Sé Galeria

Simon Preston hosts Sé Galeria (São Paulo) presenting 8 Movements, A Few Sundays, One Song by Maria Montero

Maria Montero has been an integral part of the artistic scene of São Paulo for two decades. Besides being an artist and curator, she is also acknowledged for her work as the director of Sé Galeria. Her first solo exhibition in New York both reflects this ambiguous position within the arts system and pays homage to the city’s creative and transgressive legacy, with references to the work by Trisha Brown and Lou Reed.

8 movements, a few Sundays, one song presents a series of works whose matrix is the own artist’s naked body photographed in various positions that are afterwards replicated in paper drawings, photocopies and transparencies. Montero’s work deals with subjects related to biography, affections and the very craft of the artist-curator-gallery director itself.

While approaching dance through drawing, Montero performs a conceptual operation conceived to enable a portable and low-cost exhibition for a specific context. Dancing is doing what needs to be done. The series was conceived on Sundays, the day when she leaves aside the commercial obligations that give her financial support and allow her to dedicate herself to the poetic production.

Due to the overlap, the images simulate not only dance movements, but also that constant exchange of roles in her multiple social performance. “These are amateur photos, an ordinary gesture made by my boyfriend on a Sunday. From then on I made eight drawings that were later photocopied and thus unfold in a multiplicity of overlaps. That is a work based on the ideas of the contour and the copy”, she explains. And concludes: “I do not know how to dance or draw, I am the great pretender”.

Condo is a collaborative exhibition by 38 galleries across 18 New York spaces.