Luisa Lambri

In celebration of Oscar Niemeyer, the Embassy of Brazil,
in association with Thomas Dane Gallery, is pleased to
announce an exhibition of works by Italian artist, Luisa Lambri.
The show will bring together a previously unseen selection
of Lambri’s photographs of three of the architect’s acclaimed
buildings: Casa das Canoas, Casa do Baile and the
Ministério da Educação.

Far from documenting architecture, though, Lambri proposes
a more abstract and personal recording of the buildings’
atmosphere, her experience of the space and her relationship
to it.

In early 2003 Lambri spent two months photographing various
buildings designed by Niemeyer in Rio de Janeiro,
Belo Horizonte, São Paulo and Brasília. She went upon
the invitation of Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa,
on behalf of the Coleção Teixeira de Freitas,
Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon.

Having been drawn to the geometry and formal details of
modernist interiors, the artist recalls being compelled
by Niemeyer’s uniquely sensual approach to his materials,
noting that his buildings had a completely different
‘temperature’. She was interested in the way that Niemeyer
was able to open up and distort the orthogonal modernist
grid structure by introducing feminine, curved lines.
Through her photographs, Lambri wanted to articulate the
dialogue that Niemeyer sets up between architecture and nature.

Included in the exhibition are photographs of ‘Casa das Canoas’,
Niemeyer’s own home built in Rio de Janeiro in 1953, known
locally as ‘the architect’s house’. Lambri returned to the
house many times to photograph it. The resulting intimate
understanding of the building is revealed in her paired
images of the covered patio and the way in which the dense
tropical garden encroaches into the space (Casa das Canoas #01 and #02).
In these images, the black, tiled floor meets the rich green,
sunlit plants, framed by the white painted concrete overhanging ceiling.

During her trip Lambri also photographed ‘Casa do Baile’,
a dance hall in Belo Horizonte built by Niemeyer in 1942.
Her three photographs of the outdoor terrace of ‘Casa do Baile’
look out across the water - the straight, centered horizon
line in the distance, punctuated by cylindrical columns,
dramatizes the heady optical effect created by the undulating
concrete structure that skirts the water. Often working in
series and recording minute changes, or editing the framing
of each image slightly, Lambri requires the viewer to look
closely and carefully to see subtle differences. Similarly
in this group, the movement of the clouds, the shifting shadow
on the ground and the faint billow of smoke in the distance
track the passing of time.

Lambri’s image of the ‘Ministério da Educação e Saúde’
(Ministry of Education and Health) in Rio de Janeiro
sits as a complementary image to the group and links all
three series. Featuring a section of an internal wall of
glass cubes and their reflection on the concrete floor, Lambri
has isolated and called attention to the grid. In both Lambri’s
photographs of ‘Casa das Canoas’ and ‘Casa do Baile’, she
captures the play between nature and architecture, colour and shape,
and above all, the grid and the curve.

Born in Como in 1969, Lambri studied Literature and Philosophy
at the University of Milan. She currently lives in Milan and
travels extensively. Her work has been exhibited in dAPERTutto,
48th Venice Biennial, 1999, Dreams and Conflicts: The Viewer's
Dictatorship, 50th Venice Biennial, 2003, and Italics: Italian
Art between Tradition and Revolution 1968-2008, Palazzo Grassi,
Venice, 2008. Solo exhibitions include the Baltimore Museum of Art,
The Carnegie Museum of Arts, The Menil Collection in Houston
and Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge. A solo exhibition at the Museum
of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is scheduled for September 2009.
Currently, Lambri has a solo show at Luhring Augustine, New York.

Venue

Gallery 32 (adjacent to the Embassy of Brazil)
32 Green Street, London W1K 7AT
Tube: Marble Arch
www.brazil.org.uk/gallery32
gallery32@brazil.org.uk