SAO PAULO.- Nara Roesler announced the representation of Alberto Pitta (b. 1961, Salvador, Brazil). Pitta's work is mostly centered on textiles and silkscreen, though he has also explored painting and sculpture in recent years. With a more than four decades-long career, Alberto Pitta's production is closely linked to popular festivities and dialogues with other spheres such as that of garments. His work also gained a strong public dimension as he created prints for Salvador's Afro Carnival parades including that of Olodum, Filhos de Gandhy, and his own, Cortejo Afro.
Pitta's mother is an important Ialorixá¹ in Salvador. Influenced by her interest in textiles and embroideries, Pitta began to explore the realm of fabrics. In this way, the artist understood that such materials were not restricted to their practical nature, but rather as means of inserting man into nature and putting them in touch with their ancestors.
Alberto Pitta began producing prints for the costumes of Salvador's Afro carnival parades in the 1980s. These prints feature signs, shapes, and strokes that evoke traditional African and Afro-diasporic elements, especially those of Yoruba² mythology, which is very present in Salvador and the region of the Bahian recôncavo. In the words of curator Renato Menezes: "[The artist’s] signs, shapes, and lines that evoke traditional African graphics have found a privileged place for educating the masses and telling stories that only make sense collectively. While the writing in Pitta's work is organized in patterns and colors that reinterpret the Yoruba worldview, the process of reading [the patterns] showcases the relationship between bodies in movement [..]. Through the fabric’s folds as they cover those parading, one denotes an alphabet of letters and affections, which move to the rhythm of the music and dance: it is in the body of the other that one becomes able to read what completes us."
Alberto Pitta has participated in important exhibitions in Brazil and internationally. His solo shows include Mariwó, at Paulo Darzé Galeria (2023), in Salvador, and Eternidade Soterrada, organized by Carmo & Johnson Projects (2022) in São Paulo, Brazil. His group exhibitions notably include his participation in the 24th Biennale of Sydney (2024); O Quilombismo, at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, in Berlin, Germany (2023); Encruzilhada, at the Salvador Museum of Modern Art (2022), in Salvador, Brazil, and Um Defeito de Cor, at the Rio Art Museum (2022), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His work is included in institutional collections such as: Instituto Inhotim, Brumadinho, Brazil; Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil.
