Jonathas de Andrade: Lost and Found

The project Achados e Perdidos (Lost and Found) departs from a collection of speedos forgotten in the changing rooms of swimming clubs in Recife, Pernambuco, being collected by Jonathas de Andrade over the past 10 years. With the growing collection, the artist began to order bodies sculpted in clay in natural size from several artisans in the city of Tracunhaém, in Pernambuco, initiating a dialogue that permeates the representation of the body, popular art, masculinity and the tradition of popular and modern sculpture.

The city of Tracunhaém is an hour from Recife, and is known as the clay and pottery region. The city's various artisans dedicate themselves to the tradition of sculpture and to the serial production of classic pieces from Northeastern culture: from traditional clay filters to small and large-scale saints; from plant pots to stoves and building bricks. Each artisan, family or group of artisans usually dedicates himself to a typology of pieces. There are those who turn their energy to the making of small sculptures of figures portrayed in everyday scenes from the Northeastern hinterland, others give life to the clay with scenes from the rural maracatu, an  Afro-Brazilian musical and performance genre which is so strong in the region, or those who make more pieces in the potter’s wheel.

The artist's request established an improbable conversation about the representation of the male body in a clay sculpture, since it is a specific theme that had never been developed by any of them. With this, the dialogue opened a peculiar negotiation about the form, movement, and volume of the pieces, requesting the repertoire of each of the artisans, and challenging the limits of their techniques.

The result of this dialogue can be seen in the material aspect of the sculptures. They carry spontaneous cracks, intentional openings, fire stains and the trail of hand gestures in the clay. While traditional pieces usually have openings for the oven to burn the clay inside and out, the artist's request led to solid pieces, with little burning inside. The cracks, formed by the attempt of the heat to escape from the interior of the pieces during the burning, along the commissions were being replaced by holes experienced in different sizes by the artisans, and that became a characteristic of the series.

The artist ordered pieces from 7 artisans: Nando Garcia, Leonardo Nascimento, Ivanildo de Tracunhaém, Nielson de Tracunhaém, Dinho de Zezinho and his team, Robson Coragem and Bruno Rafael. Over three years, the project Achados e perdidos has accumulated more than 100 pieces, where one can observe the variation in responses and styles of the various artisan-sculptors, as well as the development of the techniques used over time.

On display at Vermelho, the first set-up of the project is divided into a large installation in the gallery’s main room, entitled Lost and Found; two sets called Groups; a series of sculptures composed of two pieces each, with the title Groupings; and six individual pieces that are shown both on the floor and on pedestals, and which are titled Body. The installation runs until December 5, 2020, and occupies the gallery’s entire main building.