Zielinsky hosts in its Barcelona space the GDA – Galeria de Artistas, presenting the exhibition “Perquirere”, which brings together works by Carolina Cordeiro, Bruno Baptistelli, Juliana dos Santos, Manauara Clandestina, andWisrah C. V. da R. Celestino.
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Searching Everywhere
By Bruno Baptistelli. October 2025.
This exhibition brings together diverse practices by artists born in Brazil who, through their processes, reaffirm their commitment to ongoing artistic research.
Throughout its four years of existence, GDA has valued the work of artists who have expanded categories commonly used in Western art –such as conceptualism, abstraction, and representation–, all enveloped by a decolonial political force.
All the artists participating in “Perquirere” have had, or currently have, an ongoing relationship with the gallery, and present in Barcelona a body of work that resists the stereotypes of so-called “Brazilianness”.
Establishing this collaboration with Zielinsky and “occupying” the gallery’s Barcelona headquarters reinforces the affinities between the programs of both projects and deepens GDA’s mission to affirm the thought and practice of Brazilians around the world.
If at first the curatorial framework focused on the individual research of each participating artist, it was inevitable, however, that formal and/or conceptual associations would emerge –both in the selection of works and in the exhibition’s installation process.
Bruno Baptistelli, co-founder of GDA, presents representative works from his practice –which often involves conceptual operations in which he questions signs and their meanings. “Afro-Brazilian Flag (in dialogue with David Hammons) – 2nd version” employs the colors of the Pan-African flag as a replacement for those of the Brazilian flag, originally tied to Portuguese colonization.
In the works from the T series, the artist uses black –also present in the flag as a symbol of Black people– through the use of acrylic paint and charcoal. Baptistelli creates variations of the constructive elements of the letter itself, also observing its formal and structural potency. Furthermore, the letter alludes to the recent change in his surname, now legally Battistelli.
Zinc has become one of the most recurring materials in the practice of Carolina Cordeiro, co-founder of GDA, over the past six years. During this time, the artist has created works ranging from installations to objects and drawings. Cordeiro’s choice of material stems mainly from observing its presence in samba lyrics and vernacular architecture of the 20th century.
In the works presented here, the artist uses metal as a line in two distinct propositions. In “Untitled” (2025), zinc expands into space through folds and twists that Carolina performs by hand, forming small sculptures that sometimes balance on their own structures and at other times lean against the architecture of the exhibition space. These objects seem to propose a new alphabet, with characters that emerge from their own forms.
In another series presented here, Cordeiro makes drawings by incising zinc onto paper surfaces, evoking the use of line in sewing and textile production.
In recent years, Juliana dos Santos has devoted much of her research to the study of the blue pigment derived from the Clitoria ternatea flower, exploring color as a sensitive experience in the process of expanding perception. Her research develops at the intersection of art, history, and education, with an interest in how black artists have engaged in practices to address the limits of representation.
One of the aspects that appears in her work through the use of the flower is the action of time upon this organic pigment. In “Untitled (Blue Experience Series)” (2020), the material is already in an advanced process of oxidation, where blue almost disappears from the surface of the work. In “Untitled” (2025), one of her most recent pieces, Dos Santos revisits a procedure derived from her previous works using watercolor.
The practice of Manauara Clandestina is marked by displacement. The name she adopts as an artist already reveals the forces that guide her work: Manauara evokes her territory of origin (Manaus – Amazonas, Brazil) and the act of crossing; Clandestina points to the violences of identity erasure but also to the creative power of migration and transit.
Her works stem from personal and collective experiences to craft chronicles of travestility in its multiple dimensions –as identity, political existence, and radical fabulation. In the series “Por enquanto 35”, the artist portrays Brazilian and Latin American travestis and trans women of various ages, reflecting on the current life expectancy of this population in Brazil: 35 years.
Wisrah C. V. da R. Celestino investigates the remaining structures of the transatlantic colonial project, focusing on institutional critique, language, and “objectuality.”
In “T”, Celestino presents a thermometer indicating the internal temperature of the exhibition space, and in “Hometown”, a clock set to the time zone of his hometown: Buritizeiro – Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Wisrah chooses not to offer direct explanations of their work. This decision arises not from irony or arrogance but from a position that values interpretive openness. Their work indeed carries meanings, but they are neither fixed nor fully determined –they remain suspended, available to each viewer’s reading.
More than guiding interpretation, Celestino is interested in creating space for other readings to emerge. It is also a deliberate exercise in relinquishing control over the narrative of their own production, allowing the work to exist more autonomously in encounter with the other.