We Will Be Here Forever

Solo show at Janaina Torres Galeria 

Curated by Daniel Rangel

August 2019

 

Stephan Doitschinoff's artistic trajectory, marked by deep cyclical immersions, is linked to personal experiences lived since his childhood. A work with formal influences from pop art and surrealism, which is structured by a unique vocabulary.

 

 

Stephan uses a particular iconographic lexicon inspired by historical, religious, political and philosophical symbols to design drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations. A visual writing loaded with encrypted meanings through a fantastic imagery literature about contemporary times.

 

 

Since 2013, the artist has not held an individual exhibition in São Paulo. Over the past few years, he participated in group exhibitions in Brazil and abroad, such as the Curitiba Biennial, in 2015, and “As Above, So Below. Portals, visions, spirits and mystics”, in 2017, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, in Ireland, both with themes related to spirituality.

 

 

The religious theme was probably the most explored throughout art history. For centuries, sacred writings were the only outlet for artistic creation other than the search for a faithful reproduction of reality. In the contemporary scene, after spending marginalized time, the theme gradually returns to the fore in the production of leading artists.

 

 

In the past, in addition to the religious approach, there was a relationship between art, alchemy and religion, considered magical and capable of transforming reality. Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, known for his relationship with Madame Blavatsky's theosophy, said he heard “an inner sound (Inner clunk)” while painting. Before him, the non-figurative production of the Swedish Hilma Af Klint, a figure now considered seminal for the abstract movement, was linked to a spirit that the artist incorporated.

 

 

In Brazil, we can highlight the work of some alchemist artists, whose works run through an energetic theme that unfold in potent individual poetic research. A part of these rescues ancestral issues with contemporary views, especially linked to African religion, such as Ayrson Heráclito, Tiago Santana, Moisés Patrício, Nádia Taquari and Ana Beatriz Almeida. Others produce mysterious works, loaded with diverse references reframed by their own codes, such as Artur Bispo do Rosário, Tunga, Bene Fonteles, Ernesto Neto and Stephan himself.

 

 

Currently, this relationship is accompanied by other issues related to the present moment. The place of speech, religious intolerance, the political situation, human rights, the environment, the diversity of genders and the new social media on the internet are some of these themes. Stephan places himself as a visual philosopher observing planetary movements and suggesting paths through his semantic works, so that he and others can try to walk them someday.

 

 

The exhibition "We'll Be Here Forever" presents a specific section of the different series that the artist has been developing in recent years. In addition to the religious and spirituality themes, present since the beginning of his career, the works presented here incorporated political, philosophical and environmental issues. Emerging issues in recent decades, such as mass consumerism and nature preservation, are dealt with simultaneously with much more current themes, such as the post-truth and the manipulation power of religions. An amalgam that places the viewer in front of a set of information that seems unreachable, as well as “the stairs that lead to heaven”, one of the recurring icons in his works.

 

 

Stephan Doitschinoff's production is definitely not tied only to the contemporary moment, it is also connected to the past and the future. Themes, styles and processes present in art history intersect with strategies of the internet and fundamentalist religions. A formally potent work, surrounded by the mysteries and secrets of an artist-alchemist, whose work is both a personal and universal testament, without a defined place or time, forever and here.

 

We'll Be Here Forever

Text by Daniel Rangel

 

Daniel Rangel is a curator and master in visual arts from USP (University of Sao Paulo)