“The crown of old Oxalá”

Artist Alberto Pitta’s work is centered on textile printing and silkscreen printing, although he has also dedicated himself to painting and sculptural works in recent years. With a career spanning more than four decades, Pitta’s production is strongly linked to popular festivities and engages with other forms of expression, such as clothing. His work has a strong public dimension, having produced prints for Afro carnival groups such as Olodum, Filhos de Gandhy and his own, Cortejo Afro. His print production began in the 1980s and features signs, shapes and designs that evoke traditional African and Afro-diasporic elements, especially those originating from Yoruba mythology, which is very present in Salvador and the Bahian Recôncavo region. In the words of curator Renato Menezes: “Indeed, signs, shapes and designs that evoke traditional African graphics have found, on his fabrics, a privileged place for educating the masses and telling stories that only make sense collectively. If writing, in Pitta’s work, is organized in the set of patterns and colors that reinterpret the Yoruba worldview, reading, on the other hand, concerns the relationship established in the contact between bodies in movement, when the city streets become a terreiro. Through the folds of the fabrics that cover the revelers, an alphabet of letters and affections runs, mobilized by music and dance: it is in the body of the other that we read the text that completes us.”

Alberto Pitta has participated in important exhibitions in Brazil and abroad. Among his solo exhibitions, the following stand out: "Other Carnivals", at Nara Roesler (2024), in Rio de Janeiro; "Mariwó", at Paulo Darzé Galeria (2023), in Salvador; and "Buried Eternity", organized by Carmo & Johnson Projects (2022), in São Paulo. Among his group exhibitions, his participation in the 24th Sydney Biennale (2024) stands out; "Lélia in Us: Popular Festivals and Amefricanity", at Sesc Vila Mariana (2024), in São Paulo; "O Quilombismo", at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, in Berlin, Germany (2023); "Crossroads", at the Museum of Modern Art of Bahia (2022), in Salvador; and "A Defect of Color", at the Museum of Art of Rio (2022), in Rio de Janeiro. His work is featured in institutional collections, such as the Inhotim Institute, in Brumadinho; the Rio Art Museum, in Rio de Janeiro; and the Bahia Museum of Modern Art, in Salvador.