This huge space, partitioned by translucent plastic sheets, resembles a maze. While the partitions are made of materials used in construction sites, they are also reminiscent of Brazilian favela (slum) architecture and the acrylic panels that have been used to divide people during the COVID-19 pandemic. The megaphones and hammers suspended from the ceiling call to mind street demonstrations and labor movements, and can be read as an allusion to public works, urban space, and resistance to social power structures. The newspapers covering the columns also make it clear that Komatsu is interested in society at large.

André Komatsu is a third-generation Brazilian of Japanese descent. The Brazil that he grew up in was in transition from a military regime that lasted more than 20 years to a democratic one. At the end of the 1980s, strikes, which had been banned, came to be permitted, and there were also major changes in terms of workersʼ rights. Economically, Brazil is one of the BRICs countries that has experienced remarkable economic growth since the 2000s. While Komatsuʼs work is deeply committed to these political and social trends, in the context of art, curatorial advisor to the Aichi Triennale 2022 Tobias Ostrander has stated that “he draws from the countryʼs legacy of Constructivist aesthetics in both art and architecture, which has been promoted as a utopian, Modernist ideal, since the 1950s.” In this sense, Komatsuʼs project can be also said to reflect the diversity of traditional modernism in a contemporary form.

Komatsu has exhibited at the Brazilian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015; Italy) and Avenida Paulista, São Paulo Museum of Art (2017; Brazil).

Selected Works & Awards

2017

Avenida Paulista, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil

2015

56th Venice Biennale, Pavilion of Brazil, Italy

2014

Beyond the Supersquare, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, USA

Exhibition

• Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2022
• Aphasia/Afasia, 2022
• Photo: ToLoLo studio