JANAINA WAGNER
MAIN EXHIBITIONS
[upcoming]
I am molten matter sliding from the core of Earth to tell you interior things - Galeria Sardenberg (São Paulo, BR)
Quando o segundo sol chegar / um cometa nos teus olhos - Planetário do Ibirapuera (São Paulo, BR)
Quebrante - OCA - 14th Bienal de Arquitetura de São Paulo (São Paulo, BR)
Curupira e a máquina do destino - COP 30 - Museu do Amanhã (Rio de Janeiro, BR)
Manos Negativas, manos kefzeadas, Quando o segundo sol chegar / um cometa nos teus olhos, Quebrante, Curupira e a máquina do destino - Le Fresnoy-studio national des arts contemporains (Turcoing, FR)
SOLO
2025 Sala de Vídeo Janaina Wagner – Museu de Arte de São Paulo (São Paulo, BR)
A comet in your eyes – Sursock Museum (Beirut, LB)
2024 Quando o segundo sol chegar (Cometa) – Centro Cultural do Cariri (Crato, BR)
2023 Cinema Caverna – Lanterna Mágica – Projeto Vênus (São Paulo, BR)
Baleia Fantasma – Pivô (São Paulo, BR)
2015 Decupagem/ Crônica de um final anunciado - Museu de Arte de Ribeirão Preto (Ribeirão Preto, BR)
GROUP
2025 At the End of a World - Färgfabriken Konsthall (Stockholm, SE)
2024 Era uma vez: história do céu e da terra – Pinacoteca de São Paulo (São Paulo, BR)
Ensaios de Uma Coleção – Galeria Municipal do Porto (Porto, PT)
Summertime – SUPERCOLLIDER - Brand Library (Los Angeles, USA)
Imaginar futuros com gestos silenciosos – Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo (Montevideo, UY)
2023 22ª Bienal SESC Videobrasil - SESC 24 de Maio (São Paulo, BR)
2022 Ópera Citoplasmática – Museu Oscar Niemeyer (Curitiba, BR)
Aliens are temporary - Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien (Berlin, DE)
2021 Thinking beyond: moving-images for a post-pandemic world – Manifattura Tabacchi (Florence, IT)
Cuando no hay sombra es mediodía - Nube Gallery (Santa Cruz, BO)
A natural history of ruins - Pivô (São Paulo, BR)
2020 Casa Carioca – MAR Museu de Arte do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, BR)
2019 Panorama 21 - Les revenants - Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains (Turcoing, FR)
2018 Festival Mondes Possibles - Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers (Paris, FR)
(São Paulo, BR)
Ensaio de Tração - Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo, BR)
2016 Permanências e destruições - Torre H (Rio de Janeiro, BR)
Bolsa Pampulha - Museu de Arte da Pampulha (Belo Horizonte, BR)
2015 Hipótese e horizonte - Observatório - (São Paulo, BR)
2014 4º Prêmio EDP nas Artes – Instituto Tomie Ohtake (São Paulo, BR)
Estado de Suspensão – Coletor (São Paulo, BR)
BALEIA FANTASMA (GHOST BALEIA) | 2023
Installation - Low tech hologram, tv, wood, photography, paper cover on window display and video
PIVÔ ARTE E PESQUISA [PROJETO VITRINE]
Baleia Fantasma revisits the story of the dog Baleia, character from the novel Vidas Secas (Graciliano Ramos, 1934), using images from the homonymous film (1963) directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos to build a ghostly installation.
Baleia appears in the Copan building as a ghost. It is life-size and projected using an extremely simple holographic system designed by Wagner. Its appearance is accompanied by barking directed at the street that runs alongside the building, where several dogs and their owners circulate during the day. Wagner's Baleia moves, barks, and invites us to bend down to look at it closely.
The decision to portray the dog Baleia in the current context is related to a procedure common to Wagner's work: revisiting the archive—physical, filmic, and also oral—and exploring it in its contemporaneity. For the artist, ghosts are fragments of living archives that hover among us. They are not necessarily beings that scare us: they just remain as specters for our memory. The character Baleia was conceived in a context in which social policies were extremely scarce in the face of the country's inequality. The scenario changed, especially during the 2000s, and structural changes were implemented in Brazilian society.
The political setback of the last five years, aggravated by the global pandemic crisis, was accompanied by a dismantling of public and social policies and the glimpse of another project for the country. As we walk through downtown São Paulo, around the building where the exhibition is held, we are constantly intercepted by people seeking help. In 2022, Brazil returns to the hunger map. The Whale appears as a ghost that reminds us of the vulnerability faced by a large portion of the Brazilian population in urban centers and beyond. The ghostly image is almost a note to look again at those who are direct victims of necropolitics.
The ‘Ghost Baleia’ also appears at a time when the anthropocentric way of understanding the world is being questioned and interspecies care relationships are gaining space in public debate: what could we learn from the worldview of dogs? What would their teachings be about friendship and solidarity?
In addition to the dog, the installation consists of a photograph of a stone wall adorned with sculptures of wolf heads and translucent paper covering the glass between the Megafauna bookstore and Pivô. Both elements have a theatrical dimension and refer to other ghosts: the wolf heads create symbolic protection against possible threats, while the translucent paper brings forth specters and shadows of those who circulate on both sides of the glass. Are the others, nameless and appearing only as silhouettes, ghosts from whom we should protect ourselves?
Text by Ana Roman