Rodrigo Cass
lines contents, 2020
Concrete and tempera on linen
In three parts:
82 3/4 x 11 1/5 x 1 inches each, (210 x 29 x 2.5 cm each)
82 3/4 x 46 1/5 x 1 inches overall, (210 x 118 x 2.5 cm overall)
Rodrigo Cass
humanity discovered, 2020
White concrete, concrete and tempera on linen and painted wood
16 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 1 inches
42 x 37 x 2.5 cm
Rodrigo Cass
my pleasant drawing, 2020
White concrete, concrete and tempera on linen and painted wood
16 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 1 inches
42 x 37 x 2.5 cm
Rodrigo Cass
the birth of geometry, 2020
White concrete and tempera on linen
38 1/2 x 41 3/4 inches
98 x 106 cm
Rodrigo Cass
Contra-Composicao (Transformar) / Counter-Composition (Transform), 2018
Concrete on inkjet print on cotton paper, unique in a series
24 1/2 x 26 inches
62 x 66 cm
Edition of 3
Rodrigo Cass
Installation image of figures, gestures and passages, 2018
Anthony Meier Fine Arts
Rodrigo Cass
projections (the physicality of sight), 2020
White concrete, concrete and tempera on linen
15 3/4 x 15 3/4 x 3/4 inches
40 x 40 x 2 cm
Rodrigo Cass
the New, 2020
White concrete on linen
36 1/4 x 39 1/4 x 1 1/4 inches
92 x 100 x 3 cm
Rodrigo Cass
Infinite Contents, 2018
Concrete, white concrete and tempera on linen
22 3/4 x 20 x 1 1/4 inches
58 x 51 x 3 cm
Rodrigo Cass
Sensitive Summary, 2020
White concrete, concrete and tempera on linen
48 3/4 x 41 1/4 x 1 1/4 inches
124 x 105 x 3 cm
Rodrigo Cass
loved and blessed, 2020
White concrete, concrete and tempera on linen and painted wood
16 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 1 inches
42 x 37 x 2.5 cm
Rodrigo Cass
great transformation, 2020
White concrete, concrete and tempera on linen and painted wood
16 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 1 inches
42 x 37 x 2.5 cm
Rodrigo Cass
On Handling, 2018
Video projection on linen canvas and bronze sculpture
26 x 35 inches
66 x 88.9 cm
Edition of 5
Cass skillfully manipulates concrete into a paint-like substance that he brushes directly onto the canvas. His rhythmic concrete lines are likened to text on the page or a complex system of corridors, creating a metaphysical landscape to be explored.
Rodrigo Cass was born in 1983 and lives and works in São Paulo. In 2006 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Plastic Arts at the Faculdade Santa Marcelina in São Paulo and studied Philosophy and Theology at the Faculdade Jesuíta in Belo Horizonte from 2007-2008.
Rodrigo Cass was a monk in the Carmelite Religious Order of São Paulo from 2000 - 2008 where he learned to paint Byzantine religious icon paintings with tempera paint. Influenced by philosophy and art history, Cass utilizes painting, sculpture and video to explore the concreteness of things – extracting the color, texture, weight, function, and movement (or lack thereof) of concrete to manifest the formal language of his expression.
Cass skillfully manipulates concrete into a paint-like substance that he brushes directly onto the canvas. His rhythmic concrete lines are likened to text on the page or a complex system of corridors, creating a metaphysical landscape to be explored. Within the repetition there are moments of stillness, an essential element to the artist. This stillness becomes expressive similar to intervals of silence in a musical composition or pauses in poetry - the absence of drama and expression. Cass acknowledges and reveres the past masters of the Neo-Concrete movement and the many modernist gestures in Brasilian architectural landscape. His use of materials is condensed making the paintings much more than two-dimensional depictions. The beveled edges of the canvas and concrete lines bleed into the wall, unable to be contained.
Rodrigo Cass is the recipient of Prêmio Illy Sustain Art, SP-Arte, São Paulo, Brasil; Prêmio Aquisição [Aquisition Grant] Pinacoteca de Piracicaba, Piracicaba, Brasil; Grande Prêmio [Prize], 29° ARTE PARÁ, Museu Histórico do Estado do Pará, Belém, Brasil; 3ª edição do Prêmio CNI SESI Marcantonio Vilaça para as Artes Plásticas, Brasil; Prêmio Aquisição [Aquisition Grant], Casa do Olhar Luiz Sacilotto, Santo André, Brasil.
Cass has had solo exhibitions at Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco; Centro Cultural São Paulo, São Paulo; Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel , Galpão, São Paulo; Galeria de Arte Copasa, Belo Horizonte; Galeria Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo; Galerie MDM, Paris, France; Galpão Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo; Meyer Riegger, Karlsruhe, Germany; and MALG - Museu de Arte Leopoldo Gotuzzo, Pelotas.
Recent group exhibitions include Escrito no Corpo, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo, Brasil; Cities in Dust, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel | Carpintaria, São Paulo, Brasil; Anthology of Art and Architecture, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel and Bergamin & Gomide, Online; Mundo Vasto Mundo, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel; Escritório Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal; Prova de Artista, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel; Galeria, São Paulo, Brasil; Building Material: Process and Form in Brazilian Art, Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles, CA; Acervo Videobrasil, Sala Antônio, Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo, Brasil; The Way Objects Go, Belgrade Cultural Center, Belgrade, Serbia; MA, Luciana Caravello Arte Contemporânea, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil; 60 Anos, Museu + Residência, Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brasil; Festival Oodaaq 2016, L'Œil d'Oodaaq, Rennes; Nantes, France; Lupa - Ensaios Audiovisuais, Museu de Artes e Ofícios, Belo Horizonte, Brasil; In Between, Galeria Bergamin & Gomide, São Paulo, Brasil; and Video Art in Latin America: Selections from Brazil, The Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami, FL.
Selected public collections include Casa do Olhar Luiz Sacilotto, Santo André, Brasil; Fundação Rômulo Maiorama, Belém, Pará; MAP - Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brasil; Pinacoteca de Piracicaba, Piracicaba, Brasil; and TBA21 – Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria.
Rodrigo Cass is included in the online only exhibition "AAA - Anthology of Art and Architecture", a collaboration between Fortes D'Aloia & Gabriel and Bergamin & Gomide and curated by Sol Camacho, that will be on view from 2 April to 31 July 2020.
Through a timeless and non-catalographic cut, "AAA" moves through the field of visual arts - between paintings, sculptures, videos - and architecture - with models, pieces of furniture and photographs of buildings. These are works that have architecture as their language: be it in the relationship between the construction of spaces and their representation; in the use of construction materials; or, still, in the subversion of language itself as a resource for experimentation with scale, composition and geometry.
Rodrigo Cass is included in the exhibition "Cities in Dust" at Fortes D'Aloia & Gabriel, Sao Paulo from 23 January to 21 February 2020.
The exhibit is comprised of photos, paintings and sculptures by 15 of the artists represented by Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, which share a particular focus on urban morphology and its contemporary phenomena.
