In a certain sense, to fully grasp the poetic strength of an artist\u2019s work, it is necessary to look to the past: a gaze that seeks the formal, material, and plastic force of a body of work of rare consistency within the Brazilian art scene. It is from this perspective that Germana Monte-M\u00f3r (Rio de Janeiro, 1958) presents at Galeria Leme a series of works produced throughout the 1990s, in which the dense matter of asphalt traces and permeates paper and fabric. These works emerge from a poetic construction rooted in repetition, experimentation, and process, offering, between the blackness and luminosity of porous surfaces, a broad spectrum of geologies and cartographies of form.<\/p>\r\n \t\r\n
This is by no means a historical or retrospective exhibition, but rather an effort to recontextualize a body of work that retains material and formal relevance in the contemporary time. In a moment dominated by figurative representation and the proliferation of images (both real-time and AI-generated), the values of presence, material imprint, and formal construction remain intact, despite nearly three decades having passed since these investigations began. Each work seems to blur the boundaries between drawing and painting. While Monte-M\u00f3r\u2019s artistic training was rooted in drawing, her interest in the richness of mineral and earthly matter arises from a sensitivity that perceives life within materials and pigments. These dense plastic elements seem to possess a life of their own, even as they are guided by gesture and mark-making.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
For a viewer more familiar with the artist\u2019s recent production, the absence of color and a certain exuberance might come as a surprise. Yet the presentation of these earlier works offers a glimpse into the origins of her practice: a period in which the poetic and conceptual foundations of her work were established. The exhibition also highlights the memory of an experimental studio process. This notion is amplified when we recognize that each work carries within it the memory of the earth\u2019s depths, of what has accumulated and sedimented over time. This bituminous pigment, derived from petroleum, becomes what the exhibition title describes as the geology of form.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Broadly speaking, geology is the science that studies the earth in all its aspects, investigating everything that lies beneath our feet, what, over time, constitutes us. The artist poetically appropriates this way of producing knowledge, intuitively bringing onto paper and canvas the suggestion of forms that emerge from the earth\u2019s crust and shape our horizons. The stains, scratches, and flows that spread across the pictorial plane are intuitive compositions that form this expanded series of works, almost like primordial forms of the world through which we learn to orient ourselves. In this sense, the drawing acquires the quality of something pre-historic.<\/p>\r\n"],"_content_0_texto":["field_6448479f05101"],"content_1_imagem":["73867"],"_content_1_imagem":["field_644847c605104"],"content_2_obra":["a:3:{i:0;s:5:\"73914\";i:1;s:5:\"73918\";i:2;s:5:\"73923\";}"],"_content_2_obra":["field_64486180449f5"],"content_3_obra":["a:3:{i:0;s:5:\"73931\";i:1;s:5:\"73928\";i:2;s:5:\"73932\";}"],"_content_3_obra":["field_64486180449f5"],"content_4_obra":["a:3:{i:0;s:5:\"73924\";i:1;s:5:\"73920\";i:2;s:5:\"73919\";}"],"_content_4_obra":["field_64486180449f5"],"content_5_obra":["a:2:{i:0;s:5:\"73930\";i:1;s:5:\"73943\";}"],"_content_5_obra":["field_64486178449f3"],"content_6_texto":["
Imagining landscapes, routes, journeys, passages, territories, regions, continents, archipelagos, and islands may be the most immediate exercise when confronted with these drawing-paintings. Viewed from above, the works resemble cartographies of remote places, coastal or inland territories, rugged topographies, rocky or mountainous regions, deserts, vast plains, valleys, plateaus, and volcanic zones. Mountains, cliffs, mountain ranges, volcanoes, hills, rivers, streams, floods, and droughts become possible representations that take shape in our minds as we engage with these works.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
At the same time, there are openings that reveal themselves, fissures through which light and passage emerge. Notice that in some of these works, those dominated by dense expanses of bitumen, clearings and points of illumination appear, like caves or tunnels opening onto visible light. These are situations of intense contrast, where certain exposed areas reveal something akin to a geological excavation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
It is noted that these landscapes also evoke atmospheres of solitude, confronting us with the vastness of what lies beyond, devoid of any other sign of presence. Whether intentional or not, this seems to be a recurring poetic operation within the work: bringing what is internal, hidden materials and invisible resources beneath the surface, into view, allowing them to shape and draw the immensity of the external world.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
This visual richness of blacks, stains, and luminous passages unfolds across two distinct scales: paper\u2014light, loose, and easily manipulated by hand\u2014and cotton fabric, equally flexible but extending beyond the reach of our arms and approaching the limits of the body. On paper, the artist develops a process based on spontaneous gestures and overlapping traces transferred from one sheet to another. On fabric, the gesture expands as the material is laid on the floor, amplifying both effort and the possibility of losing control.<\/p>\r\n"],"_content_6_texto":["field_6448479f05101"],"content_7_obra":["a:3:{i:0;s:5:\"73934\";i:1;s:5:\"73929\";i:2;s:5:\"73921\";}"],"_content_7_obra":["field_64486180449f5"],"content_8_obra":["a:3:{i:0;s:5:\"73926\";i:1;s:5:\"73927\";i:2;s:5:\"73925\";}"],"_content_8_obra":["field_64486180449f5"],"content_9_texto":["
Equally compelling is the disruption of the notion of edge and limit that emerges in the textile works. Here, I recall an observation made by critic and writer Jo\u00e3o Moura Jr. in 2003, when he noted the idea that there is an invariably cumulative power that enriches the work as a whole.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The absence of frames in nearly all of the larger works, contrasting with the restrained framing of the drawings on paper, signals this potential for overflow. There is a condition of openness that transforms the ensemble of selected works into a large-scale pictorial and abstract installation. Seeing them gathered together evokes not only the overlap of different temporalities, but also a sense of monumentality and public significance that contrasts with the solitary and intimate nature of the artist\u2019s studio practice. What emerges is a vast archipelago of densities.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
One cannot overlook the importance of the exhibition space itself. This cavernous, temple-like modern structure, designed by Paulo Mendes da Rocha, with its zenithal and oblique lighting, enhances the revelatory quality already present in these bituminous works. It creates a dense environment of contemplation, encouraging a rhythmic and longitudinal movement through the precast concrete architecture.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Ultimately, what remains is a sense of stillness and silence. The density, symbolic weight, and force of presence embodied in these works stand in opposition to noise and distraction. Excessive sound loses its meaning in their presence. This is further reinforced by the silence of the titles themselves. There is no excessive naming, no reliance on descriptive language.<\/p>\r\n"],"_content_9_texto":["field_6448479f05101"],"content_10_obra":["a:2:{i:0;s:5:\"73945\";i:1;s:5:\"73946\";}"],"_content_10_obra":["field_64486178449f3"],"content_11_obra":["a:2:{i:0;s:5:\"73949\";i:1;s:5:\"73947\";}"],"_content_11_obra":["field_64486178449f3"],"content_12_imagem":["73884"],"_content_12_imagem":["field_644847c605104"],"content_13_obra":["a:1:{i:0;s:5:\"73933\";}"],"_content_13_obra":["field_6448473c050fe"],"content_14_texto":["
Considering the artistic community to which Germana belongs, it seems necessary to illuminate certain affinities between her work and that of her peers within Brazilian art. Looking at the context in which these works were produced during the 1990s, such affinities emerge not only through personal relationships and exchanges, but also through a shared fascination with materiality, a concern that characterized an earlier generation of artists, particularly Jos\u00e9 Resende.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
This connection is not merely formal or abstract. It lies above all in a shared interest in materials extracted from the earth, materials that embody the accumulation of time. Asphalt, oil, and paraffin all derive from petroleum. By foregrounding asphalt, Monte-M\u00f3r grants weight and gravity to the work. There is a force within these forms that seems to push beyond the surface itself. In a certain sense, it is precisely this sense of weight that nourishes many of Resende\u2019s sculptural balances.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Equally relevant is the fact that, although born in Rio de Janeiro, Germana\u2019s years of formation and dialogue in S\u00e3o Paulo led her into a network of exchanges with artists associated with the influential Casa 7 group of the 1980s. Among them, one can identify affinities with the materials, procedures, and forms developed by Nuno Ramos. Another point of proximity lies in the spatial dimension these works acquire within the exhibition: the confrontation between asphalt spread across surfaces and the precast concrete structure of the gallery creates an occupation of volume and density that resonates with concerns long explored by Ramos.<\/p>\r\n"],"_content_14_texto":["field_6448479f05101"],"content_15_obra":["a:3:{i:0;s:5:\"73935\";i:1;s:5:\"73948\";i:2;s:5:\"73944\";}"],"_content_15_obra":["field_64486180449f5"],"content_16_texto":["
Ultimately, attention is directed entirely toward raw matter itself. It is this presence that sustains the contemplative engagement of the viewer. Across dozens of formal abstractions, the material and mineral force of asphalt, brought into direct contact with the organic substance of paper and fabric, becomes the center of attention. As Germana Monte-M\u00f3r herself has often noted, she looked closely at the artists of the Italian Arte Povera and at the radical material investigations of Joseph Beuys, whose work pushed the use of mineral, petroleum-based, and earthly materials to an extreme. In many ways, these references converge in the dozens of drawing-paintings that the artist now brings back into public view, under a new set of circumstances.<\/p>\r\n\r\nDiego Matos, June 2026. \r\n"],"_content_16_texto":["field_6448479f05101"],"_uag_css_file_name":["uag-css-73909.css"],"_uag_page_assets":["a:9:{s:3:\"css\";s:260:\".uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-desktop) !important}@media(max-width: 976px){.uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-tablet) !important}}@media(max-width: 767px){.uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-mobile) !important}}\";s:2:\"js\";s:0:\"\";s:18:\"current_block_list\";a:7:{i:0;s:11:\"core\/search\";i:1;s:10:\"core\/group\";i:2;s:12:\"core\/heading\";i:3;s:17:\"core\/latest-posts\";i:4;s:20:\"core\/latest-comments\";i:5;s:13:\"core\/archives\";i:6;s:15:\"core\/categories\";}s:8:\"uag_flag\";b:0;s:11:\"uag_version\";s:10:\"1783446854\";s:6:\"gfonts\";a:0:{}s:10:\"gfonts_url\";s:0:\"\";s:12:\"gfonts_files\";a:0:{}s:14:\"uag_faq_layout\";b:0;}"]},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/home-desktop-galeria-leme-1920x750-1.webp",980,506,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/home-desktop-galeria-leme-1920x750-1-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/home-desktop-galeria-leme-1920x750-1-300x155.webp",300,155,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/home-desktop-galeria-leme-1920x750-1-768x397.webp",640,331,true],"large":["https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/home-desktop-galeria-leme-1920x750-1.webp",640,330,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/home-desktop-galeria-leme-1920x750-1.webp",980,506,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/home-desktop-galeria-leme-1920x750-1.webp",980,506,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Cris","author_link":"https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/en\/author\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/viewing_room\/73909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/viewing_room"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/viewing_room"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/viewing_room\/73909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73971,"href":"https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/viewing_room\/73909\/revisions\/73971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/galerialeme.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}