CONTEMPORARY BRAZIL IN FABRIC AND THREAD

 

 

(...) Vera Martins, for example, makes a practice of unraveling canvas -- the kind painters paint on. She creates free-standing skeins of off-white thread that hang like wigs on invisible armatures, and she wraps thread around painting stretchers to produce a kind of reconstructed deconstructed Minimalism. Ana Linnemann drills holes in bite-size rocks and threads them together using copper wire and heavy-duty needles. And Marepe makes objects that look like laundry bundles, calling to mind the wrapped sculptures of Christo. You could read various meanings into such works, but what prevails is more factuality than transcendence. 

 

 

 

''The Thread Unraveled'' (''O Fio da Trama'') will remain on view at El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue, at 104th Street, East Harlem, (212) 831-7272, through Feb. 3.

 

Published: 12 - 14 - 2001 , Late Edition - Final , Section E , Column 1 , Page 41

 

 

 

Ken Johnson | New York Times, 2001