Ana Prata. Minutemen

Minutemen is a punk rock group that interests the Brazilian artist Ana Prata (born in 1980) and from which she borrowed the name for her exhibition at La Maudite.

The work of Ana Prata, who belongs to the generation of young Brazilian painters, brings together abstract painting and figurative elements. From her paintings in primary or dark colors, marked by the ambiguity between the painting and the snapshot, emanates a silent, fragile universe.

Always referring to something archaic, her recent works become more abstract, with cleaner shapes and more vivid colors. Because of its simple colors, rhythm and tension within the canvas, as well as the overflowing of its borders, her work creates links with modernism.

In her drawings, showed at La Maudite, one also discerns that feeling of openness that now emerges from the surface of the canvas in her recent paintings.

The title of the exhibition resonates with Ana’s drawings, a form of direct expression through gesture. Fast and concentrated, conjuring up children’s drawings, when viewed closely they emanate many details and references. Like many songs of the musical group, rarely exceeding two minutes in duration and including variations from one style to another, the works of Ana stem from a speed of execution, but lend themselves to a slow perception.

This short form is born of a free gesture, not stinted by any constraints, and transmits an immediate drive: «Each gesture, each second matters.»

Teasing the conformism of the nonconformists, this was the goal of the Minutemen. As soon as a musical or artistic expression settles and forms a trend, it is necessary to disable these rules. According to the artist, «Punk represents a kind of thinking that can be applied, and often applies itself, to art. It is a desire to communicate directly, often attacking the established values, often the language itself. «

This punk idea is manifested in the very installing of the exhibition. At La Maudite, Ana was invited to hang her drawings over the previous exhibition, that of Chico Togni.

The artist is thus forced to insert her work into the existing landscape, eluding the principle of the usual white walls. The intention being not to cover, but to discover, to coexist and thereby highlight some unexpected sides of different practices, the previous work is not erased, but left revealed. With time and upcoming exhibitions, the walls will become a kind of memory of the site, always alive and active.

Text: Olga Ogorodova

Ana Prata

(Sete Lagoas / Brazil, 1980) Holding a fine arts bachelor’s degree from Universidade de São Paulo, Ana presented her first solo shows in 2009, at Centro Cultural São Paulo and Centro Universitário Maria Antonia, both in São Paulo, Brazil. Since then, she held solo exhibitions at Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Galeria Millan and Galeria Marília Razuk, also in São Paulo. Among the group exhibitions in which she participated, in Brazil and abroad, are the International Contemporary Art Festival SESC_Videobrasil (São Paulo), 2011 and 2013; the show Os primeiros dez anos, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake (São Paulo), 2011, and the show Lugar Nenhum, at Instituto Moreira Salles (Rio de Janeiro), 2013. She participated in theartistic residence program Red Bull House of Art, in 2011.

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