Ruben Valentin at PANM, Miami, Florida.
Rubem Valentim
b. 1922, Salvador, Brazil; d. 1991, São Paulo Emblema 79 (Emblem 79), 1979
Acrylic on canvas
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez
Brazilian painter and sculptor Rubem Valentim began his career as a self-taught artist. In the 1950s, he started to observe the geometric symbols found in the realm of Afro-Brazilian religions and compared them to modern, constructivist geometric forms. In this way, the artist delved deep into the European artistic language that controlled the art production in Brazil in order to generate a new language that blended geometric abstraction, constructivism, and concretism with drawings and diagrams of the deities from Afro-Brazilian religions known as orixas.
In Emblema 79, Valentim creates a balanced, almost symmetrical composition with pure and strong chromatic investigations. The circular shape in the center is perhaps a reference to Orula-the oriá of divination and supreme oracle, representing wisdom and intelligence-while the triangles pointed at each other is a direct reference to Shango's double-edged axe. Valentim ambitiously undertook the 1928 Brazilian modernist text Manifesto antropofágico (Anthropophagic Manifesto) by Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954) that suggests native intellectuals and artists absorb and digest European influences in order to create hybrid Brazilian works that merge Indigenous, African, and European references. By following this thought process, Valentim executed a radical approach in the history of Brazilian art, subjecting the European influences to an Afro-Brazilian culture while generating a powerful symbolic vocabulary of decolonization.
Ruben Valentin at PANM, Miami, Florida.
Rubem Valentim
b. 1922, Salvador, Brazil; d. 1991, São Paulo Emblema 79 (Emblem 79), 1979
Acrylic on canvas
Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, museum purchase with funds provided by Jorge M. Pérez
Brazilian painter and sculptor Rubem Valentim began his career as a self-taught artist. In the 1950s, he started to observe the geometric symbols found in the realm of Afro-Brazilian religions and compared them to modern, constructivist geometric forms. In this way, the artist delved deep into the European artistic language that controlled the art production in Brazil in order to generate a new language that blended geometric abstraction, constructivism, and concretism with drawings and diagrams of the deities from Afro-Brazilian religions known as orixas.
In Emblema 79, Valentim creates a balanced, almost symmetrical composition with pure and strong chromatic investigations. The circular shape in the center is perhaps a reference to Orula-the oriá of divination and supreme oracle, representing wisdom and intelligence-while the triangles pointed at each other is a direct reference to Shango's double-edged axe. Valentim ambitiously undertook the 1928 Brazilian modernist text Manifesto antropofágico (Anthropophagic Manifesto) by Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954) that suggests native intellectuals and artists absorb and digest European influences in order to create hybrid Brazilian works that merge Indigenous, African, and European references. By following this thought process, Valentim executed a radical approach in the history of Brazilian art, subjecting the European influences to an Afro-Brazilian culture while generating a powerful symbolic vocabulary of decolonization.