Jonathas de Andrade

Com o coração saindo pela boca [With The Heart Coming Out of the Mouth] is the title of the installation in the Brazilian Pavilion at the 59th Biennale di Venezia (2022), in which Jonathas de Andrade uses a wide range of idiomatic expressions that draw on body metaphors to develop a series of two- and three-dimensional works that render tangible the poetic weight of these expressions. Two immense ears placed at the entrance and exit of the pavilion allow the public, for example, to ‘go in one ear and out the other’, while an inflatable balloon, which invades the space at various times of the day, alludes to a ‘heart coming out of the mouth’.

The emphasis on the body, especially the body of the man from the Brazilian Northeast, and on language, with its wealth, its flaws, and its revelations, is also a characteristic of several of the artist’s earlier works featured in this book, which also includes essays by the publication’s editor Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, and Clarissa Diniz.

Text in English and Portuguese.