Paulo Nazareth: Melee

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The first exhaustive catalog of one of the most important young global artists reckoning with colonialism and its afterlives.

Published to mark Paulo Nazareth’s first solo US museum show, Paulo Nazareth: Melee presents an engaging and timely look at the artist’s heterogeneous work. The exhibition, held at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami in 2019, explored how Nazareth’s work engages the complex colonial and racial histories of the Americas. An artist who works across media, Nazareth uses performance and sculpture to critique the colonial experience and its afterlives across the Americas, especially in Brazil. His performances and installations draw from his African and Indigenous heritage to highlight marginalized historical legacies, progressive political figures, non-Western worldviews, and potential methods of non-exploitative living and relating to others. Nazareth’s work assumes a new poignancy in light of the racial reckoning that our historical moment demands. This beautifully produced volume contains more than one hundred color illustrations in addition to newly commissioned scholarship. Paulo Nazareth: Melee is the first exhaustive catalog of Nazareth’s work, solidifying his place as one of today’s most important global artists.