Cybèle Varela
Cybèle Varela (Petrópolis, 1943) is a Brazilian born, Europe based, contemporary mixed-media artist. She is a painter, video artist and photographer.
Life and work
Early life and work in Brazil (1960s)
Varela studied visual arts at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro from 1962 to 1966. In 1964, she first traveled to Paris, where she would establish herself four years later. Apart from exhibitions in private galleries in Rio, she participates in a number of exhibitions in museums, receiving a number of Acquisition’s Prizes, from Contemporary Art Museums in Rio and other Brazilian States, including of São Paulo (SP), Campinas (SP), Paraná (Curitiba-PR) and Pampulha (Belo-Horizonte-MG). In 1967, in her first participation at the Sao Paulo Art Biennial, she exhibited three paintings and two objects/sculptures, one of which, entitled The Gift, was withdrawn from the Biennial by the police, at the very first day of its inauguration, as it was considered provocative by the Brazilian dictatorial government.
Work in France and Switzerland (1970s/1990s)
After having been granted two scholarships (1968 and 1969) from the French Government, she settles in Paris, studying at the Ecole du Louvre and at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne. Adding to solo exhibitions in Parisian private galleries, she participates in major group exhibitions such as the Salon de Mai, the Salon Comparaison, Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, the Seventh Festival of Painting of Cagnes-sur-Mer. At the invitation of the critics Jean-Jacques Lévêque and André Parinaud, she participates in a traveling exhibition in France, entitled Thirty Creators – Selection 75, where she is the only woman among the thirty artists, including Lindstrom, Soulages, Arman and Klasen. She appears as one of the representatives of the movement figuration narrative and her work is highly appraised by critics such as Pierre Restany, Jean-Jacques Lévêque, Jean-Marie Dunoyer, Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, Danny Bloch, Jean-Luc Chalumeau. In 1978, she moves to Geneva, Switzerland. She has several solo exhibitions in Geneva, Lausanne, Basel and shows her paintings, photos and videos in several solo and group exhibitions in other European and North-American cities, including Berlin, Brussels, Milan, Chicago and Washington D.C. In 1997, the United Nations in Geneva, as a donation from the Brazilian Government, receives one of her paintings for its permanent art collection, exhibited in the Palace of Nations. Varela is the first Brazilian artist, after Candido Portinari, to have a work donated to the United Nations by the Brazilian Government.
2000 and after
Recent major exhibitions include the installation Surroundings, based on the Brazilian figures of the Cangaceiros, which was featured in the National Museum of Fine Art, Rio de Janeiro (2003) and in the Museum of Contemporary Art of São Paulo – MAC USP (2005).
Artistic style
During the 1960s, while in Brazil, Cybèle Varela is one of the representatives of the carioca avant-garde, influenced by American Pop Art. According to art critic Frederico Morais, in her paintings and objects, she scrutinizes « man’s metamorphosis in the urban environment »,1 questioning the stereotypes of urban life, such as in the triptych Of all that could have been but that wasn’t (1967, Young contemporary Art Prize of the Museum of Contemporary Art of São Paulo). In Paris, in the 1970s, Varela’s work becomes more self-reflective. Nature – a Nature emptied from human presence - is her main theme, but as the French art critic Pierre Restany put it, « Cybèle Varela does not paint landscapes. The utter commonplace of the mirror-image is for her nothing but a pretext ».2 Nature is shown as a distant image, reflection of contemporary culture and memory of urban life and pretext to a deeper reflection on the problematic of representation, integrating the movement of Figuration narrative.3 Working with different medias, such as painting, video and photography, Varela investigates the question of appearance and time, through a research involving the analysis of light and its deconstruction, as in her video Image (1976, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris). As Bruno Mantura writes, « geometry still dominates Cybèle’s compositions till the end of the eighties ».4
As from the 2000, Varela’s paintings moves towards pop surrealism, while in her installations, she develops more site-specific projetcts, often related to historical places and art collections, such as the National Museum of Fine Arts’s (Rio) version of her installation Surroundings.
Exhibition history
Selected solo exhibition
- Museum of Contemporary Art, São Paulo, 2005
- National Museum of Fine Arts, Rio de Janeiro, 2003
- Demenga Gallery, Berlin, 2001
- Imperial Museum of Brazil, Petropolis, 1992, 1966
- Bonino Gallery, Rio de Janeiro, 1992, 1988, 1986, 1984, 1975
- Art Museum of the Americas, Washington DC, 1987
- Wallace Wentworth Gallery, Chicago, 1987
- Focus Gallery, Lausanne, 1985
- Galleria Bonaparte, Milan, 1983
- CAYC, Buenos Aires, 1982
- Galerie Engelberts, Geneva, 1982
- Funarte, Rio de Janeiro, 1981
- Canon Photo Gallery, Geneva, 1980
- Museum of Contemporary Art, São Paulo, 1980
- Musée Cantonal des Beaux-arts, Lausanne, 1980
- Galerie Camille Renaud, Paris, 1977, 1975
- Canning House, London, 1976
- Galerie Liliane François, Paris, 1974
Selected group exhibitions
- Outros 60’s, Museum of Contemporary Art, Curitiba, 2006
- Anos 60 na Coleçao Sattamini, Museum of Contemporary Art, Niteroi/Rio de Janeiro, 2004
- O Brasil no Seculo da Arte, Museum of Contemporary Art, São Paulo, 1999
- A Cidade dos Artistas, Itau Cultural, São Paulo, 1997
- Arte Brasileira : 50 anos de historia no acervo do MAC/USP, Museum of Contemporary Art, São Paulo, 1996
- O que faz voce agora geraçao 60 ?, Museum of Contemporary Art, São Paulo, 1991
- Centre d’art visuel, Geneva, 1985
- São Paulo Biennale, Brazil, 1981
- Musée Rath, Geneva, 1980
- VII Festival International de la Peinture, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, 1977
- Grand et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Paris, 1976
- Salon Comparaison, Paris, 1976
- 30 Créateurs d’Aujourd’hui, itinerary exhibition, France, 1975
- Salon Comparaison, Paris, 1975
- Salon de Mai, Paris, 1974
- Salon Comparaison, Paris, 1972
- Montevideo Biennale, Uruguay, 1970
- São Paulo Biennale, Brazil, 1969
- Salao de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, 1969
- São Paulo Biennal, Brazil, 1967
- Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, 1964
References
1 Cybèle Varela : peintures, 1960-1984. Texts by Jean-Jacques Lévêque, Frederico Morais, Jean-Luc Chalumeau and Pierre Restany. Geneva : Imprimerie Genevoise S.A., 1984, p. 24.
2 Idem, p. 38.
3 Chalumeau, Jean-Luc. Initiation à la lecture de l’art contemporain. Paris : Nathan, 1976, p. 82.
4 Cybèle Varela. Texts by Bruno Mantura and Cybèle Varela. Rome : Gangemi, 2007, p. 10.
Sources and further reading
- Benezit, E. Dictionary of Artists. Paris : Grund, 2006.
- Cavalcanti, Carlos and Ayala, Walmir (ed). Dicionario brasileiro de artistas plasticos. Brasilia : MEC/INL, 1973-1980.
- Cybèle Varela : peintures, 1960-1984. Texts by Jean-Jacques Lévêque, Frederico Morais, Jean-Luc Chalumeau and Pierre Restany. Geneva : Imprimerie Genevoise S.A., 1984.
- Cybèle Varela, Surroundings. Rio de Janeiro, MNBA, 2003.
- Cybèle Varela. Texts by Bruno Mantura and Cybèle Varela. Rome : Gangemi, 2007. ISBN 978-88492-1226-6.
- Jost, Karl (ed). Künstlerverzeichnis der Schweiz, 1980-1990. Zürich : Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, 1991.
- Leite, José Roberto Teixeira. Dicionario critico da pintura no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro : Artlivre, 1988.
- Leite, José Roberto Teixeira. 500 anos da pintura brasileira. CD-Rom, LogOn, 2000.
- Pontual, Roberto. Dicionario das artes plasticas no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro : Civilizaçao Brasileira, 1969.
- Restany, Pierre (ed.), Les Hyperréalistes. Evreux : Centre culturel international de Vascoeuil, 1974.