Rubem Valentim

This object by Rubem Valentim is made up of three parts: the ‘base’ is formed by a strictly geometrical, rectangular cross with three incisions on all four sides; on top of this is a board with a two-dimensional symbol; the end is formed by another board that takes up the three incisions of the lowest part at the top and becomes a symbol itself. Valentim also includes the number three in the symbol on the central board, the upper part of which corresponds to the incisions in the base. Valentim describes this object, created in 1980, as an Emblematic Sacral Altar!

The artist is one of the few figures in Brazilian modernism to come from an Afro-Brazilian family. The Black and indigenous populations and their cultures found their way into the art of Brazilian modernism – but mainly from a white perspective. They themselves were only marginal protagonists of modernism. Valentim’s family came from humble beginnings in Salvador de Bahia. Millions of enslaved people from African ethnic groups arrived there over four centuries. In no other region of Brazil did their cultures, languages and religions mix with those of the indigenous and Portuguese as they did here. Valentim’s family is Catholic, but they also attend Candomblé ceremonies.

At the end of the 1960s, after several years in Europe, Rubem Valentim moved to Brasília. There he began to create three-dimensional objects whose formal elements refer to his earlier paintings. Certain forms, such as the use of the number three, could refer to Candomblé deities and their attributes, such as the god Exu with a trident. However, Valentim translates these attributes into abstract geometric forms. In this way they stand independently between the standardised geometric language of Concrete Art and the symbolic, animistic language of Candomblé. He often describes himself as an ‘artist-priest’ and his objects as ‘altars’, like the wooden work on display here.