Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts Hosts José Bechara

Monday, 25 September 2006 00:19

Miami, Florida - Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts presents José Bechara’s second solo exhibition titled Open House, a series of new work developed around his ongoing sculptural project “The House” or “A Casa”.  Open House will highlight a series of photographs and an installation shown for the first time in the United States.  Using various media, this site specific show explores new directions for Bechara’s conceptual oeuvre and his long term research.  On exhibit until 28 October, 2006.

“The House” project originated in 2002 and continues to explore the concept of shelter and, from the familiar notion of housing, strives to establish physical, metaphysical and visual relations about habitat, creating poetic associations that encompass both its internal and external space.  The furniture of the structure is arranged together and projected through the windows and doorways, thrown up against each other like a great weighty burden, inflicting change on the house's design, form and original function.  “The House” reworks the elements of housing by reconstructing them and creating formal tension.  One naturally recognizes that the familiar objects that populate one's home - mattresses, tables and stools - are mundane, and reductively, geometrically shaped forms.  From another perspective, the project presents an inversion or a detour in the perceptual memory of the notion of housing, as it regurgitates objects that suggest human presence.

“The House,” or artworks associated with the project, has been exhibited in Paraná Contemporary Art Museum, Paraná; Rio de Janeiro’s Paço Imperial; Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro; Tomie Ohtake Institute,São Paulo; Vale do Rio Doce Museum at Vitória; the 29th edition of the Panorama of Brazilian Art, at the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo; A Chocolataria D'5, Espazo de Experimentación e Creación Contemporânea de Santiago de Compostela; and CAM- Andrade Muricy Cultural Center in Curitiba, Brazil.