SAO PAULO.- Marking three decades since his death, the exhibition Requiem and vertigo pays tribute to the life and work of Rafael Fran鏰 (1957-1991). Ten videos by the artist, made between 1983 and 1991, are the guiding thread for an exploration of how vertigo (which, in his work, is requiem and eroticism) imposes a change in the bodies, which are dismantled, reassembled, crossed, fragmented, dissolved, sickened, they persist and they are pulverised like relics across images.

Rafael Fran鏰’s work is recognised as one of the most coherent and systematic works among Brazilian artists who work with moving images. Leaving aside the use of video as a simple recording device, his work continued (and took even further) the experiments carried out by the video art pioneers of the 1960s. The narrative of his videos, elliptical and discontinuous, explored elements such as the absence of sync between sound and image, alternation between fast and slow cuts and images that are purposely blurry and out of focus. By making his friends, as well as himself, characters in his videos, Rafael Fran鏰 also expanded the limits of a fictional/ documental narrative.

The exhibition intends to celebrate Rafael Fran鏰 by presenting not only his works, but seeking to establish dialogues with the production of artists from his generation and also of previous and subsequent generations, in Brazil and abroad. M醨io Ramiro and Hudinilson Jr (their partners in the 3N髎3 group), Leonilson, Alair Gomes, Let韈ia Parente, Luiz Roque, Bruno Mendon鏰, Fabiana Faleiros, Davi Pontes, Wallace Ferreira, Luis Frangella, David Wojnarowicz, Robert Mapplethorpe and Cibelle Cavalli Bastos. In addition to these artists, we propose to extend the dialogue with writers who were producing at the same time as Fran鏰 - Caio Fernando Abreu, Arnaldo Xavier, Jo鉶 Gilberto Noll, Ana Cristina C閟ar and Roberto Piva -, through selected excerpts from their books.

Today, his work belongs to collection such as Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid, Spain), Museum of Contemporary Art-USP (S鉶 Paulo), Museum of Modern Art (S鉶 Paulo), and Associa玢o Videobrasil (S鉶 Paulo). His work was recently presented in important retrospective exhibitions such as: United by AIDS (Migros Museum, Z黵ich, 2019), Histories of Sexuality (MASP S鉶 Paulo, 2018), ExpoProje玢o (SESC Pinheiros, S鉶 Paulo, 2014) and Speaking Out (MoMA New York, 1992).