thiago — Wireframe B477 copy 1

THIAGO ROCHA PITTA

BIO

Born in 1980 in Tiradentes, Brazil.

Thiago Rocha Pitta (b. 1980, Brazil) is an internationally recognised artist whose diverse practice often simultaneously depicts and interacts with the natural environment, distilling an ominous sense of longing and intrigue. The artist is particularly known for works that harness the forces and beauty of the outdoors to express the sublime energy of the world around us. These take the form of anything from photographic works that pay homage to master painters, such as J.M.W. Turner, to outdoor installations that absorb the decay that comes with the passage of time and the frescos that explore the elemental movements of water and fire.

Through varied mediums (watercolours, photographs, sculpture, and video), Rocha Pitta is driven by a preoccupation with the passage of time, often manipulating the pace of his work to confront his viewers with quiet, curious introspection and an open-ended sense of longing. The artist was nominated for PIPA in 2010 and 2011 and was a finalist in 2012. Rocha Pitta currently lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.

Thiago Rocha Pitta has participated internationally in numerous personal and group shows, including Blind Field at Kranner Art Museum and Ground. Materiality #2 at Sorø Kunstmuseum in 2013, the 30th São Paulo Biennial in 2012, The Garden of Forking Pathsat Zurich’s Migros Museum and Home Again- 10 Artists Who Have Experienced Japan at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in 2011. His works are currently part of institutional collections like the Museum of Modern Art - New York, Maison Européene de la Photographie – Paris, Hara Museum – Tokyo, Collecciòn Jumex – México City and Julia Stoschek Collection – Dusseldorf among others.

Extended Biography

2014

THE PROJECT AT GLUCK50

Installation view at Gluck50, 2013

IL CAMPO ACCAMPA

On the occasion of the exhibition Rocha Pitta has created the tent-shaped sculptural installation Il Campo Accampa. The work was on view in Milan in front of the church of Santa Maria Incoronata and is now displayed in the outdoor space of the gallery.

The tent represents a shelter, but also a prototype of human dwelling, which is transportable and temporary. Il Campo Accampa turns the conventional idea of mobility and settlement upside down: Rocha Pitta petrifies the fabric of the tent with cement and allows the structure to be inhabited by nature. Inside the tent, soil and plants spread out and transform the sculpture through their natural growth process. In contrast to its rigid shell, the tent seems alive and animated by nature, inducing the viewer to reflect on the relationship between architecture and nature, between stability and movement.

With the work titled L’Eremo, produced especially for the show, Rocha Pitta has created a tent in an interior space for the first time, further exploring the relationship between architecture and nature. The artist constructs, in a corner of the gallery, a tent under which a hole is dug. The phenomenon of the hole and the correlated evocation of death inspired various artists in the 1960s.

In this context, the hole under Rocha Pitta’s tent can be read as a reference to the natural cycle of life and death. Further elements allude to the idea of a natural setting and the passing of time: a rock located in front of the hole and the structure of the tent which itself resembles the skeleton of prehistoric animals. The space of the gallery transforms into a contemplative natural environment as a place of refuge from architecture.

Rocha Pitta's sculptures are formally reminiscent of primitive, nomadic tents; his tents, however, possess a mystical content that radiates through the formal content to the surrounding area, penetrating the ground.

With an amazing, magical mastery of composition, Rocha Pitta lowers his sculptures from above into specific, “chosen” places, creating symbolic encampments: he demonstrates that camping in intimate, prehistoric dwelling typologies can reveal a possible path to finding inner balance.

Catalogue preview here.

2017

THE SECOND PROJECT AT GLUCK50

Installation view at Gluck50, 2017

DUE ALBE

Due albe is a solo exhibition by Thiago Rocha Pitta, artist-in-residence for the second time in the spaces of Gluck50. The show consists of the works “Prima dell’alba” and “L’alba di un giorno dopo”, representations of a primordial, archaic time and an apocalyptic future.

“Before dawn there’s a moment when the light and shadow have not yet separated, a moment when it’s no longer night but not yet day, it’s a becoming”, says Rocha Pitta.

This concept drove the Brazilian artist during a trip in 2016 through Western Australia investigating stromatolites in the bay at Hamelin Pool: this is how the video “Prima dell’alba” was born. These bacterial colonies were the predominant form of life for two-and-a-half billion years, whose photosynthetic activity freed up the oxygen that went on to form the ozone layer, indispensable for the development of more complex life forms, including us: human beings. The artist captures the stromatolites before dawn, at the moment when the landscape, and with it the world, first appear.

The premise of the installation “L’alba di un giorno dopo” is a specular inversion of the first. For this project the artist appropriates a chemical phenomenon involving the interaction of Prussian blue pigment and limestone. The process has two stages: first, the blue quickly disappears, then it reappears in a new form and in a different color. A comparison between two different languages, painting and film, in which the artist manages to bring together the values of time, matter and space within a single body.

Catalogue preview here.

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