This smile that emanates from me
Paulo Azeco | This smile that emanates from me, 2022
Poet, why do you weep?
What sad melancholy.
It is because my soul ignores
The splendor of joy.
This smile that emanates from me,
Deceives my own soul.
Riso de poeta (A Poet's Laughter). Carolina Maria de Jesus, 1996
The title of this exhibition is an excerpt from a poem by Carolina Maria de Jesus, a fundamental Brazilian writer who, in an almost heroic manner, overcame poverty and the precarious conditions of her life to create a striking body of work that exposes the country's social ills while, in counterpoint, offering a breath of hope. Complementing this, the words of writer and activist Juliana Borges resonate: “A happy Black woman is a revolutionary act.” Happiness and smiles constitute a potent tool for the Black population as a symbol of resistance and strength against the structural racism rooted in Brazilian society—a society that maintains a discourse based on a persistent slave-holding constitution which, in a new guise, continues to uphold mechanisms of oppression, repression, and exploitation.
In his first solo exhibition in São Paulo, Guilherme Almeida—an artist from Salvador, the Blackest city in the country (and one of the most joyful)—presents works from his "Market Destruction" (Destruição dos mercados) series, which began in 2019 and continues to be revisited in his research. The exhibition creates an interesting parallel between the biographical nature of the works and the representation of well-known, successful Black figures. The first piece in the show, and the only one predating the series, helps us understand the artist's practice of drawing from his own lived experience to create an aesthetic vocabulary. It depicts young people who, like him, are overflowing with joy upon entering a public university.
Almeida’s previous research in painting was in the field of abstraction, where his work received critical acclaim. However, at one exhibition, he noticed that young people and his friends felt that type of work "wasn't for them," as it was distant from their universe and failed to create identification. That was the audience Guilherme always wanted to engage: the youth and his own people.
Another point that helps assemble this singular aesthetic in Guilherme's figures is his encounter, during university, with the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in his book on Alberto Giacometti—the great Swiss artist who always emulated notions of figuration and abstraction in his work. Almeida saw there the path he wished to follow: a figurative style of painting that could dialogue with the youth but remained rooted in abstraction through dense, uniform, and flat pictorial layers, resulting in a strong and extremely personal image.
In most of the works, the support for the painting is newspaper—an inexpensive material that was always present in his home. This choice responds to another important facet of the artist's research: the use of banal, everyday materials in counterpoint to the Eurocentric supports taught in university, which Guilherme sought to escape. Finally, there is the need for an optimistic body of work that moves away from the direct representation of Black sadness and pain. These struggles are never forgotten by the artist, precisely because the smiles here are weapons.
The "Market Destruction" series rescues the smile that titles this exhibition as a metaphor. During the era of slavery, the image of plantation owners violently opening the mouths of Black people in slave markets was perpetuated. Healthy teeth were a fundamental element in selecting the "best." To "destroy these markets" is, according to Guilherme, to show strength and positivity in the face of daily barbarism. An important work in this context is the series of paintings of various smiles in which Black figures display gold jewelry on their teeth. This highlights a smile that is now a source of pride; by covering them in gold, it denotes resistance and power.
In the series of portraits on newspaper, the largest and primary painting is a proud portrait of his family, echoing gratitude. All the others are figures whom the artist considers inspirations—those who represent the fact that it is indeed possible for a Black person to be victorious and successful in all fields. In this series, I highlight the portrait of Elza Soares, one of the world's greatest singers who passed away a few weeks ago. Her life represents what it means to be Black in Brazil: the daily struggle, the suffering, racism, violence, and even ostracism—but someone who, with great strength (and Elza was a force of nature), manages to break those chains and win! And yes, Elza always said that, in the end, the most important thing is to be happy.
The "smile" of Carolina de Jesus, which has always inspired the artist, blossomed in his participation in the beautiful exhibition honoring the writer at IMS Paulista; his portraits from that project are also present here. Guilherme understood from an early age, through his family, that despite the modest way they lived, it is possible to dream and possible to be happy. This exhibition overflows with smiles and victories, even when they clash with slave-holding wounds that remain open. The collection presented here possesses a unique creative and aesthetic force, but above all, it is a revolutionary act.