CCBB Rio’s Contemporary Award Exhibition Series Continues

By Chesney Hearst, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Beginning February 24th, the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB) in Rio de Janeiro will present Flavia Bertinato’s installation, “Rapunzel.” A new take on the 1812 Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the installation turns Rapunzel’s long hair from a source of possible liberation into a type of confinement.

The installation consists of seven spools of iron, covered in braided wool of varying sizes. The spools feature pulleys, cranks, and reels with seven-hundred kilograms of fiber bound and at time tangled or spreading across the exhibition space. There are also golden surgical scissors entangled and stuck in places, depicting utility versus restricted movement.

Curator and Art Historian Taisa Palhares wrote of the installation; “Bertinato accesses popular imagination in order for viewers to use common sense in relation to the ideas of love, seduction and femininity, naturally with irony and ambiguity.”

Born in 1980 in Pouso Alegre in the state of Minas Gerais, Flávia Bertinato earned a BA in Visual Arts at the Instituto de Artes da UNESP and is a professor at the Escola de Comunicação e Artes University of São Paulo (USP). Her works have been part of collections at institutions including Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Ceará, Fortaleza and the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo.

Running through March 28th, the “Rapunzel” installation will be the seventh of the ten projects for the Prêmio CCBB Contemporâneo (CCBB Contemporary Award) 2015 – 2016 exhibition series. The projects of the series were chosen from among 1,823 entries made from across the country.

The official opening of the installation will take place on Tuesday, February 23, at 7:30 PM in CCBB Rio de Janeiro and the installation will open to the public on Wednesday, February 24th at 9AM.

What: Flavia Bertinato’s “Rapunzel”
When: February 24th through March 28th. Wednesdays through Mondays, 9AM to 9PM.
Where: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB) in Rio de Janeiro, R. Primeiro de Março, 66 – Centro
Entrance: FREE