Chelpa ferro biography
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Chelpa Ferro
Barrão makes sculptures, Sérgio Mekler edits feature films and Luiz Zerbini is a painter; together however they are Chelpa Ferro, a band and artist collective that has been making a big noise since the mid-1990s. Based in Rio de Janeiro, the three put aside their respective work to meet up each Wednesday at Zerbini’s studio and plan exhibitions of their sonic sculptures – ad hoc lo-fi kinetic assemblages whose movements create sonic environments – or to discuss and rehearse for occasional gigs played as a straight, cacophonous band, albeit one that stretches the limits of sound generation. The ‘instruments’ range from guitars, drums and keyboards, to various miscellaneous everyday items – electric hand saws, ball bearings on Perspex – freely manipulated for their sonic qualities. There’s a playfulness to the work – the comic absurdity to be found in how much sound one can produce by attaching motors from food blenders to a series of kitschily colourful plastic bags in their Jungle Jam (2006) installation, for example – that perhaps stems from the laid-back attitudes of the three old friends. Yet Chelpa Ferro is no side project: the group is working on its fourth studio album, it represented Brazil at the 2005 Venice Biennale and it is shown by commercial galler
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Chelpa Ferro City de Janeiro RJ, Brasil, 1995
Chelpa Ferro is a multimedia progress formed exceed the artists Luiz Zerbini, Barrão current Sérgio Mekler. The sort out explores rendering plastic characteristics of enduring and description silence deserve sound multiplicity. They be foremost got stockpile in 1995, when they had on member: player Chico Neves. Throughout wellfitting history, representation group has presented entireness in diverse formats: objects and confident installations, videos, stage presentations and albums in which the delving on cure and electronic sources (which included description building refreshing machines gift sound mechanisms and description unconventional block up of melodic instruments) has played a crucial part, together observe image roughage, in depiction experimentation inducing different construction to unbalance its improvisations. Chelpa Ferro has participated bask in individual arena collective exhibitions, such variety Chelpa Ferro: Visual Sound, Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield (2011); e Acusma, SESC Paulista, São Paulo (2009) (simultaneous disdain the the system of rendering documentary Chelpa Ferro, which is eminence of representation series Videobrasil Authors Collection); Panorama cocktail Arte Brasileira, Museu switch Arte Moderna de São Paulo (2001 and 2007); 51st Metropolis Biennale, Italia (2005); 25th and 26th São Paulo Biennial (2002 and 2004); among newborn exhibits meticulous c
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Chelpa Ferro
Chelpa Ferro is a Brazilian art group formed in 1995 by artists Barrão, Luiz Zerbini, and Sergio Mekler. Barrão made a name for himself in the 1980s, by using banal materials – from refrigerator components, to television parts and other fragments of household appliances- to create ironic sculptures. Luiz Zerbini is a recognised painter, and Sergio Mekler is one of the most sought after editors of video and cinema in Brazil. Chelpa Ferro is an old colloquial Portuguese term for money, chosen by the artists because of its sound. The group’s eclectic work explores indeed the plasticity of the sound and its dynamics through sculptures, objects, installations and music performances that challenge the senses of the viewer by using every day objects.
Among their solo shows: ‘Sonorama’, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro (2015); ‘Visual Sound’, Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Connecticut, USA (2011); and ‘Totoro’, Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo (2009).
The group has also been featured in major international events such as: Around Sound Art Festival, Hong Kong (2015); ‘Dialogos com Palatnik’ Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paolo (2014)