Guajá and the Peccary
Isaac Andrade, 2024
50×70 cm, canvas, acrylic
Salvador, Brazil
50×70 cm, canvas, acrylic
Salvador, Brazil
How does the traveller see it?
(Fragment of a post from a Facebook page)
Piglet has arrived in Ukraine!
A she-wolf nursed Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Mowgli is a similar story. But in an art gallery in Salvador, Brazil, I came across something entirely different.
The painting stood out sharply from all the others created for the mass tourist market. It looked as if it had been taken out of storage.
"I need to meet the artist. Then I'll buy the painting," I began my traditional blackmail. But the gallery owner spoke only one phrase in English: não inglês, just like 90 percent of Brazil's population.
The next day I returned with an English-speaking guide, and this is how the situation was explained to me: the artist, Isaac Andrade, is 91 years old, has no social media, and there is no way to contact him.
"So how are you going to give him the money?" I insisted on getting in touch with the artist.
"No gallery owner here will give you an artist's phone number," the guide explained. Otherwise, the buyer might start purchasing directly from the artist.
"I'll find him," the Brazilian promised me.
One way or another, the peccary piglet and the Guajá woman nursing it are now in Ukraine!
A she-wolf nursed Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Mowgli is a similar story. But in an art gallery in Salvador, Brazil, I came across something entirely different.
The painting stood out sharply from all the others created for the mass tourist market. It looked as if it had been taken out of storage.
"I need to meet the artist. Then I'll buy the painting," I began my traditional blackmail. But the gallery owner spoke only one phrase in English: não inglês, just like 90 percent of Brazil's population.
The next day I returned with an English-speaking guide, and this is how the situation was explained to me: the artist, Isaac Andrade, is 91 years old, has no social media, and there is no way to contact him.
"So how are you going to give him the money?" I insisted on getting in touch with the artist.
"No gallery owner here will give you an artist's phone number," the guide explained. Otherwise, the buyer might start purchasing directly from the artist.
"I'll find him," the Brazilian promised me.
One way or another, the peccary piglet and the Guajá woman nursing it are now in Ukraine!
And what do you think?