Robert Barry

Robert Barry is, since the mid 1960’s, one of the most important names in North-American conceptual art. After beginning his career with works that presented groups of monochromatic paintings in such a way that they could enhance the exhibition space’s characteristics, Robert Barry completely abandoned conventional painting by 1967 and started a brief series of installations made of transparent nylon cords, inert gases, radiation and electromagnetic energy. All invisible materials through which the artist aligned himself with the quest for the “dematerialization of the art object”, one of the main ideas that drove the development of 1960’s conceptual art. In 1969, in another radical change, Barry abandoned his series of invisible works (convinced that they were still related to a physical and measurable dimension) and begun to incorporate texts into his art, aiming to connect more directly with the spectators and to create a dynamic in which every though or reaction coming from the public in relation to the artist’s texts would became part of the work. Since then, it was through this textual language, its graphic and communicative power that Barry’s work developed and made him (along with names like Lawrence Weiner, Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari and Mel Bochner) one of the great North-American conceptual artists to work with the many potentialities inside written text. ...

Founded in São Paulo in 2011, Galeria Jaqueline Martins is a space for research, documentation and presentation of contemporary artistic production. It proposes collaborative curatorial strategies that foster dialogue between different generations and different cultural perspectives. One of its guiding principles is the encouragement of research-oriented conceptualist practices characterized by critical, even subversive, approaches. Since its inauguration, the gallery has developed a special program around the investigation of artistic productions carried out during the Brazilian military period – more specifically from the 1970s and 1980s. It promotes a historical revision of processes grounded on strong intellectual resistance, audacity and commitment to art and which transformed the artistic practice in the country, but nonetheless were neglected throughout the last decades. By integrating research and practice that confront the contemporary scene by means of its exhibition program, the gallery encourages the revival of the debate that conceives of artistic actions as contact zones for the exercise of aesthetic, social and political change. In 2020 the gallery opened its second exhibition space, in Brussels, aiming to expand our presence in Europe and to develop a multidisciplinary program that will foster connections between our artists and Brazilian art practices in an international context. ...