Question about the Brazilian art scene

Tonico
People in Brazil always ask me, when are you going to come back, and I find that there are less opportunities in terms of projects or shows going on there. There are things going on – the Biennale in October is one of the highlights – and people are doing shows within that period, but I always feel my peers there are struggling… Lots of art has moved to the centres – New York, London, Berlin – and it is there that work is being offered.
I think one interesting thing is, when you change country, obviously it’s much less comfortable than in your own country, you struggle with so many things, and the whole different environment shows in your work. For example, the concept of carpet is very specific to Britain and totally unfamiliar to Brazilians, so you can see these responses in my works.
I don’t see my sculptures as a political statement. Some people make fun of the banana pieces because I’m from Brazil – or actually, it might be buried in one of the layers, but it’s not like some political flag. The fact that I’m an artist who has changed country is addressed in many of the shows I’m in, a kind of instability that many artists live in today.

Question
Do you ever see your work as part of Brazilian sculpture or not at all?

Tonico
It’s difficult to say. I do relate to a lot of Brazilian artists. To put it in a really simple sense – if you are familiar with Brazilian art – there is a kind of sensuality in the materials.

Question
But it’s also the kind of looseness and the fact that nothing is a fixed object and everything you make could be remade; it’s a conglomeration of small things which are held for a moment. It’s very unlike British sculpture in that sense. Do you see British sculpture as being a more fixed thing and Brazilian sculpture as being more ephemeral assemblage?

Tonico
Yes, I think that has a lot to do with the kind of experience people would have in Brazil – it’s a very sensorial place, isn’t it? The smells and colours and textures and food… Maybe British sculpture has more of a sense of stability and presence in a way.

Question
Can you explain a bit more about how you can manage a work in 18ct gold?

Tonico
Well, I had been working with bananas and fruit, ephemeral materials, and cheap carpet, and I thought, I don’t want to be put in the Arte Povera pigeonhole in the more traditional sense. So I wanted to work with really expensive materials, with gold and gems. That’s a funny area to work in because of all the middle class guilt we carry in Brazil... Gold is seen as tacky as well, not only in Brazil, and it plays on people’s vanity.
You can actually have really cheap gold. The chains are 9ct, they are quite cheap, the sculptures are 18ct because they’re very difficult to make in terms of craft, and I work with a jeweller who wouldn’t bother to spend that kind of time crafting. In Brazil, all the jewellery makers would just work in 18ct gold, which is quite interesting, so their time, which is much less well paid than here, is well worth it, once the thing is finished.