BEATRIZ MILHAZES : Rigor and Beauty-Collection Focus
Mar 7 - Sep 14, 2025
Guggenheim New York, 1071 5th Ave, New York, NY 10128
Beatriz Milhazes
이번 전시는 브라질의 문화적 유산과 정체성을 추상화의 언어로 풀어내는 세계적인 현대 미술가 베아트리스 밀라제스(Beatriz Milhazes)의 작품들을 선보입니다. 1980년대부터 현재에 이르기까지 40년에 걸친 그녀의 방대한 작업 세계는 회화는 물론 조각, 콜라주, 판화, 텍스타일 등을 아우릅니다. 이번 전시는 1995년부터 2023년까지 제작된 15점의 회화와 종이 작업(works on paper)에 집중하여, 밀라제스의 예술적 진화 과정을 집약적으로 보여줍니다.
밀라제스의 작업은 브라질의 역사와 전통에 깊이 뿌리박고 있습니다. 식민지 시대의 미술과 건축, 장식 예술, 그리고 리우데자네이루의 화려한 카니발(Carnival) 축제에서 영감을 얻습니다. 또한 1960년대 브라질의 문화 운동인 트로피칼리아(Tropicália)와 보사노바(Bossa nova)의 리듬과 색채 역시 그녀의 작품 속에 메아리칩니다. 그녀는 앙리 마티스, 피에트 몬드리안과 같은 거장들과 교감하는 동시에, 브라질 모더니즘의 기초를 닦은 타르실라 두 아마랄(Tarsila do Amaral)의 미학을 계승합니다.
특히 밀라제스는 1989년 "모노트랜스퍼(monotransfer)"라는 혁신적인 기법을 개발했습니다. 투명한 플라스틱 시트에 아크릴 물감으로 문양을 그린 뒤, 이를 캔버스에 붙였다가 떼어내는 방식입니다. 이 과정을 통해 완성된 화면은 추상적인 형태와 유기적인 패턴, 기하학적 구조가 역동적으로 어우러지며, 작가의 행위가 켜켜이 쌓인 독특한 질감을 만들어냅니다.
최근 작가인 <Mistura sagrada>(2022) 등은 팬데믹 이후 자연의 영적인 힘과 생명 순환의 주기에 집중합니다. 리우의 식물원과 티주카 숲, 코파카바나 해변의 유기적 요소들이 조화로운 기하학적 구조와 화려한 색채의 우주로 재탄생하며 그녀의 작품 세계를 완성합니다.
This exhibition presents the work of global contemporary artist Beatriz Milhazes (b. 1960, Rio de Janeiro), who engages with her Brazilian cultural heritage and identity through the language of abstraction. The artist’s complex body of work spans four decades—from the 1980s to the present—and encompasses sculpture, collage, print, textiles, public art, and especially painting. This focused exhibition features a group of fifteen paintings and works on paper from 1995 to 2023, drawn from the museum’s permanent collection and augmented by key loans, which together contextualize the broader narrative of Milhazes’s artistic evolution.
Milhazes’s work is deeply rooted in Brazilian history and tradition, drawing from colonial art and architecture, decorative arts, and the vibrant celebration of Carnival—a week-long festival in Rio de Janeiro that showcases Brazilian culture through parades, music, performances, and elaborate costumes. She is also influenced by Tropicália, a 1960s cultural movement that blended art, music, and literature to celebrate Brazilian identity while protesting the repressive military regime. The rhythms and colors of bossa nova, a musical style born in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1950s, also echo throughout her work. Beyond these influences, Milhazes engages with the work of artists like Henri Matisse and Piet Mondrian, while also referencing Tarsila do Amaral, whose creations were fundamental to the visual and aesthetic development of Brazilian Modernism.
In 1989 Milhazes developed an innovative technique she calls “monotransfer,” inspired by the monotype printing process, in which a painted image is transferred from a plate to paper, producing a mirror image. She begins her process by painting motifs onto clear plastic sheets with acrylic paint. Once the acrylic dries, she layers and adheres the painted films to canvas and then peels away the plastic, revealing the forms in reverse. The resulting compositions are vibrant and dynamic, combining abstract forms, organic patterns, and geometric structures on textured surfaces imbued with the memory of the artist’s actions.
The early paintings in this exhibition, primarily from the museum’s collection—such as Santa Cruz (1995), In albis (1995–96), and As quatro estaçōes (The Four Seasons, 1997)—draw inspiration from the opulence of 18th-century Brazilian Baroque colonial churches and ornamental garments. Milhazes synthesizes these influences into abstract and representative motifs, with circles and arabesques, delicate crochet and lace, flowers and floral patterns, and ornate pearls and ironwork emerging throughout her compositions. By 2000, she began exploring optical effects in her paintings, using linear repetitions to create undulating patterns and visual rhythms, as seen in Paisagem carioca (Carioca Landscape, 2000), O cravo e a rosa (The Carnation and the Rose, 2000), and O Caipira (The Caipira, 2004).
The works on paper in this exhibition, created between 2013 and 2021, demonstrate Milhazes’s continued experimentation with collage. She combines mass-produced elements like branded shopping bags, chocolate bar wrappers, and patterned paper with cutouts from her own solid-colored screenprints to create intricate patterns and bold abstract configurations.
Milhazes’s recent paintings, including Mistura sagrada (Sacred Mixture, 2022), mark a shift toward exploring the spiritual power of nature in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although references to the natural world have been present since her early career, here she delves into cycles of renewal—life and death—through colorful, angular forms and intricate patterns. Organic elements, reflective of the artist’s proximity to Rio de Janeiro’s Botanical Garden, Tijuca Forest, and Copacabana Beach, are echoed in the harmonious geometries, conceptual systems, and chromatic universes that span her oeuvre.
The exhibition is organized by Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães, Curator, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, New York.
Original Text from Guggenheim Museum
