro" is a word with multiple meanings: while it's an enchantment, it also means curse and exorcism. Shared across different languages, it's part of the common parlance of healers, prayers, and axé practitioners, as it's associated with the warding off of negative energies and deliverance from something bad. For artist Paulo Nazareth (an elderly man born in Borun Nak [Vale do Rio Doce]), evocation is important as an action, a verb: "I exorcise," he tells us.

The exhibition uses the seasons to engage with nature and the earth, promoting spatial transformations. Like houses undergoing ongoing renovation, Esconjuro embraces change, making the artistic process its core.

Nazareth's art sows human histories and territorial disputes. His practice investigates global flows, colonial impacts, and cultural intersections, connecting the Americas, Africas, and Asias.

The exhibition is preceded by works that pay homage to Ana Gonçalves da Silva, Paulo Nazareth's mother, a key figure in his work and his business partner. Her home is now a Memory Center, and she represented him at the 2013 Venice Biennale.

Dona Ana is central to Paulo Nazareth's art. He portrays her to immortalize the ancestral bond with his grandmother, Nazareth Cassiano de Jesus, the name he uses. Family memories, such as his grandmother's past and his mother's spiritual wisdom, nourish and define his powerful work.

"Outono" [Autumn] opens a series of exhibitions and connects with the earth's cycles and memory. With the "House of Exu" opening paths, the exhibition invites us to feel the ground and reflect on exploitation. Bananas and Krenak soil pay homage to ancestors, reminding us that, to move forward, we must honor those who protect us.

The work Marco Temporal highlights violence against indigenous peoples. It addresses the legal theory that only recognizes indigenous land rights if occupation before 1988 is proven, a view laden with political and economic interests that disregards ancestral history.

The land of "Marco Temporal" came from the Krenak Indigenous Agricultural Reformatory. A 1969 prison that was a place of torture for indigenous people, but for Nazareth, whose roots are Borun, Krenak, people of Watu, the big river, the same land is ancestrally retaken.

This connection, on the other hand, reveals a void of representation between the two poles. Paulo Nazareth has never seen a portrait of his grandmother.

“Caramuru” was the name given to the foreigner who lived among the Tupinambá, even before the Portuguese colonization of America.

In the legend that narrates this exceptional case, his survival would be linked to the shotgun he fired in the confrontation with the indigenous people who welcomed him on the coast, shortly after the shipwreck of which he was a crew member.

Caramuru represents a power that is not power, the power of fire that imitates the sound of thunder, but is not thunder. The arrow is a reaction to the gunpowder marma, a possible defense for dissident bodies, a counterpoint to the violent protection of private property and the protection of the accumulation of wealth by the few.

Shell middens [sambaquis] are archaeological remains found in various regions of the country, formed by the accumulation of shells, fish scales, and other materials. Built thousands of years ago, some reach 20 meters in height and 100 meters in diameter.

In Sambaki I, the form and materiality of each object, as well as the way they are presented, are important choices for the artist. It involves a combination of wooden banana replicas and dynamite sticks.

The "LEMBRANZSA" series features nine tambourine bowls, tracing lesser-known Brazilian revolts led by racialized people. Nazareth highlights how objects embody history through material, name, and origin.

Gamelas are named after the gameleira, a light and durable tree native to Brazil. In it, the Yoruba people saw Iroko, the orisha of non-linear time and memory. Their charcoal drawings, in Afro-Brazilian traditions, symbolize transformation, purification, and protection.

This is a work of "precept art." It is embedded in physical space, but also exists as a promise. A collection under construction, it is composed of offering boats collected from lakes and rivers and is also an exercise in negotiation between the artist and the deities to whom these tributes were destined.

The cycle is expected to end when 2,000 years have passed since the death of Jesus Christ, who, when crucified, is the Lord of Bonfim and, in meetings between faiths, is also the orixá Oxalá.

In Sambaki II, Paulo Nazareth creates mounds of concrete bananas made at Inhotim. Speakers play audio from 2013 with immigrants from Guinea-Bissau who helped him make the first bananas.

The series is composed of: "flag [odò ìyá!]", "flag [ka-ô kabecilê!]", "flag [odò ìyá!]", "okê arô! arolê!', "flag [a run boboi]", "flag [atótóo!]", "flag [ora iê iê ô!]", "flag [onipé ibéjì!]", "flag [saluba nanã!]" and "flag [ogunhê!]", "flag [epa baba!]".

Casa de Exu (2015-2024), near Galeria Praça, holds 3,000 liters of aguardente. It is an offering and protection, marking the expanded presence of Nazareth in Inhotim, using smell to engage the senses.

In 2024, Paulo Nazareth created a banana grove at Inhotim for the exhibition Esconjuro, marking the public/private boundary. The banana tree, originally from Asia but widespread in Latin America, spreads easily, provides year-round sustenance, and is common in backyards in the outskirts of cities.