[Texto] Iberê Camargo: layers and over layers of high poetic expression

Iberê Camargo at home, with his 1940s self-portrait (1993)Iberê Camargo Foundation

Almost at the end of his life, Iberê Camargo (1914-1994) came to be acclaimed by the Folha de São Paulo newspaper as "the greatest painter in activity in Brazil".

This title may point above all the mundane taste for the superlatives, which is so often so expensive for journalism, but it reveals the stage of recognition the artist experienced in life.

Iberê was one of the most notable creators of the country in the second half of 20th century, with influence and permanence still little tested.

Interior view of the storage of the Iberê Camargo Foundation (2014)Iberê Camargo Foundation

The foundation has received the name of the painter, working in an admirable building designed by the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza, in Porto Alegre, invested in an incisive way in the preservation and the divulgation of his aesthetic legacy.

With this, he will have achieved an even greater breadth of projection of his work, including in an international context.

Landscape (1941) by Iberê CamargoIberê Camargo Foundation

There isn't as denying the high poetic quality of this production, which was manifested mainly in oil painting, drawing and metal engraving.

For purposes of teaching or better understanding, Iberê's trajectory can be examined in four or five more or less distinct stages.

There is an extensive stage of formation, which includes since the artist's youth, still in the region of Santa Maria, in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, extreme and remote south of Brazil, until the conquest of the national prize that gave him a stage of studies in Europe, where he was a pupil of the French André Lothe (1885-1962), cubist master, and where attended the Italian Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), great influence in metaphysical painting.

Jaguari, Iberê Camargo, 1941, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Dentro do mato (Inside the Bush), Iberê Camargo, 1941/1942, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Iberê Camargo at Lapa studio (c.1948)Iberê Camargo Foundation

Self-Portrait (c.1942) by Iberê CamargoIberê Camargo Foundation

The second stage, after the studies with Alberto da Veiga Guignard (1896-1962), an important Brazilian painter, is the consolidation of the expressionist palette of Restinga Seca painter, with a more intense figuration and a greater accumulation of oil paint.


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Self-Portrait, Iberê Camargo, 1942, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Maria, Iberê Camargo, c.1943, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Untitled, Iberê Camargo, 1942, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Jardim Botânico 1 (Botanic-Garden 1), Iberê Camargo, 1943, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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The panel, produced by Iberê Camargo, in the building of the World Health Organization (1966)Iberê Camargo Foundation

The third stage, will make the Iberê name recognized, with participation in the 1962 Venice Bienniale and the creation of a 160ft panel at the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva in 1966, is the one that more closest to abstraction (although he never admitted it himself), with a generally wide canvas, with more closed colors and with the juxtaposition of layers and layers of paint, which would be one of the marks of his desire for expression.

Fiada de carretéis 2 (Row of Spools 2) (1961) by Iberê CamargoIberê Camargo Foundation

Estrutura em movimento 5 (Structure in Motion 5), Iberê Camargo, 1962, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Estrutura em movimento 6 (Structure in Motion 6), Iberê Camargo, 1962, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Núcleo (Nucleus), Iberê Camargo, 1963, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Figure II, Iberê Camargo, 1964, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Mannequin (1986) by Iberê CamargoIberê Camargo Foundation

The final stages of this production correspond to the return of human figuration in the 1980s to creatures with a phantasmagoric profile and their first Cyclists, followed by a new wave of creatures, denser, more elaborate and more dramatic, who becomes the Idiots, inconsolable characters who seem to be resigned to the meaninglessness of life and the inevitable expectation of death.

Mannequin, Iberê Camargo, 1986, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Phantasmagoria IV (1987) by Iberê CamargoIberê Camargo Foundation

Ciclista (Cyclist), Iberê Camargo, 1990, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Ciclistas (Cyclists), Iberê Camargo, 1989, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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A idiota (The Idiot), from the Cyclists series (1991) by Iberê CamargoIberê Camargo Foundation

Iberê Camargo producing the painting "Everything is False and Useless to You II", at the studio of Alcebíades Antônio dos Santos Street, 1992, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Tudo te é falso e inútil III (Everything is False and Useless to You III), Iberê Camargo, 1992, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Untitled (c.1959) by Iberê CamargoIberê Camargo Foundation

All these stages, including the most intimate of expressionist abstractionism, went following by the constant presence of the Spool.

Iberê adult represented insistently, isolated or in groups, sometimes on tables or in interaction with human figures, these were his favorite childhood toys. Of humble family, with few resources, he had fun with the reels of line that were left of the seams of the mother.

This form, which he sometimes summed up in four lines, like those of an hourglass, pursued the artist of the youth to the last works, on the eve of what would be its 80 years.

Carretéis (Spools), Iberê Camargo, c.1958, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Untitled, Iberê Camargo, c.1959, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Iberê in his studio at Palmeiras Street, with the painting "Structure 2" in the background, 1961, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Carretéis com frutos (Spools whit Fruits), Iberê Camargo, 1959, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Um carretel (A Spool), Iberê Camargo, 1960, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Ascensão I (Ascension I), Iberê Camargo, 1973, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Desdobramento (Unfolding) (1978) by Iberê CamargoIberê Camargo Foundation

Blue Spool, Iberê Camargo, 1981, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Contraste (Contrast), Iberê Camargo, 1982, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Spools with Figure (1984) by Iberê CamargoIberê Camargo Foundation

Spools that Iberê used as a model, studio of Palmeiras Street, 2005, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Extensive Interventions XIV (detail) (2014) by Eduardo FrotaIberê Camargo Foundation

In a recent exhibition, in 2014, alluding to the centenary of Iberê's birth, the foundation that honors him confronted his painted Spools with huge spools of more than 9ft high, designed by the Brazilian artist Eduardo Frota (1959).

The gigantic pieces were produced from the gluing of thin wooden slabs and plywood, cut and glued together.

Extensive Interventions XIV (2014) by Eduardo FrotaIberê Camargo Foundation

They reproduced in space the same delicate (im)balance of reels drawn, painted and engraved by Iberê.

An arrangement both delicate and monumental.

They showed, with luck, something of the power and repercussion possible and so vigorous in the contemporary art scene. Something still to be better checked and explored.

Extensive Interventions XIV (detail), Eduardo Frota, 2014, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Extensive Interventions XIV, Eduardo Frota, 2014, From the collection of: Iberê Camargo Foundation
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Credits: Story

Text kindly provided by Eduardo Veras, critic and art historian, professor at Institute of Arts of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.


Organized by
Gustavo Possamai


Translated to English by
Franciele Amaral


Every effort has been made to acknowledge the moral rights and copyright of the images in this edition. The Iberê Foundation welcomes any information concerning authorship, ownership, and/or other data that may be incomplete, and is committed to including them in future updates.
acervo@iberecamargo.org.br


© Fundação Iberê Camargo

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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