Isabella Rjeille – författare

Eroticism and Amazonian mythologies in the sculpture of an overlooked Brazilian SurrealistA leading figure in New York’s Surrealist circles and in Latin American modernism, the Brazilian artist Maria Martins (1894–1973) was known for her bronze sculptures of hybrid and mythological figures. Through her marriage to a Brazilian diplomat, Martins built a large part of her career outside Brazil, having lived in New York in the 1940s, when she was part of the city’s expat Surrealist community. This survey examines Martins’ central and active role in Surrealism (in a counterpart to the narratives about her romantic involvement with Duchamp), her interpretation of Amazonian mythologies and iconography from the outset of her career, and her female perspective on themes of desire and eroticism.

A colossal panorama of Brazilian visual culture across five centuriesPublished for the bicentennial of Brazil’s independence, Brazilian Histories brings together a selection of more than 300 works and documents from different mediums, typologies and regions of the country, spanning the 16th to 21st centuries.

Castro’s intimate, small-scale works confront the disenfranchisement of racial and gender minoritiesThrough paintings, engravings, objects, photographs and drawings, Brazilian artist Lia D Castro (born 1978) uses sex work to investigate how race, class and gender dynamics play roles in situations of vulnerability and intimacy, and how affection and care can be tools for social transformation. The title of the book highlights a historical condition imposed on the so-called "racial and gender minorities": often seen as a majority at the very bases of our societies, while widely absent from decision-making positions. D Castro invites us to think critically on how racialized and gendered bodies could occupy positions of power in a system that profits from their exclusion. The book includes reproductions of works spanning the artist’s career, as well as commissioned essays by Ana Raylander Martís dos Anjos, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Tie Jojima.

Vernacular textiles as rallying call: 47 arpilleras from Brazilian women that advocate for collective construction of state infrastructureArpilleras, colorful patchwork pieces made of scraps of fabric embroidered on jute, originated in Chile in the 1960s as an expression of female protagonism during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. In subsequent years, the vernacular art form has spread across the globe, inspiring activist groups such as the National Women's Collective of the Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (Movement of People Affected by Dams, or MAB), a Brazilian movement that emerged in the 1980s to demand a popular energy project.Embroidering Our Rights gathers 47 arpilleras created between 2013 and 2024 by women in workshops organized by MAB throughout Brazil. The artists' textiles address issues of domestic violence; disconnection between land and community; water and electricity access; the impact of dams and river pollution on fishing and family livelihoods; and other human and environmental rights violations.

Over 200 works across painting, sculpture, weaving, maps and video attest to ecological harm and suggest reparative, non-anthropocentric modes of global cohabitationThis book brings together more than 200 works by artists, activists and social movements that examine, from different perspectives, the concept of “ecology” as a system of interrelationships among human and more-than-human beings—including animals, plants, rivers, forests, mountains, fungi and minerals.Lushly illustrated, this catalog includes reproductions of works and curatorial essays divided into thematic sections—“Web of Life,” “Geographies of Time,” “On Becoming,” “Territories, Migrations, and Borders” and “Inhabiting the Climate.” The paintings, sculptures, weavings, maps and videos of the 117 artists presented, nearly all of whom come from the so-called Global South, not only shed light on the effects of colonialism, environmental racism and global capitalism on bodies, territories and ecosystems, but also the historical and structural roots of this mode of living, as well as different ways of seeing, inhabiting and transforming the planet.

Since the end of the 1990s, through her videos, sculptures, photographs, art installations, and performances, the internationally acclaimed Brazilian artist Cinthia Marcelle (b. 1974) has been critically examining the established and hierarchical social structures upon which our daily lives are built. Marcelle uses collective action as the medium through which to break down rigid mechanisms and organisational forms and to renegotiate new ones. This publication is the first comprehensive monograph of Marcelle’s work and provides multidimensional and analytical insight into her work, reflecting the complex societal discourse it explores. It was created through the artist’s close cooperation with the Museum Marta Herford and the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP).Text by Anna Roberta Goetz, Eungie Joo, Leandro Muniz, Adriano Pedrosa, Kathleen Rahn, Ana Raylander Mártis dos Anjos, Isabella Rjeille Text in English and German.

Performative interventions in everyday lifeThis is the first major monograph for Brazilian conceptual artist Cinthia Marcelle (born 1974), accompanying her solo show at MASP. Through photographs, videos, installations and interventions that make use of everyday elements, Marcelle performs displacements and operations that momentarily destabilize the order of things.

Recent textiles from a fourth-generation Navajo artist working in the Germantown Revival styleTextile artist, member of the Navajo Nation and fourth-generation weaver Melissa Cody (born 1983) overlays traditional geometric patterns with references ranging from pop culture to the aesthetics of new technologies in vibrant and eye-dazzling weavings.