Rubem Valentim

Rubem Valentim

BornNationalityBased In
1922BrazilianN/A
Biography

Ruben Valentim was a self-taught Brazilian artist, who primarily worked with painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Born in 1922, Valentim began making art in the late 1940s, earnestly trying to develop a specific visual language which could speak to Brazil’s complex cultural heritage. The Concrete and Neo-Concrete movements in Brazil were flourishing in this era. However, Valentim felt a need to cultivate an artistic vernacular in order to meditate on the intricacies of the national identity as well as weave together formal geometric fragments with the spiritual iconography of Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomblé and Umbanda. Whilst artists such as Lygia Pape and Waldemar Cordeiro were stretching geometric shapes in a purist, modernist lens, Valentim applied this methodology to drawings and diagrams representing the orishas or deities of Afro-Brazilian religions. The works themselves have a distinctly joyous, sacred tone to them, with wooden totems organically spiralling upwards and his acrylic canvases boldly placing symbols in undiluted, highly pigmented strokes. Valentim is continuing to gain recognition posthumously for his immense body of work and his enduring practice, gaining much critical attention following a retrospective show at Museu de Arte de São Paulo in 2019. ...

Selected Artworks
Emblema
Emblema 79
Rubem Valentim
Emblema 79, 1979
100 x 73cm
Relevo - Emblema 5
Rubem Valentim
Relevo - Emblema 5, 1977
50 x 100cm
Emblema
Emblema 86
Rubem Valentim
Emblema 86, 1986
41 x 27cm
Untitled
Rubem Valentim
Untitled, 1978
96 x 31 x 5cm
Emblema 87
Rubem Valentim
Emblema 87, 1987
41 x 27cm
Emblema IX
Rubem Valentim
Emblema IX, 1973
120 x 73cm
Emblema - 84
Rubem Valentim
Emblema - 84, 1984
50 x 70cm
Desenho Emblemático
Rubem Valentim
Desenho Emblemático, 1986
75 x 70cm
Forma Emblemática para Objeto - XI
Rubem Valentim
Forma Emblemática para Objeto - XI, 1984
31 x 23cm
Emblema
Emblema
Emblema
Untitled - E 24
Rubem Valentim
Untitled - E 24, 1980
72 x 20 x 20cm
Objeto emblemático
Rubem Valentim
Objeto emblemático, 1985
35 x 50cm
Gallery Representation
Biennals
Sao Paolo Biennial1984 - São Paulo
Sao Paolo Biennial1984 - São Paulo
Sao Paolo Biennial1963 - São Paulo
Sao Paolo Biennial1963 - São Paulo
Sao Paolo Biennial1961 - São Paulo
Sao Paolo Biennial1961 - São Paulo
Sao Paolo Biennial1959 - São Paulo
Sao Paolo Biennial1959 - São Paulo
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