Arqueia mas não quebra inaugurates the first edition of the Contra-Flecha exhibition program, conceived by curator Germano Dushá and artist Rafael RG, and commissioned by Almeida & Dale gallery, as a platform dedicated to opening new perspectives within Brazilian art history. Each edition brings together works from the gallery’s collection and network, invited artists, and —crucially—artists selected through an open call, ensuring a dynamic, heterogeneous, and continually renewing dialogue. Every new edition, the program presents a new curatorial proposition and a new title, establishing Contra-Flecha not simply as an exhibition, but as an evolving conceptual engine.
The curatorial committee was joined by guess curator Ariana Nuala. And the inaugural edition gathered works by Abdias Nascimento, Flávio de Carvalho, Heitor dos Prazeres, Hélio Oiticica, Ione Saldanha, Ivens Machado, Lygia Pape, Mira Schendel, Raymundo Colares, and Rubem Valentim, placed in dialogue with eight invited artists: Aline Motta, Edson Barrus, Jefferson Santiago, Jonas Van, Labō, Laryssa Machada, Sallisa Rosa, and Zimar; and ten artists selected from 677 applicants across the country: Allan da Silva, Anti Ribeiro, Juno B, Keila Sankofa, kulumym-açu, Loren Minzú, Mari Ra, Marina Woisky, Noara Quintana, e Siwaju Lima. The selection privileged those without commercial representation in the Southeast, emphasizing diversity, visibility, and the support of emerging practices or artists not yet integrated into the central cultural axis of Brazil.
Arqueia mas não quebra takes its starting point from ancestral technologies of bending wood in the making of drums and percussion instruments—techniques embedded in Afro-Brazilian cultural memory, such as those found in the oral traditions surrounding the creation of the Tambor de Crioula in Maranhão. This act of bending without breaking becomes a conceptual hinge for the exhibition, tracing resonances across time: from the physical manipulation of matter, to the elasticity of bodies, to the imaginative and energetic forces that allow things to stretch, risk themselves, and transform.
This publication presents and expands the first edition of Contra-Flecha. Alongside an introductory text outlining the program’s foundations and objectives, it includes the curatorial text, full photographic documentation of the exhibition and participating works, individual presentations dedicated to each contemporary artist, and original essays by the three members of the curatorial committee—each elaborating a key conceptual dimension of the show.