Felipe Rezende

For Rezende, migration flows, labor relations, and the passage of time are central elements in constructing his visual narratives, which oscillate between fiction and reality. At the 14th Mercosul Biennial, the artist presents two commissioned works: a large-scale painting and a site-specific installation composed of a painting on truck tarp, fertilizer box, soil, and a mudguard. These materials were transported by truck from Barreiras (Bahia) to Viamão (Rio Grande do Sul), symbolizing the displacement of land.
Inspired by mythology and literature, the title of the work exhibited at the Fundação Vera Chaves Barcellos—Demeter—references both the Greek goddess of agriculture and the ship from Dracula, which carried the vampire’s native soil. The fertilizer crate alludes to the starting point of the agricultural cycle, increasingly dominated by the use of genetically modified seeds and predatory practices. Both in Uma solução prodigiosa para um problema barulhento, displayed at Vila Flores, and in his installation, Rezende draws an analogy between the destructive cycle of agribusiness—whose power comes from ancestral, exploited land—and the predatory, vampiric action.

Anna Cavalcanti