Pablo Pijnappel
11 Nov - 16 Dec 2006
PABLO PIJNAPPEL
"Hotel Rio"
Galerie Juliètte Jongma proudly presents the first solo exhibition by the artist Pablo Pijnappel (1979, NL/BR) titled Hotel Rio.
The exhibition title, Hotel Rio, functions as the metaphorical framework in which two factual persons have turned into memory based characters, revealed by Pijnappel into the slide work Felicitas (2005) and the 16 mm film Rio (2005). In Felicitas, Pijnappel traces the history of Felicitas Baer (1910-2003), the daughter of a wealthy German industrialist who was compelled to flee to Brazil with his family shortly after the First World War. Felicitas Baer rapidly developed into a free-thinking, emancipated woman with a special talent for dancing. She became a professional dancer, later leading her own dance company, until she survived a plane crash in the Amazon region and was taken in by a local Indian tribe. She then lived with them for seven years. After returning to Rio she published Danças do Brasil (1958), a cultural and anthropological inventory of Brazilian indigenous dance, for which she was feted at universities throughout Latin America. A few years later a leading Brazilian anthropologist dismissed her book as unscientific. Disillusioned, Baer decided to return to the hinterland, where she lived among different indigenous tribes for twenty-two years. She had a five-year relationship with one of the tribal chiefs, who presented her with a toucan when she decided to return to civilisation. When she returned to Rio, Baer became front-page news because of her relationship with the Indian chief. The woman with the long white hair, blue eyes and the toucan on her shoulder became a familiar sight in the streets of Copacabana and she developed a firm friendship with Pijnappel’s mother, Maya. Felicitas Baer died in 2003. The meta-narratives in Pijnappel’s work deal with themes such as memory, identity and dislocation. The setting of Felicitas, Rio de Janeiro (and Copacabana in particular), acquires a strongly metaphorical quality in that light: the city is the archetypal meeting place for wandering souls, adventurers and outsiders, the proverbial final destination for people who decide to burn all their bridges and to go in search of the unknown. The 16mm colour film Rio, which is shown alongside Felicitas in this exhibition, presents a collage of possible locations for the stories that are unfolded in the three screen slide work.
Pablo Pijnappel recently had solo exhibitions at Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, and at Extra City, Antwerp. He is currently a resident artist at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.
© Pablo Pijnappel
Felicitas, 2005
three screen slide installation (detail)
"Hotel Rio"
Galerie Juliètte Jongma proudly presents the first solo exhibition by the artist Pablo Pijnappel (1979, NL/BR) titled Hotel Rio.
The exhibition title, Hotel Rio, functions as the metaphorical framework in which two factual persons have turned into memory based characters, revealed by Pijnappel into the slide work Felicitas (2005) and the 16 mm film Rio (2005). In Felicitas, Pijnappel traces the history of Felicitas Baer (1910-2003), the daughter of a wealthy German industrialist who was compelled to flee to Brazil with his family shortly after the First World War. Felicitas Baer rapidly developed into a free-thinking, emancipated woman with a special talent for dancing. She became a professional dancer, later leading her own dance company, until she survived a plane crash in the Amazon region and was taken in by a local Indian tribe. She then lived with them for seven years. After returning to Rio she published Danças do Brasil (1958), a cultural and anthropological inventory of Brazilian indigenous dance, for which she was feted at universities throughout Latin America. A few years later a leading Brazilian anthropologist dismissed her book as unscientific. Disillusioned, Baer decided to return to the hinterland, where she lived among different indigenous tribes for twenty-two years. She had a five-year relationship with one of the tribal chiefs, who presented her with a toucan when she decided to return to civilisation. When she returned to Rio, Baer became front-page news because of her relationship with the Indian chief. The woman with the long white hair, blue eyes and the toucan on her shoulder became a familiar sight in the streets of Copacabana and she developed a firm friendship with Pijnappel’s mother, Maya. Felicitas Baer died in 2003. The meta-narratives in Pijnappel’s work deal with themes such as memory, identity and dislocation. The setting of Felicitas, Rio de Janeiro (and Copacabana in particular), acquires a strongly metaphorical quality in that light: the city is the archetypal meeting place for wandering souls, adventurers and outsiders, the proverbial final destination for people who decide to burn all their bridges and to go in search of the unknown. The 16mm colour film Rio, which is shown alongside Felicitas in this exhibition, presents a collage of possible locations for the stories that are unfolded in the three screen slide work.
Pablo Pijnappel recently had solo exhibitions at Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, and at Extra City, Antwerp. He is currently a resident artist at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.
© Pablo Pijnappel
Felicitas, 2005
three screen slide installation (detail)