Alex Flemming, 60 and 40
It is with great pleasure that the Museum of Contemporary Art of University of São Paulo presents a retrospective of Alex Flemming. Celebrating 60 years of age and 40 years of production and an internationally recognized career, the artist shares with the audience a wide, powerful and original repertoire of artworks made at various stages of his intense professional career.
Author of one of the most emblematic public artworks of the city of São Paulo, at the Sumaré subway station, containing anonymous portraits, accompanied by Brazilian poems by poets from Anchieta to Haroldo de Campos, forming a huge panel of an hybrid identity celebration printed on glass. Alex Flemming is a multiple artist. He wields painting, photography, engraving as brilliant exercises of freedom and passion.
However, it is predominantly as a painter he sees himself. Painter, although his painting expands beyond the canvases. In the vast history of his creations, his palette is vibrant, sometimes even blinding. It seems to scream in colors. The paint is applied to the screen, but also to objects, carpets, airplanes, stuffed animals, furniture, clothes, medicine blister packs, rulers and plastic cards. If we can define Alex Flemming as a painter, it is important to say that it is about a painter, one has to say that he is a painter who paints on the less conventionally suitable surfaces for traditional standards imposed by the Art History. And he consistently uses on them all the conquered freedom, applying letters, objects, maps, household items and even bones to the paintings. In each of his works, everything composes in a strange and, at the same time, seductive, absolutely singular imaging alphabet.
The intensity of this alphabet corresponds to the complex researches of the artist himself. His subjects are related to life, body, sexuality, death and spirituality. His works ultimately search for the soul.
Katia Canton
Curator MAC USP
© 2016 Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo