Adriana Varejão

Two Paintings and Ten Drawings

May 7 - July 10, 2009
540 West 26th Street

Press Release

For Brazilian artist Adriana Varejão's third exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, she will present a new large-scale painting and works on paper at the gallery's 540 West 26th Street location. This will be Varejão's first gallery exhibition in four years and the first to include works on paper.

Using precise geometry and a serene monochrome palette, Varejão elaborates on her sauna series, which portrays the cold, tranquil interiors of these spaces. Previous works in the series have been notable for their emptiness, and while the new works maintain the minimalism and distance of previous works, the paintings and drawings in this exhibition are brought to life by rippling water and rays of sunlight.

Varejão's diversity of disciplines includes painting, sculpture, installation and photography through which she mines the cultural histories of colonial Brazil in conjunction with the histories of painting. Past bodies of work have included large Portuguese tiles that utilize fabrication methods barred from export outside of the country, and her Ruína de Charque series presents modern day architectural ruins comprised of tiles and visceral exposed flesh. Referencing the history of painting, her sauna series utilizes the refined grid structure of Modernism and hints of Cubism.

Born in 1964 in Rio de Janeiro, where she lives and works, Adriana Varejão is one of Brazil's leading contemporary artists. Her work is included in the collections of The Tate Modern in London; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Hara Museum in Tokyo; and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, among others. She also has a permanent pavilion devoted to her work at the Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim in Brazil that opened in 2008. Varejão has exhibited extensively internationally—including at the Biennale of Sydney, the Venice Biennale, and the São Paulo Biennial—and has had solo exhibitions at Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden and the Instituto de Arte Contemporanea, Lisbon. Recently, the Hara Museum in Tokyo and Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris featured solo exhibitions of her work. She was included in the Brazil: Body and Soul exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2001, as well as in the MoMA QNS exhibition Tempo, where she filled an entire room with the wall-based installation Azulejões (Big Blue Tiles).

For more information please visit www.lehmannmaupin.com or contact Stephanie Smith at 212 255 2923 or Stephanie@LehmannMaupin.com. Please also visit the gallery on Facebook.com and Twitter.com
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Artists in this exhibition

• Adriana Varejão

Press

• Art in America Download PDF ()
• Dailyserving.com

Exhibition Works

ADRIANA VAREJAO O Iluminado (The Shining), 2009 oil on linen 90.55 x 220.47 inches 230 x 560 cm LM12107


ADRIANA VAREJAO A Fonte (The Fountain), 2009 oil on canvas 66.93 x 90.55 inches 170 x 230 cm LM12116


ADRIANA VAREJAO O Sedutor (The Seducer), 2009 graphite on paper 27.56 x 39.37 inches (paper) 70 x 100 cm LM12428


ADRIANA VAREJAO O Obsceno (The Obscene), 2009 graphite and watercolor on paper 27.56 x 39.37 inches (paper) 70 x 100 cm LM12429


ADRIANA VAREJAO O Convidado (The Guest), 2009 graphite and watercolor on paper 27.56 x 39.37 inches (paper) 70 x 100 cm LM12427


ADRIANA VAREJAO O Especialista (The Specialist), 2009 graphite on paper 27.56 x 39.37 inches (paper) 70 x 100 cm LM12430


ADRIANA VAREJAO Diva Divina (Divine Diva), 2009 graphite on paper 39.37 x 27.56 inches (paper) 100 x 70 cm LM12431


ADRIANA VAREJAO Dona Branca (Mrs. White), 2009 graphite on paper 27.56 x 39.37 inches (paper) 70 x 100 cm LM12432


ADRIANA VAREJAO Mme F., 2009 graphite on paper 27.56 x 39.37 inches (paper) 70 x 100 cm LM12433


ADRIANA VAREJAO A Malvada (The Wicked), 2009 tbc on paper 27.56 x 39.37 inches (ppper) 70 x 100 cm LM12520


ADRIANA VAREJAO O Voyeur (The Voyeur), 2009 graphite and watercolor on paper 27.56 x 39.37 inches 70 x 100 cm LM12434


ADRIANA VAREJAO O Anfitriao (The Host), 2009 graphite and watercolor on paper 27.56 x 39.37 inches 70 x 100 cm LM12517