Luiz Zerbini: The Same Story is Never the Same

Solo exhibition ‘Luiz Zerbini: The Same Story is Never the Same’comprises new large-scale canvas works and a series of monotype prints titled after the novel ‘Macunaíma’, by the modernist author Mário de Andrade. The text questions the foundation of Brazil from the perspective of an indigenous character and this narrative is reimagined by Zerbini through the appropriation of native plants. The artist’s monotypes will be presented in MASP’s expansive concrete-and-glass Brutalist structure, designed by architect Lina Bo Bardi, in dialogue with the space.

The solo presentation is a continuation of the themes explored by the artist in ‘A primeira missa [The First Mass]’, 2014 where Zerbini expands on the sentiments of the famous painting ‘Moema’, 1866 by Victor Meirelles, reinventing the historical image of the contact between indigenous people and invaders during the Brazilian colonial process. The exhibition further interrogates the history of the country, including large paintings, depicting illegal mining in indigenous lands. The artist references the Haximu Massacre, an episode that occurred in 1993, when illegal miners killed 16 people, all of them women and children, inside the Yanomami indigenous reserve in Roraima.