With this text, Tadeu Chiarelli presents a show of work by Cláudio Mubarac. He observes how metal engraving becomes a process of self-knowledge in the hands of an artist influenced—in Chiarelli’s view—by Evandro Carlos Jardim. Printmaking and the print itself are recurring themes in Mubarac’s production; the procedures that make up his imaginary bear the influence of Mira Schendel. Mubarac’s work underwent a radical transformation when the image of the body was introduced and rendered ethereal via X-ray plates. Chiarelli underscores the idea of the “corporification” of Mubarac’s prints—now three-dimensional and material—as they make reference to the matrix. With this artist, the golden plate reaches its “zero degree.”

The late eighties witnessed a qualitative shift in printmaking produced in São Paulo when artists trained by master printmaker Evandro Carlos Jardim looked to unconventional processes. Cláudio Mubarac, along with Laurita Salles, Marco Buti, Alberto Alexandre Martins, and Elisa Bracher, laid the foundations for innovation in the production and exhibition of prints. Artist Cláudio Mubarac teaches at the Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo (ECA-USP). In the eighties, he organized and then directed the printmaking studio at the Museu Lasar Segall. The current director of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Tadeu Chiarelli has done research and curated shows on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Brazilian photography and art. In that work, he establishes ties between art and photography, on the one hand, and the art world and its circuits, on the other, always with an emphasis on social questions. He has played a fundamental role not only in thought on the photographic medium, but also in establishing it as central to Brazilian art from recent decades. [For complementary reading, see in the ICAA digital archive the following texts by Tadeu Chiarelli: “15 artistas brasileiros: colocando dobradiças na arte contemporânea = Putting Hinges on Contemporary Art” (doc. no. 1110500), “Amanhã hoje: Casa triângulo de 1988 a 1995” (doc. no. 1111344), “Apontamentos para um mapa das artes plásticas em São Paulo durante 1985” (doc. no. 1111351), “Apropriações: o lugar da arte como questão” (doc. no. 1111252), “Armadilhas para Narciso” (doc. no. 1111253), “Considerações sobre o uso de imagens de segunda geração na arte contemporânea” (doc. no. 1110502), “Da arte nacional brasileira para a arte brasileira internacional” (doc. no. 1075144), “Emmanuel Nassar: erudito e popular” (doc. no. 1110457), “Fotografía en Brasil: años 90 = Photography in Brazil in the 1990s” (doc. no. 1110894), “A gravura paulista significa” (doc. no. 1111251), “Jac Leirner” (doc. no. 1111254), “La mirada contaminada: otras fotografías = The contaminated gaze: other photographies” (doc. no. 1110893), “Realidade e simulacro” (doc. no. 1111255), “Uma realidade... dilacerante: a produção de Nazareth Pacheco = Nazareth Pacheco’s output: a lacerating reality” (doc. no. 1111059), “Sobre a fotografia brasileira atual = On current Brazilian photography” (doc. no. 1110895), “Sobre as pinturas de Mônica Nador” (doc. no. 1111256), and “O tridimensional na arte brasileira dos anos 80 e 90: genealogias, superações” (doc. no. 1111352)].