Erika Verzutti: The Indiscipline Of Sculpture

Erika Verzutti (São Paulo, 1971) is a key artist for understanding sculpture practice today, both in the Brazilian panorama and internationally. Her thought- provoking forms explore new routes for the medium, with renewed attention to the origin and materiality of sculpture, its varied references, and its formal intelligence. Using different materials, such as bronze, concrete, stone, and papier-maché, Verzutti?s works are sensual and tactile, both rough and refined, evoking animals and plants, landscapes and minerals, everyday objects and objects of art?from Tarsila do Amaral to Constantin Brancusi, from René Magritte to Piero Manzoni. Often with an uncanny character, Verzutti?s sculptures give themselves up to unpredictability, sometimes with a certain degree of humor, refusing to accept pre-established definitions or traditions?hence the catalogue?s subtitle: The Indiscipline of Sculpture. This is the most thorough publication dedicated to Verzutti?s oeuvre, which accompanies her first exhibition in a Brazilian museum?the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand. The book is divided into seven chapters organizing the artist?s practice, spanning her entire career since 2003: ?Becoming-Animal?, ?Tropical Pathway?, ?World Metaphor?, ?Totemize the Taboo?, ?Wild Modernism?, ?Under Tarsila?s Sun (and Other Stories),? and ?Strangely Familiar.? With texts written by curators, art critics, and historians, this is a fundamental book for understanding Erika Verzutti?s work as one of the most singular contributions to the field of sculpture today.