MAY 23 2024, 18h30 

Flavio Cerqueira, a sculptor of meanings
Ilídio Pinho Auditorium

In Flávio Cerqueira, a Sculptor of Meanings, the Brazilian artist and teacher will present an overview of his 15-year artistic career. 
He will discuss his creative processes and the production of bronze sculpture, as well as the conceptual and symbolic issues he brings to his poetics.
The artist will begin his talk by recounting his first experience of an artist's residency and his first studio in Lisbon, Portugal, and how this influenced his career.

©RomuloFialdini

Flávio Cerqueira
Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. He is studying for a PhD in Visual Arts at Universidade Estadual Paulista-UNESP. He works with traditional bronze casting processes and has the human figure as the protagonist of his poetics.
His work uniquely explores personal, historical and sometimes fictional narratives to problematise issues of class, identity, race and gender. The presence of everyday objects such as mirrors, books, road signs or graffiti writing creates tension with the out-of-scale bronze human figures in an attempt to blur the boundaries between the sculpture, the architectural space and the viewer. Cerqueira uses sculpture as a tool to immobilise the instant, the moment of the fragment of an action, where the viewer becomes a co-author in the production of meanings to say that the narrative has a beginning with different endings. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions in Brazil and abroad, including, most notably, Histórias Afro Atlânticas, National Gallery of Washington (2022) The Museum of Fine Arts Houston (2021), MASP - São Paulo, Brazil (2018); Queermuseu, Santander Cultural, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2017); South / South Let me Begin again, Goodman Gallery Cape Town, South Africa (2017). 10th Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2015);  Resignification, Stefano Bardini Museum, Florence, Italy (2015).
His works can be found in important collections in Brazil, such as Instituto Inhotim, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Museu Afro Brasil, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP) and Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul (MARGS), among others.