Aleta Valente
Aleta Valente is a Brazilian artist, lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. From refined and banal photographic productions, improvised acts and installation situations that provide public participation, the artist work is activated by fissures between the field of art and technology and unfolds in unusual areas. In her works – low-res videos, memes, SEO, hypertexts and links – the artist operates different creative processes, countering the disproportion of the geographic plan of the city and aligning realities beyond real and virtual. In her artistic processes, art becomes a political mechanism where she questions the massification and commodification of gender stereotypes, the autonomy of her own body and the legalization of abortion at intersections that connect with the struggle for resources for women’s independence and autonomy. The split of the female is the neuralgia of Valente’s manifestations, the protest for the change in political structures in relation to the female body is a work elastically practiced by her, which constantly strains the narrative of the publicization of the sensual image of the woman, explored by a capitalist sexist society. With a plate of food between her legs, upside down on a pile of rubbish or with an open chest covered in coins, Aleta investigates the domestication, subservience and redefinition of women. With a cell phone in hand, the artist produces, self-photography, edits and distributes her image and discourse worldwide. In 2020, she participated of “Artifício – o podcast do PIPA”, fortnightly sound platform of the Prêmio Pipa (PIPA Award), curated by Luiz Camillo Osorio. In 2019, she held her first solo exhibition: “Superexpoção”, at A Gentil Carioca gallery and won the ZUM Photography Grant at the Moreira Salles Institute (IMS-RJ). In addition to the nominations for the Pipa Prize in 2018 and 2017, she showed in exhibitions such as “História da Sexualidade” at MASP in 2018, “Latin Reconquista: La Colônia Contrataca”, at ABM Confecciones in Madrid in 2018, “Composições Políticas”, at Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica, in 2016 and “Abre Alas” at A Gentil Carioca in 2015. Aleta Valente’s works are part of the Pipa Institute collection.