Inés Lombardi, Installation View, Secession 2011, Photo: Wolfgang Thaler


"A journey occurs simultaneously in space, in time, and in the social hierarchy. Each impression can be defined only by being jointly related to these three axes, and since space is itself three-dimensional, five axes are necessary if we are to have an adequate representation of any journey." (Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, Penguin Books 1992, p. 85)

This quote from the French structuralist, ethnologist, and explorer Claude Lévi-Strauss brings to mind something about the complex and multi-layered quality of Inés Lombardi's art. Since the late 1980s, she has been working on a constantly evolving body of work characterized by a highly differentiated mode of perception.



Inés Lombardi, Installation View, Secession 2011, Photo: Wolfgang Thaler


In the subtly designed entrance area to her exhibition Past Present – Close and Distant at the Secession's Hauptraum, two photographic works from 1990 presented in vitrines mark the polar extremes of black and white. Diagonally opposite, a video projection offers a point of entry to a variety of perceptions, the Secession's modernist architecture also plays a part. From here on, visitors are left to find their own paths through the clearly structured situation, following their associative threads. Walking around the exhibition space articulated by colored partition walls reveals a complex system of different levels of narrative and reflection. Closer, intimate areas form thematic groups, at the same time as they open up to further links and references.



Inés Lombardi, Installation View, Secession 2011, Photo: Wolfgang Thaler


Two gardens by Brazilian landscape architect and painter Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994), the Residência Olivo Gomes and the Fazenda Vargem Grande, provide the basis for an engagement with the themes of identity and diversity. The emphasis on the process of hybridization in the formation of a national culture points to the marginal position of Brazil with regard to the cultural models of Europe. A central aspect here is the assimilation of foreign elements, especially defined in the period of Brazilian Modernism (Oswald de Andrade's Manifesto Pau-Brasil and Manifesto Antropófago).



Inés Lombardi, Ohne Titel (Paisagem Areias, Fazenda Vargem Grande), 2011, C-Print


The two gardens are located in the Vale do Paraíba in São Paulo state, a region visited by many scientific expeditions in the 19th century. This area is documented in watercolors by Austrian landscape painter Thomas Ender, who took part in an Austrian expedition to Brazil in 1817 and in reports by French botanist and explorer Augustin de Saint-Hilaire. By choice and selection these early reports and depictions affect our idea of the wilderness of a tropical nature that also plays a part in the designs of Roberto Burle Marx.



Inés Lombardi, Installation View, Secession 2011, Photo: Wolfgang Thaler


The Residência Olivo Gomes in São José dos Campos was designed in 1949-51 by Rino Levi, one of the most important architects of Brazilian modernism. Roberto Burle Marx—working closely with the architect—designed a garden characterized by a unique connection between interior and exterior, between the architecture and its setting.



Inés Lombardi, Installation View, Secession 2011, Photo: Wolfgang Thaler


The garden at the Fazenda Vargem Grande in Areias, a former coffee plantation with a historical building from the colonial period, was designed by Roberto Burle Marx in 1979 on the stepped terraces previously used to dry the coffee beans.



Inés Lombardi, Installation View, Secession 2011, Photo: Wolfgang Thaler


By use of the possibilities offered by Brazil's native flora, Roberto Burle Marx revolutionized the country's garden culture and landscape architecture that until then had been strongly aligned with European traditions. The special quality of Roberto Burle Marx's gardens and landscapes is the relationship between art and nature as well as the dialog, responding specifically to their surroundings.



Inés Lombardi, Installation View, Secession 2011, Photo: Wolfgang Thaler


Inés Lombardi's photographic works deal very precisely with this diversity; she differentiates and, at the same time, resolves this differentiation in favor of the possibility of communication. Following the narrative thread of Lombardi´s journey through the Vale do Paraiba to the gardens, one is seduced by the "painterly" gaze that she deploys as a design tool in accordance with the principles of Burle Marx. The diversity in the work is held together by associations. Seemingly similar elements appear at different places within the overall installation, opening up relations between each other: the colors of the partition walls, whose tones are based upon Rino Levi's architecture and reflect the color spectrum of the surrounding garden; the texture of a drawing by Burle Marx or the artist's collection of roots, leaves, and beetles shown in a vitrine. With this range of references, Lombardi explores the relationship between nature, constructed nature and the urbanity of a Brazilian modernism that feeds into the cultural identity of a whole nation. Inevitably, she also addresses the question of the legacy of this modernism that is so closely interwoven with Brazil's history.


CATALOGUE

In the publication accompanying the exhibition, Inés Lombardi extends the concept of hybridization into the book format. Statements by artists, architects, and theorists from her circle of friends—personal associations with her photographic works—are woven into a text collage that unites different viewpoints and creates a new whole: open, many-layered, and with a dynamism similar to all of the artist's works.



INÉS LOMBARDI
Past Present – Close and Distant
64 pages, dimension: 23 x 31 cm
Hybrid text, German/English/Portuguese/Italian
Secession 2011, ISBN 978-3-902592-40-8
Distribution: Revolver Verlag
Available in the shop



Inés Lombardi, Installation View, Secession 2011, Photo: Wolfgang Thaler


BIOGRAPHIC OUTLINE

Inés Lombardi, b. São Paulo (BR) 1958, lives and works in Vienna (AT).
Selected Solo Exhibitions:
ña Montevideo, Montevideo; Inés Lombardi: Given, Galerie Cora Hölzl, Düsseldorf; 2005: Overlapping Matters, Forum Maison Hermès, Tokio; 2002: an approximation, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna; 1997: Komatsu Art Space, Tokio; 1995: Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Palais Liechtenstein, Vienna; 1994: Galerie Karin Schorm, Vienna; 1993: Galerie Cora Hölzl, Düsseldorf; 1992: Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Studio, Graz; 1991: Galerie Karin Schorm, Vienna
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2008: Rückblende, Neue Galerie Graz, Graz; 2007:Terra Infirma, Pratt Institute Gallery, New York; 2006: Simultan, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur; Landscape in your mind, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York; 2005: Nach Rokytník - Die Sammlung der EVN, MUMOK Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna; 2004: From Above, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna; 2003: Ordnung & Chaos, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur; Mimosen, Rosen, Herbstzeitlosen, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems; The Boatshow, Wynick Tuck Gallery, Toronto; 2001: Diesseits und jenseits des Traums. 100 Jahre Jacques Lacan, Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna;Museum as Subject, The National Museum of Art, Osaka; 1998:Die österreichische Vision – Positionen der Gegenwartskunst / The Austrian Vision / A Visão Austríaca – La Visión Austríaca, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; Denver Art Museum, Denver; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; 1997: Purple and Green, Pretoria Art Museum, Pretoria;1996: 23rd International Biennial of São Paulo, São Paulo; White Cube/Black Box. Skulpturensammlung, Video, Installation, Film, Generali Foundation, Vienna; 1995: Skizzen, Modelle, Notizen, Raum Aktueller Kunst, Vienna; 1993: Spiel ohne Grenzen, Museum Ludwig, Budapest; Ideas, Imagenes, Identidades, Centro Cultural Tecla Sala, Barcelona; 1992: Surface Radicale, Grand Palais, Paris; 1991: Vom Verschwinden der Dinge aus der Fotografie, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Palais Liechtenstein, Vienna; 1989: Junge Szene Wien, Secession, Vienna; 1988: Mit Blick voraus, steirischer herbst, Künstlerhaus, Graz.



Inés Lombardi, Installation View, Secession 2011, Photo: Wolfgang Thaler


EXHIBITION DISCUSSION
Thuesday, May 3, 2011, 6:30 p.m.
Inés Lombardi with Silvia Eiblmayr
An Event by the Friends of the Secession



Inés Lombardi, Installation View, Secession 2011, Photo: Wolfgang Thaler



The exhibition of Inés Lombardi is sponsored by Arbeiterkammer Wien.

The Secession is supported by:
Erste Bank – Partner of the Secession
Wien Kultur
Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur
Friends of the Secession

Cooperation-, Mediapartners, Non-Cash Benefit:
Der Standard
Ö1 Club
Silver Server
Grieger Professionelle Bildtechniken, Düsseldorf







For further information and photographic material please contact:

Tamara Schwarzmayr
Secession, Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession
Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna
Tel: +43-1-5875307-21, Fax: +43-1-5875307-34
presse@secession.at