Denis Rodriguez and Leonardo Remor are artists, curators, and researchers. They reflect on the Art and Nature dyad in projects that focus on rural areas, the land, and the transmission of ancestral knowledge and technologies of popular creators and the Indigenous peoples of Eastern South America. Since August 2020, they have resided in Igatu, Chapada Diamantina, Bahia, where they founded Mirante Xique-Xique, a para-institution that promotes research residencies in different areas: environment, architecture, cuisine, and arts. Through cultural activities, exchanges, and environmental education, the non-governmental, non-profit organization’s mission is to safeguard the region’s architectural and intangible heritage.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2023 Coming Together is the Beginning, McColl Center, Charlotte, USA
2022 37th Panorama of Brazilian Art – Under the Ashes, Embers, curated by Claudinei Roberto da Silva, Vanessa Davidson, Cristiana Tejo e Cauê Alves, MAM São Paulo Museum of Modern Art of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
2021 Fagulha Perdida em Meio ao Fogo, solo show, OÁ Galeria, Vitória, Brazil
2020 La Piedra Pregunta, La Tierra Responde. Diálogos sobre Arquitectura sin Rastro, solo show, curated by Amelie Aranguren and Cristiana Tejo, Casa do Brasil, Madrid, Spain
2019-2018 Aprendendo com o Barro, solo show, Centro Cultural São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
2018 Open Spaces, curated by Dan Cameron, Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, USA
2018 Continuum, curated by Henrique Menezes, Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre, Brazil
2017 The Fountain that Crossed the Line, KCAI Crossroads Gallery, Kansas City, USA
2017 Curucu no Parquet, curated by Elaine Tedesco, Pinacoteca Barão de Santo Ângelo, Porto Alegre, Brazil
2017 À Sombra da Cruz (Performing Christianity), curated by Gala Berger, Casa W, Porto Alegre, Brazil
2017-2016 Pariwat Jenipapo, solo show, curated by Camila Fialho, Fotoativa, Belém, Pará, Brazil
2016 WaterScapes, curated by Jesse Brandler Firestone, BOX Contemporary, FATVillage, Miami, USA
2015 O Vento Dissipa as Lembranças de uma Realidade Anterior, solo show, curated by Bernardo Mosqueira, Santander Cultural, Porto Alegre, Brazil
2015 Água Viva, solo show, curated by Monica Hoff, Galeria Península, Porto Alegre, Brazil
RESIDENCIES
2024 MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, USA
2024 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), Amherst, Virginia, USA
2024 Sitka Center for Art & Ecology, Otis, Oregon, USA
2023 McColl Center, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
2023 Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, Nebraska, USA
2021 Entre Nós, Mosteiro Zen Morro da Vargem, Espírito Santo, Brazil
2019 Nomad AIR, Oslo, Norway
2019 INLAND – Campo Adentro, Madrid, Spain
2018 CRIPTA747, Turin, Italy
2016 OMI International Arts Center, New York, USA
2016 Fotoativa, Belém, Pará, Brazil
2016 Comunitaria, Curatoría Forense, Lincoln, Argentina
2016 PIVÔ Pesquisa, São Paulo, Brazil
SELECTED CURATORIAL PROJECTS
2023 Agora eu ouço os sabiás, Valéria Scornaienchi, galeria da FAV, Universidade Federal de Goiás
2022 Na superfície silenciosa das formas, Alice Ricci, Oma Galeria, São Paulo
2017 DES | COMPOSTOS, Claudia Paim e Dione Veiga Vieira, Galeria Península, Porto Alegre
2017 OTÁ ou lá onde a pedra não sabe que é estátua, Leandro Machado, Galeria Península, Porto Alegre
2016 Infiltração, Laurencia Strauss, Galeria Península, Porto Alegre
2014 D.O.S., Kaplan & Dal Verme (Bárbara Kaplan e Mariano Dal Verme), Galeria Península, Porto Alegre
2013 Horizonte à venda, group show, Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana, Porto Alegre
PUBLICATIONS
2022 37th Panorama of Brazilian Art – Under the Ashes, Embers (São Paulo Museum of Modern Art – MAM SP)
2021 Entre Nós, org. Clara Sampaio
2020 KA’A, Arte é Natureza, org. Denis Rodriguez and Maria Amelia Bulhões
2018 II Mostra do 28º Programa de Exposições CCSP (Centro Cultural São Paulo), text Camila Bechelany
2018 Kerexu Jera Poty, org. Claudia Zanatta, Denis Rodriguez e Leonardo Remor
2017 Não Sou Daqui, Nem Sou De Lá. Gestão, Curadoria e Residência Artística em Rede, org. Denis Rodriguez, Leonardo Remor and Mônica Hoff
2015 Práticas Contemporâneas do Mover-se, org. Michelle Sommer
2014 Corpo Presente, text Márcio Pizarro Noronha
As a duo, our work interrogates visible and invisible boundaries that are imposed, such as the separation between nature and culture, contemporary art and folk art, modern architecture and vernacular architecture, technology and para-technology, artist and critic, curator and researcher, authorship and collaboration—divisions, binaries that separate us from our integrity and from the complex matrix of life, where contradictory and complementary forces alternate and merge. Currently, two issues permeate our work, first, materials and materiality, and second, artistic/cultural practices and the production of work for the art system. We always take a pause before producing a new work, a sort of recognition and appreciation of the works and artists that have preceded us, and we research extensively before proposing and producing a new work: after all, why place a similar work in circulation in this world that is already saturated with objects and things? We always question ourselves regarding our actions and how other artists influence us and give life to our thoughts and desires to produce.
Over the past years, from immersions in different contexts and territories, in choosing diverse materials, mainly clay, we have tried to expand the concept of sustainability beyond the logic of consumption and productivity, in alliance with other modes of living. We have undertaken research and works that invest in a critical view of coloniality, exalting the ancestral wisdom of human relationships with nature, by means of artistic practices that guarantee the use of materials that are not harmful to life and that do not produce non-recyclable waste. Thus, we carry out actions and dialogues that result in films, photography, objects, and installations that use methodologies, concepts, and reflections from anthropology with the aim of questioning the western ethnography that documents, describes, or narrates cultural practices without learning from them, without recognizing this knowledge as a sustainable alternative to a world in collapse as a result of the ideas of modernity and progress.
