Alexandre Casagrande

I read many authors from the social sciences: Milton Santos, F. Fernandes, C. Evaristo, A. Nascimento, R. Bastide, Caribbean authors and revolutionaries such as Lélia Gonçalvez, T. Morrison, Nêgo Bispo, F. Fanon, Amilcar Cabral and Wole Soyinka. I also read novels and articles about technology and science as if I were carrying an incubator. I believe that the role of activists in our time is irrefutable. I can be enchanted by the aesthetics of abstractionism, minimalism, etc., but that is not my style. I am a Brazilian artist, and until I was young I lived in the outskirts of the city, in the house that my paternal (Italian) grandfather built. He was a bricklayer, a craftsman, not an engineer, much less a landowner as my last name suggests. I slept in a room with my maternal grandparents and my two brothers, and for years I shared two single beds with my younger brother and my maternal (Bahian) grandfather. I am from this mixed-race Brazil and I am aware of my whiteness and privileges, but I know where I came from and what affects me. Brazil is my field of struggle and research, of recognition and wonder. And, there is the time we live in that imposes challenges and demands critical thinking. I smell the odor, I see signs of Armageddon, but I need to overcome pessimism and produce. I think that irony and mockery, revolt and frankness are the cordial instruments to cross the mud.

I like the dark. Sometimes I start in my notebook revisiting ideas, or I am prompted by a scene from everyday life, by texts, then I start to place an element on the canvas, then I connect signs, I always pause, insert elements, I like to open a new board for the observer. I like chaotic compositions, to leave windows of the process open. There are series that require research and there is research that arises as an autonomous desire and perennial research. I am more interested in insinuating than in concluding. Of course, if there is a car, it will be a car for everyone, but in a diverse composition, each person goes wherever they want with this vehicle.
I really like to venture into different practices and to use the body, to explore different materials and instruments. I started making sculptures from Styrofoam packaging, the kind that protects microwaves. It is impossible to know where to go, that is why it is so interesting to experiment with shapes, junk, rummage through dumpsters to turn on and off the functions of objects. I pay attention to waking periods, dreams and those images that wander unpretentiously through the unconscious; I always find something original on these networks. Audiovisual requires another type of method, which I am already familiar with, but each genre requires a different approach. Criolo's "Subirusdoistiozin" clip, which I co-directed, required a reasonable budget and a committed team; a drawing only requires paper and a piece of charcoal.

Anything can be an inspiration: a trip, Baldwin’s novels, Apollinaire’s sadism, myths, a news story, a drawing on the facade of a butcher shop, an album cover. I went to Africa last year, photographing students on the streets, accidents on the highway, women taking their children to church, markets, facades, masks from all over Africa. One day I went out on foot through the community and went into the alleys, and from afar I saw some women wearing burkas dancing to the sound of incredible music, African electronic pop sung in Arabic. I got closer and came to a backyard where there was a sound wall like I saw at parties in Jamaica, a DJ with a laptop making the community leave their bodies. There were women, children, students... I had to restrain myself so as not to be an unwanted white person dancing among them.
I created a three-dimensional work called “Panoptic College” where I poured much of my experience. Other artists also inspire me, but I prefer to maintain a broader vision so as to produce with more autonomy.

I try to visit as many fairs and exhibitions as I can. I have a genuine interest in them, and they are a form of leisure, including the cheapest ones. Visits are important because the in-person experience is completely different from virtual ones. In person, it is possible to perceive the dimensions, materials and techniques, the aura that W. Benjamin emphasized and that reproduction techniques have eliminated from the observer's perception. I pay close attention to sensory perception, the aromas, sounds, lights that refract and affect the works, the exhibition design and the texts of the exhibitions. All of this is only possible during visits.
When I travel, I like to combine visits to local museums and galleries. When I went to Italy, I arrived in Venice with tickets for the Biennale already purchased, and I think the experience would have been completely different without the Biennale.
Although I prefer in-person visits, I also enjoy virtual ones. Many museums and exhibitions offer tours in augmented reality, which is a way of eliminating barriers and distances. I train the algorithm every day to keep seeing profiles of interesting artists, galleries and curators, so that they can see me. The other day I noticed that Adriana Varejão liked one of my works, and I almost painted it and reposted it with all my heart.
I like to read articles on the websites of specialized magazines and books by art historians to form my own sense of meaning.

Did I mention I'm a pessimist? Well, there's a mathematical model developed by scientists at the University of Chicago called the "Doomsday Clock." This "clock" was first set in 1947, and its hands were initially seven minutes to midnight. With each threat to life on Earth, the larger hand is adjusted closer to midnight. Today, the hand moves in the seconds place. The thinker, linguist, and professor Noam Chomsky pointed out that the greatest threats, according to this group of scientists, are: the development of nuclear weapons, the worsening of climate change, and irrational discourse. The countries that signed the nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaty continue to produce and improve their weapons, while denialism is radically opposed to conservation measures, containment of catastrophes, and the development of clean energy, for example. Regarding irrational discourse, just remember who was elected in the US and with what discourse, and how the far right positions itself in relation to the regulation of the activities of big tech and their interference in the superstructure.
I can only see the role of the artist as a kind of activist, a provocateur, someone capable of exposing the tricks, frauds and fractures of the world. And, if possible, injecting a little beauty into it while there is still time.

I participated in the Urban Art exhibition at MIS-SP, the Keep Walking Project, with the work "Genealogia do Superstar". The exhibition was curated by Giovanni Bianco, Madonna's artistic director. One of the works would be chosen to illustrate the new single that Madonna would release during her tour in Brazil. I researched her albums and most of them had her face or body on the cover. I decided to do the initial project: a landscape of colonial Brazil where a faceless Benedictine monk guarded the key that kept a slave with an exuberantly strong and perfect body chained. Obviously, I was not the winner, and I don't listen to Madonna either. I listen to Pharoah Sanders, Tiganá Santana, Tom Zé, Xênia França, Pj Harvey, Baxter Dury, Feu! Chatterton, Mateus Aleluia, Hercules And Love Affair, and Tulipa.
I presented three video works for the show "De Zero a Um" by choreographer Lara Pinheiro as part of the Performance, Installation and Dance Exhibition at Galeria Vermelho. It was an incredible and very personal experience. I made one of the video arts with my daughter when she was 3 years old ("My Dear Enthusiasm"), she watched herself on the screens, and suddenly she was part of the show, imitating the movements of the ballerinas, throwing herself on the floor, it was amazing.
In 2024, I exhibited at the International Art Salon in Spain at GallerySPT, the work "Used Territory" won a mention for best painting.