ZÉ TEPEDINO

Zé Tepedino creates a minimalist vocabulary of abstract forms whose meaning, even when displaced and reduced, evokes a familiar figuration. He belongs to a long tradition of artists – from movements including dada, surrealism, pop, new realism, arte povera, and beyond – who work with found materials, creating compositions through the assemblage of these objects. In his case, the emphasis is on the encounter of the physical qualities of the material (the form) which, for being mostly second-hand material, already comes charged with information accumulated over its previous existence as a useful object. They are, moreover, common materials, which are part of his everyday experience in the city of Rio de Janeiro (beach umbrellas and chairs) and in his private life (the coat hangers and rubber flip flops).