Gustavo Prado
Tempo
About the Exhibit
Located wrapped around the University of Akron’s Polsky Building along Main Street, Tempo can be viewed day and night for this interactive exhibit by international artist Gustavo Prado.
Employing sculpture, performance, photography, and video, Gustavo Prado examines shifts in perspective to produce works that investigate different conceptions of reality. He focuses on light, site, and context to create a body of work that dissects the need to constantly negotiate inhabited space as a means of deriving an understanding of personal identity.
Exploring the complexities inherent in the act of gazing, Prado makes inquiries into a series of notions that are both intrinsic and extraneous to the field of art, such as surveillance, appropriation, voyeurism, aggregates, artificial intelligence, narcissism, information overload, and the right to privacy. He uses off-the-shelf materials that he slightly alters, enabling viewers to recognize the source material while understanding potential deviations from the intended use. Through processes of combining seemingly disparate materials and subject matter, Prado tests cultural assumptions of what can or should belong together.
Location
225 S. Main Street
About the Artist
Gustavo Prado was born in São Paulo in 1981. He studied Philosophy and Industrial Design and received his artistic training at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage in Rio de Janeiro. His works have recently been featured in group shows such as the BRIC Biennial, the Bronx Museum Biennial, and Spring Break Art Show, all in NY; and the Museu de Arte Moderna, in Rio de Janeiro and Itaú Cultural in São Paulo. And in solo shows at Lurixs Gallery in Rio, Nara Roesler Gallery, in São Paulo; and Galerie Richard in New York. He has works in the collection of the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM-Rio), presented a large installation at the Coachella (2017) Music Festival in California and created a permanent public art installation for Casa Firjan Institue in Rio. Prado received a Public Art Grant from Art Prize 10 and is a recipient of Projéteis Prize for Contemporary Art from the Brazilian National Foundation for the Arts (Funarte).
Prado has participated in numerous public panels such as "An Attempt to Become Modern" at the Americas Society, published critical essays in Brazil’s art publications such as Instituto Moreira Salles, and is an editor and co-founder of Jacaranda Magazine. He lives and works in Brooklyn.
