In different groups of artworks, the exhibition and the artist’s first book exclusively of drawings are focused on the artist’s unique language in this genre

This exhibition at Galeria Raquel Arnaud is a rare opportunity for the public to visit a show by Waltercio Caldas in which drawing plays the leading role. The artworks featured reveal the enlarged meaning that the artist confers to this format.

The 35 artworks, produced from 2012 until the present, demonstrate, as stated by the artist, that perhaps the word “drawing” cannot encompass the complexity of what happens with the three-dimensional objects on paper. They are artworks that demand their autonomy, with outstanding narrative quality in the artist’s overall oeuvre. “The word desenho [drawing] comes from desígnio [design], and that is how I would like the works to be, not as a representation, but as something that can come to appear,” Waltercio says.

As the drawings are three-dimensional, the artist approaches the questions of space in these works in the same way as he approaches his work in sculptures. According to Waltercio, his interest lies in the tension between simplicity and complexity. “I spend the entire time seeking simplicity, but I only find complexity.”

The exhibition at Galeria Raquel Arnaud is taking place at the moment when the artist is highly active on the international scene. Last March he held a solo show at Cecilia Brunson Projects, in London, and in December of this year he will hold one at Galerie Xippas, in Paris. In 2018 his artworks are going to Geneva.

The exhibition’s opening, on October 7, will include the release of the book Os Desenhos, by Waltercio Caldas, with text by Lorenzo Mamì, editorial coordination by Charles Cosac, and graphic design by Elaine Ramos and Gabriela Castro. The bilingual volume published by BEI Editora presents a selection of approximately 160 works, conceived from the 1960s until today.

The gallery is hosting these two special actions, exhibition and book release, simultaneously. Each, however, with its own artistic arsenal. The two different sets of artworks reaffirm Waltercio’s persistence and vigor in the operation of drawing, pushing its limits far beyond a single artistic genre.

Waltercio Caldas (Rio de Janeiro, 1946), His work figures in many private and institutional collections worldwide, including those of Centre Pompidou (France), the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, USA), the Museu de Arte Moderna of São Paulo and that of Rio de Janeiro, and Instituto Inhotim. Exhibitions in which the artist has participated most notably include the 19th, 20th and 23rd editions of the Bienal de São Paulo, the 47th and 52nd editions of the Venice Biennale, Documenta 9 in Kassel, and the 6th Bienal do Mercosul.