50 years: galeria raquel arnaud

22 feb - 25 may_2024

Curation by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti and Marina Schiesari

Over the last few decades, only a few individuals have been as active in supporting Brazilian art and artists as Raquel Arnaud has. The exhibition celebrating her fifty years of work provides a unique opportunity to delve into the history of the multiple galleries she founded and directed, the exhibitions she organized and the events she produced during this period. Raquel is passionate about her work, and her connection with art goes beyond the surface. She possesses a well-defined and consolidated taste that has only evolved over the years, giving her gallery a distinctive and immediately recognizable character — an increasingly rare quality. Her commitment to preserving the memory and constructive legacy of Brazilian art is emblematic, leading her to establish, more than twenty years ago, a pioneering institution, the Instituto de Arte Contemporânea (IAC). Additionally, examining her entire trajectory allows us to grasp the paths that led to this clarity, and to acknowledge the generosity and openness that have defined her work over time.

Taking these considerations into account, the exhibition was conceived as a timeline that succinctly records the activities of the galleries Raquel managed throughout her career. This timeline is the only element of the exhibition that aspires to be complete; everything else surrounding it, including the various types of documents on the walls and the artworks at the center of the room, should be viewed as merely metonymic, almost a reflection, partial and fleeting, of what Raquel, her teams and numerous artists, both Brazilian and foreigner, have done over the years. There is an almost deliberate and conscious contradiction in focusing Raquel’s trajectory in the exhibition, as artworks have always been the most important thing for her. However, it seemed pertinent that, for once, after fifty years, attention should shift from the works to the gallerist and the artists who, with her, wrote such a significant chapter in the history of Brazilian art.

Jacopo Crivelli Visconti