Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel is pleased to present ÍRÌ, Cristiano Lenhardt’s third solo exhibition at Galpão. The artist shows a new body of work that reaffirms his interest in the newspaper and daily objects as raw materials for paintings and sculptures. The exhibition title – a kind of acronym or code – highlights the transcendent dimension of observation, which is stake in these pieces, as well as the artist’s interest in iridescence as an optical phenomenon.

In his paintings Lenhardt uses white acrylic paint or black India ink to cover large surface areas of old newspaper issues, leaving out only a few colored patches that reveal random geometric shapes. In transmuting information into abstraction the artist creates a novel visual lexicon, which encompasses references as diverse as rock paintings and the contemporary lingo of the Internet.

In Escultura Íris [Iris Sculpture] long metal-tipped wooden sticks are arranged under a copper cone, rising at the entrance of the show as a catalyst for energy and light. Astro [Star], which hangs the back wall, is a circle made out of newspaper and silver paint. It plays with reflection and opacity, thus creating a “blind mirror” that resembles the surface of the moon.

Escultura Arco [Arch Sculpture] frames the exhibition space with a long curved line of twisted newspaper suspended by two concrete bases, highlighting the idea of a “portal” as also suggested by the spelling of the exhibition title. The artist investigates newspaper’s sculptural possibilities as a development of Atoritoleituralogosh – a piece carried out last April in collaboration with performer Ayla de Oliveira, and which was acquired by Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo after being awarded with the acquisition Prize at SP-Arte fair.

Set on the floor, Filtra-Cor [Filter-Color] is comprised of three TV sets whose screens are covered by punctured metal plates. These small perforations filter the displayed images, allowing us to see only chromatic points when their reflections move frantically across the surface. In other terms, Lenhardt invites us to see beyond the two-dimensions, establishing new semantic fields for images conveyed in an incessant – and saturated – way by mass media.

Cristiano Lenhardt (Itaara, RS, 1975) lives and works in Recife (PE). He is currently featured in the 36^th Panorama da Arte Brasileira, curated by Júlia Rebouças, at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. Exhibition highlights include: the 32^nd Bienal de São Paulo (São Paulo, 2016); 19^th Festival de Arte Contemporânea Sesc_Videobrasil: Panoramas do Sul (São Paulo, 2015); Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil, Wexner Center for the Arts (Ohio, USA, 2014); Programa Rumos Itaú Cultural (São Paulo, 2012); Mythologies, Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris, France, 2011); Intimate Bureaucracies, University of Essex (Colchester, England, 2011); and Constructing Views, New Museum (New York, USA, 2010).