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Malba - Fundación Costantini announces Panamericano. Beatriz Milhazes. Paintings 1999-2012, a selection of about thirty recent paintings by the renowned artist Beatriz Milhazes (born 1960 in Rio de Janeiro, where she lives and works), as well as a scenographic work specially designed for the gallery on the museum's second floor. This is the first solo exhibit for Milhazes in a Latin American institution outside of her country, and it has been produced entirely by Malba.

Curated by Frédéric Paul, the exhibit focuses on the past ten years of the artist's work, gathering pieces that are primarily from private and public collections in Brazil and the United ... States. Among these are two works on loan for the first time from the Guggenheim Museum in New York and one from the Museu de Arte Moderna in São Paulo. The local public will also have its first chance to place in their new context as part of the private collection of Eduardo F. Costantini, two important works, O mágico (2001) and Pierrot e Colombina (2009-10), which open and close this important decade for the artist.

The title of the exhibit, Panamericano, alludes to the to-and-fro between North and South, between new West and old West, a central theme of Milhazes. Exotic outside of Brazil, she continues to be so within it as well, and today she is recognized as one of that country's most important artists.

'Numerous figurative elements are at play in Beatriz Milhazes' paintings, but they appear there neutralized in relation to the real, which serves as their model. Her flowers are motifs of flowers. Her fruits are motifs of fruits. And it is without a doubt this reduction of their general form and the elimination of their substance which allow them to interact in the abstract painting with other forms from the decorative realm,' analyzes Frédéric Paul.

For the occasion of this exhibit, Malba has published a 124-page, Spanish-English bilingual catalogue, the first Spanish-language reference publication on a retrospective exhibit of Milhazes' work. This book contains the essay 'Beatriz Milhazes or The Advantages of Never Leaving the Labyrinth in Painting,' by curator Frédéric Paul; as well as the re-edition and the first translation to Spanish of two key texts about the artist: 'Beatriz Milhazes - The Brazilian Trove' by critic and curator Paulo Herkenhoff, first published in 2001 for her exhibit at the Ikon Gallery (England) and at the Birmingham Museum of Art (United States), and an interview with fashion designer Christian Lacroix, which was originally published in Beatriz Milhazes/Avenida Brasil (Frédéric Paul ed., Domaine de Kerguéhennec, Centre d'art contemporain, 2004).

In 2003 Beatriz Milhazes represented Brasil at the 50th Venice Biennale. She also participated in São Paulo's International Biennials (1998, 2004) and Shanghai, China's Biennial (2006). Her most recently museum shows include Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo (2008); Fondation Cartier, Paris (2009); Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2011), among others. Her works are found in the collections of museums such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) in New York and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in Madrid.