Washington, D.C. – Five hundred years ago the region that is now Brazil was discovered, explored, and colonized by the Portuguese, an encounter that has shaped almost every facet of Brazilian society. The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) has organized the exhibition Virgin Territory: Women, Gender, and History in Contemporary Brazilian Art, on view from October 18, 2001 to January 6, 2002, to offer a range of current artistic perspectives on the link between identity and colonialism in Brazil today.

Virgin Territory comprises more than 70 works by 25 of Brazil’s best-known artists, who represent several generations that have received increasing international attention since the mid-1980s. This politically, socially, and culturally charged art, including painting, sculpture, video, film, and new media, offers a rich series of metaphors, allegories, and commentaries that rewrite, reposition, and reinvent Brazil’s history, sense of place, and cultural identity. Six of the artists will create installations in NMWA’s second floor galleries.

The exhibition follows four interconnected lines of thought that are linked by the form and content of the artists’ work. The first section examines Brazil as a new world—a beautiful, exotic, and virgin territory to be conquered and colonized. Exemplifying this idea are Adriana Varejão’s contemporary history paintings, created in the guise of Portugal’s famed blue-and-white decorative tiles. In her baroque-inspired Figura de Convite (Entrance Figure), 1997, an allegorical figure of America beckons with open arms and an inviting half-smile. But behind her, the scene is less savory as Amerindian cannibals appear to be winning out over the European keepers of the Christian faith. Like other artists’ works in this section, Varejão’s paintings question and invert prevailing myths and romantic fantasies of Brazil’s colonial history.

The second part of the exhibition focuses on mapping as a means of claiming territory. Understanding that the world was first mapped out by European cartographers during the voyages of discovery, Anna Bella Geiger’s art takes issue with Brazil’s and her place on that old globe. In the Fronteiriços (Borderlines) relief sculptures, 1995-present, she fills shallow file drawers with elegantly fragmented and reconfigured maps of the Southern and Northern hemispheres. Thinking both globally and locally, Geiger’s maps emphasize how much post-colonial power relations have changed. Like Geiger, the other artists in this section recognize that maps are spatial constructs with physical and psychological consequences that can be revised with the passage of time.

The third section of Virgin Territory explores a woman’s place within a new social order that primarily has been identified with male machismo. For Nazareth Pacheco, sexuality and the threat of violence interweave in the installation Jóias (Jewelry), 1997-2001, featuring rows of crystal boxes containing beautifully beaded articles that resemble rosaries, Victorian collars, and other feminine adornments. On closer inspection, however, this characteristically female ornamentation reveals deadly needles and razor blades. These jewels can actually damage those who wear them as well as repel those they are meant to attract. As with other artists in this part of the exhibition, Pacheco both acknowledges and challenges the submissive ideal of Latin American womanhood and beauty.

The fourth section looks at the mixing of cultures and races in Brazilian history and contemporary life known as mestiço. In one of the most activist stances taken in the exhibition, the ideal of Brazil as a "melted pot" is challenged in filmmaker and writer Silvana Afram’s Mulheres Negras (Black Women of Brazil), 1986. This film was one of the earliest contributions in the country’s contemporary debate on identity, gender, and racism. Although it is true that racial mixture has been an accepted pattern in Brazil since colonization began, Afram’s film points out that for black women deep traces of discrimination exist in this, the world’s second largest "African" nation. In Afram’s film and in the other artists’ videos, installations, and paintings in this section, the transformation of everyday people, events, and objects through art envisions a new, more inclusive, post-colonial identity for Brazil.

Virgin Territory: Women, Gender, and History in Contemporary Brazilian Art is the only Washington venue of a celebration of Brazilian art and culture at museums throughout South America, Europe, and the U.S., including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, the British Museum in London, the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, and the Guggenheim Museum and El Museo del Barrio in New York. Developed in collaboration with BrasilConnects, an independent, not-for-profit organization that celebrates, preserves, and supports Brazil’s most treasured cultural and ecological assets, this series of international exhibitions is a major contribution to the understanding of the historical roots and present realities of our largest neighbor to the south.

Susan Fisher Sterling, NMWA deputy director of art and programs, was invited by BrasilConnects to organize the exhibition in recognition of her special expertise in modern and contemporary art of Latin America. It continues NMWA’s focus on Latin American artists, most recently The Magic of Remedios Varo (2000), the first U.S. retrospective of the surrealist painter from Mexico. Sterling’s co-curators are Berta Sichel, director of the film and video department at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, and Franklin Espath Pedroso, associate chief curator of BrasilConnects.

Sterling comments, "The artists in Virgin Territory renegotiate issues of power and representation that were introduced into Brazil from the time of Portugal’s ‘discovery.’ With little nostalgia for memories, but with a deep sense of history, identity and locale, they and their works transgress limits and cross borders to establish a new sense of being in the world."

A fully illustrated catalogue for Virgin Territory is available from the NMWA Museum Shop for $32.95, or by mail order (call 1.800.222.7270).

The National Museum of Women in the Arts, founded in 1981 and opened in 1987, is the only museum dedicated solely to celebrating the achievements of women in the visual, performing, and literary arts. Its permanent collection contains works by more than 800 artists, including Judith Leyster, Maria Sibylla Merian, Mary Cassatt, Camille Claudel, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Elizabeth Catlett, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, and Louise Bourgeois. The museum also conducts multidisciplinary programs for diverse audiences, maintains a Library and Research Center, publishes a quarterly magazine, and has organized 24 state committees. More than 100,000 people visit the museum each year, including thousands of young people who come with schools and scouting groups. NMWA’s national membership of 35,000 is among the top ten percent of museum memberships nationwide. The museum is located at 1250 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, in a landmark building near the White House. It is open Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Sunday noon – 5 p.m. General admission is $5 for adults, $3 for students and seniors (60 and over), and free for NMWA members and youth (18 and under). Free Community Days are offered the first Sunday and Wednesday of each month. For information call 202.783.5000 or visit the museum’s website, www.nmwa.org.