Galeria Leme/AD is pleased to announce the first exhibition in partnership with Paulo Darzé Galeria: “Nádia Taquary and Ayrson Heráclito“. The show brings a range of works that gather Afro-Brazilian poetic references that have close links with the religiosities, insurgencies and black disputes in Brazil.

The work of Nádia Taquary raises questions related to the knowledge and practices of the traditions of Creole jewellery. For the works, she uses wood – whether demolished or certified – as well as gold, silver, beads, straw, and other objects representative of the history of the black population in Brazil, such as the “Balangandãs”, fundamental concept of her research. These objects, that have lost their own meaning with the time, meant freedom for many enslaved black women, and today are revisited and empowered by the artist, composing an affirmative sculptural look to the need of continuation of contemporary racial struggles.

Like Taquary, Heráclito develops an investigation that tensions the relations between Bahia and Africa. For this, the artist employs organic materials – such as dendê oil, sugar and charque (dried beef) – emblematizing cultural signs related to the colonial past and to slavery. In the series “Sacudimentos” (2015), the artist exorcises, through rituals of healing, two important architectural monuments associated with the slave trade. The show also features the installation “Segredos Internos” (1995/2010), where Heráclito takes a broken boat to criticised the Colonial economic and social systems with its broken structures and social stratification. As for the “Desenhos da Liberdade” [Letters of Liberty], he performs interventions with Indian ink on slavery emancipation letters.

Through artistic action, both Taquary and Heráclito implement a poetic-political practice that takes on the responsibility of narrating historical and social processes from a non-Eurocentric point of view. Images, actions and speeches are produced with the aim of composing an anti-colonial criticism and combating the policies of erasure and of supposed racial democracy.

Nádia Taquary. Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 1967. Lives and works in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

Graduated in Languages at UCSal (Universidade Católica de Salvador-BA), post-graduated in Aesthetics, Semiotics and Culture at EBA-UFBA (Escola de Belas Artes da Universidade Federal da Bahia). Exhibitions: “Vértice”, Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia (2019, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil); “Histórias Afro-atlânticas”, MASP (2018, São Paulo, Brazil); “Mulheres no MAR”, MAR (2018, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil); “Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis”, Foweler Museum (2017, Los Angeles, USA); “Tempo e Linguagens”, Paulo Darzé Galeria de Arte (2015, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil); III Bienal da Bahia (2014). In 2011, has featured her first solo show: “A Bahia Tem…”, at Museu Carlos Costa Pinto (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil).

Ayrson Heráclito. Macaúbas, Bahia, Brazil, 1968. Lives and works between Cachoeira and Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

Researcher, Curator and Professor, he has a post-graduation-Doctorate in Communications and Semiotics as PUC/SP. Exhibitions: “À Nordeste”, Sesc 24 de Maio (2019, Sao Paulo, Brazil); “Arte-democracia-utopia: quem não luta tá morto”, MAR (2018, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil); 57a Venice Biennale (2017, Italy); 2a Changjiang International Photography and Video Biennial (2017, Changjiang, China); X Bienal do Mercosul (2015, Brazil); Histórias Mestiças (2014, Tomie Ohtake, Sao Paulo, Brasil); 7th Berlin International Directors Lounge (2011, Berlin, Germany); Luanda Triennale (2010, Angola), MIP2 Manifestação Internacional da Performance (2009, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil), among others.