The exhibition “Multiple of Multiples,” which inaugurates the Carbono gallery in São Paulo, is a curatorial project that proposes a fruitful concept of the multiple genre, a practice now very common in contemporary art production, because it allows for the gathering of a great diversity of artists, works, languages, and media, and because the exhibition – as well as multiples, in particular and by principle – proposes greater public access to the artwork.
Many artists have addressed the social importance of mass-produced artworks, such as Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Bill, Joseph Beuys, and Andy Warhol, always emphasizing that print runs do not eliminate the spiritual experience of the unique work, but, on the contrary, constitute a prodigious strategy for disseminating its effects.
Today, publications take on a more pragmatic and less conceptual character, while retaining an essential role in disseminating artistic ideas.
Producing a multiple means projecting the work beyond the fetishistic and ritualistic aspects of the original work, emphasizing the modern shift in perspective on contemporary individualism and, above all, increasing art's capacity to become a more democratic cultural experience.
The multiple not only puts the artist's work and a commodity or market value into play, but also favors the integration of new audiences into the field of image, simply bringing with it the awareness that this value has been transformed into something more accessible to the public.
Multiple art is a work that expands and renews itself, encountering other perspectives and different ways of being in the world, while maintaining its artistic power intact.
