Today I highlight Suspensão, a retrospective of São Paulo artist Artur Lescher, on view at Estação Pinacoteca.
Curated by Camila Bechelany, the exhibition occupies the building’s fourth floor and is divided into three parts: Narrativas Líquidas, Suspensão — the room that gives the exhibition its name — and Engenharia da Memória.
Among the varied forms occupying the space, Lescher’s ability to create tension between weight and lightness through his exploration of materials stands out.
This is evident in the Suspensão room, where a group of 30 pendulums seems to challenge the possibilities of balance in space, drawing us into an utterly magical territory in which structures place us in a kind of hiatus in time and space.
The pendulums interact with the building’s iron columns to create a paradoxically uncanny landscape in which the weight of the structures seems to float, establishing a state of suspension of bodies in the air.
The relationship between Artur Lescher’s sculpture and architecture is remarkable, and in the Engenharia da Memória room this expands to the urban surroundings through the integration of the works into the landscape, via the large windows opening onto the outside.
This space brings together works dating from Artur’s earliest explorations of elementary architectural forms, such as a large wooden block raised by wires from the Casa series, through to an installation called Nostalgia do Engenheiro (2014/2019), consisting of seventeen objects on a base inspired by Giorgio de Chirico’s paintings.
Also here is an immense suspended sculpture in which a metal needle points toward a book made of Riga pine placed on the floor. The sculpture is called Iad, meaning “hand” in Hebrew, and refers to a silver instrument used to read the sacred Torah scrolls.
In a way, this work provides a transition to the Narrativas Líquidas room, which gathers works related to the passage of time and which, as the curator emphasizes, also counterpoint the organic image of nature.
This room contains works from the Rios series (2004–2019), addressing cycles and flows that continually erase the past as they move, yet always using solid materials such as steel and wood.
It is a major retrospective of the artist’s career, with around 120 works, including his sketchbooks and models. It runs through June 24 at Estação Pinacoteca, Wednesday–Monday, 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
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