According to Sônia Salzstein, the author of this review, Carlos Fajardo alternates between working [in the media of] painting and sculpture. The fundamental concerns of the work revolve around the surface and the tension between matter and time. Salzstein discusses the works featured in this exhibition specifically in relation to their indeterminate status before the viewer, and the powerful way they occupy the exhibition space.

The Galeria Sérgio Milliet, which was conceived by the Fundação Nacional de Arte, Rio de Janeiro (FUNARTE) in the eighties, was an important venue for the dissemination and support of contemporary art in Brazil in that it had stored experimental Brazilian work produced in the seventies. This text by Sônia Salzstein is a review of the show of work by Carlos Fajardo held in the exhibition venue of FUNARTE.

The show by Carlos Fajardo (b. 1941) was held at the Galeria Sérgio Milliet in Rio de Janeiro in 1987. Fajardo was a member of the Grupo Rex, eventually becoming the coeditor of its publication Rex Time. Along with Luiz Paulo Baravelli, Frederico Nasser, and José Resende, Fajardo founded the Escola Brasil. In work that makes use of an array of supports, Fajardo pushes the limits of the viewer’s perception. He was invited to participate in the Ninth, Sixteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-Fifth São Paulo Biennials, and in the “Brasil Século XX” held in 1994. He represented Brazil at the Biennale di Venezia in 1978 (XXXVIII edition) and in 1993 (XLV edition). Two retrospective exhibitions of his work have been held, the first at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM-Rio) in 2002, and the second at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo in 2003.

Art critic and researcher Sônia Salzstein has done incisive work on the art world and in art history. From 1989 to 1992, she was the head of the visual arts division of the Centro Cultural São Paulo, where she devised a program geared to young and emerging artists. She is a professor in the Visual Arts Department of the Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo (ECA-USP). She is a member of the curatorial board of the Fundação Iberê Camargo, which oversees the Mercosul Biennial. Books she has authored include the monographs: Volpi (Silvia Roesler/Campos Gerais, 2000), Franz Weissmann (CosacNaify, 2003), and Diálogos com Iberê Camargo (CosacNaify, 2004). 

Other texts by Salzstein on this artist include “Carlos Fajardo/ um coeficiente mínimo de estilo” [see doc. no. 1111284].