The work of Brazilian artist Jonathas de Andrade intimately explores aspects of Brazilian culture - from food to farming - through its people and the relationships between them.
The exhibition takes as its centerpiece a never-before-seen film set in a culinary school inspired by Josué de Castro's highly influential book Geopolitics of Hunger, that looks at access to food as a political, economic, and social issue. Both personal and historical, the work of de Andrade addresses Brazil's ongoing conversations tied to race, class, and labor, and is charged with an undercurrent of physicality and sexuality. A large-scale installation, Working up a sweat includes 120 used t-shirts of Brazilian laborers displayed on wooden supports, each serving as a trace of an interaction in which the artist asked them to remove their shirt. This exhibition, organized by MCA Associate Curator José Esparza, is the artist's first major solo show at a US museum, and showcases de Andrade's work across a range of mediums including photography, sculpture, written word, and film.
