Love in the Times of Cholera [Amar em tempos cólera]

Verve ends its 2019 calendar with a group exhibition that dares to talk about love in the midst of darkness, with works by artists Angella Conte, Élle de Bernardini, Eduarda Freire, Francisco Hurtz, Giselle Beiguelman, Guilherme Callegari, Gustavo Rezende, Hudinilson Jr., Hugo Lugo, Ismael Nery, João GG, Leonilson, Luisa Malzoni, Lyz Parayzo, Marco Paulo Rolla, Sol Casal, Tales Frey, Paulo von Poser and Verena Smit. In this intergenerational dialogue, love does not appear as a word full of clichés, but as an agglutinating and diverse sensation, welcoming to the strangeness and familiarity of life. Love as a free void, prepared for possibilities of battle and redemption, optimism with a taste of conviction. In an exhibition that intends to present, in the diversity and power of the work of each of the eighteen artists (between represented and guests), the love that whispers the driving force of those who live in search of something. The title, a tribute to the novel “Love in the Times of Cholera”, by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Marquez, points to the time and territory in which this love, more than ever, is necessary.

In the exhibition, a lyrical and static state of mind is suggested, balanced in the tranquility of the tumultuous acceptance that descends between cycles, in the desire to present this care of and for those around us, an attitude that permeates the gallery’s performance since its foundation. When talking about love, giving up runs away. Space opens up, softens, and evils become accomplices of impossibilities, within this fertile territory.

The love for memory, for communication, for the land, for the city, for desire, for failures, for origin. Civic love in search of a space for transformation. And today, mainly, the love for a present society. That shares in artistic freedom the aroma of utopia and I like a reality that is rooted in our gratitude for having a space and a floor.