Regina Silveira

Spotlighting recent and historic works, this third exhibition at the Gallery traced Regina Silveira’s experimentation with a variety of graphic media investigating political themes and formal practice.

Silveira began her exploration of printmaking processes in the 1970s, and her ground-breaking portfolio, Middle Class & Co. (1971) provides the first example of the artist’s integration of photographic images into her graphic practice. The series features fifteen images of mass groupings of figures enclosed in geometric configurations; a representation of class and a standardized society much like that of Brazil, the artist’s home. In the Armadilha para Executivos (1974) silkscreens, Silveira incorporates images selected from newspapers of key figures in military regimes, while integrating perspectival lines, adding complexity to the composition and highlighting her interest in space.

Silveira’s experiments with scale and perspective are widely recognized for taking form in adhesive vinyl installations, a medium that was unavailable to her before the 1990s; In the vinyl installations Discurso (2003) and Parra Lizarraga (2008), political domination and voice take form through photographic imagery that has been amplified through Silveira’s signature shadows, which are impossibly cast to dramatic scale. More familiar, personal and domestic subjects are transformed in other works in the exhibition, including Botão (2002–2013), an ambiguous image of a button and thread either unraveling or fastening. In the series of six photo etchings, Eclipses (2006), Silveira distorts household items, including eyeglasses, silverware, and paperclips. In these works, personal and political are up-ended, questioning perspective and location, both physically and socially.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Regina Silveira and Lowery Sims, Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design, discussed the artist’s practice in relation to Latin American design and graphic arts, Wednesday, June 19, 2013, 6:00 – 8:00pm.