Hasta La Gadget!

In 1976, a Brazilian census asked citizens of the country — for the very first time — to describe and identify their own skin color.

This was a significant moment for the former European colony, now considered one of the most ethnically diverse nations in the world, that’s historically struggled with discriminatory policies that disproportionately affect African descendants and interracial people. Though it may have been used for more nefarious purposes at the time, the census was a small step in affirming the many identities that exist in Brazil, wedged in the massive gap between black and white.

The survey produced over 130 different skin color descriptions, ranging from “Morena-roxa” (purplish-tan) to “Café-com-leite” (milky coffee) to “Queimada-de-sol” (sun-kissed). Fast forward a few decades, and Brazilian artist Adriana Varejão became transfixed with the multitude of colors expressed in the census, interested in the ways it illustrated — in sensual detail — the beauty of mestizaje, or the mixing of ancestries, in her home.

So in 2014, Varejão, who lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, created “Polvo,” a series of self-portraits that explore the diversity of identity in Brazil using a paint palette inspired by the 1976 census. First, she mixed oil paints herself, reproducing colors like “Amarela-quemada” (burnt yellow or ochre) and “Paraíba” (like the color of marupa wood) as pigments. Then, she painted her own image, over and over, in a variety of browns, pinks, blacks and whites; a reflection of the many ways Brazilian self-definition takes form.

Varejão’s career, before “Polvo” and after, has been dedicated to the concept of mestizaje, and how art can help “cannibalize” — rather than outright reject — the lingering cultural ideas that took hold during colonialism (not so subtly motivated by the writings of poet Oswald de Andrade). Varejão’s latest series, “Kindred Spirits,” is a similar effort, consisting of 29 portraits of the artist donning the markings and body ornamentation of Native American tribes.

Varejão based this work partially on the portraiture of older artists like George Catlin, Charles Bird King, Henry Inman and Edwards Curtis, who photographed, painted or copied portraits of Native American individuals. The work is also informed by more modern and contemporary artists like Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Paul Thek and Llyn Foulkes, represented in the nods to minimalist habits that can be found in “Kindred Spirits.”

The name of the series is taken from a 2012 book, also titled Kindred Spirits, which describes the connections between Native American visuals and the work of largely white artists, particularly, as Varejão’s gallery Lehmann Maupin points out, how Native American approaches to line and color influenced 20th-century Western art.

The varied portraits highlight the ways in which the exchange of ideas — in all directions — has shaped the ways we process ourselves. In Varejão’s paintings, the indigenous markings seem to hint at techniques of modern art, mimicking the ways indigenous and European culture push and pull each other in South America. But the series is also purposefully critical of the idea that Brazil is a peaceful melting pot of cultural ideas. “There is this propaganda that we are this racial democracy. And in fact I don’t think we are,” she told The Wall Street Journal in 2014.

Varejão, when asked how she views herself racially, explained to Hyperallergic that she is as Portuguese as she is Indian as she is black. “I believe in building a mestizo identity, which means to have everything together with balance,” she added. “When people come to Brazil, they forget their ancestral identity.” 

To complicate the mixing of artistic and cultural influences even more, the paintings in “Kindred Spirits” are not your typical self-portraits. They were originally made by Chinese fabricators, based on photographs of herself Varejão sent. The Chinese reproductions were then altered by Varejão, to include the piercings, face paint, headdresses and other adornments characteristic of indigenous tribes in the American Plains and Southwest. She also added the flourishes of LeWitt and Foulkes, apparent in the bits of rigid geometry and distilled color.

Like “Polvo,” the portraits of “Kindred Spirits” are not meant to represent reality, but to underscore how convoluted our perception of identity can become. By diving deep into the issues related to miscegenation — the mixing of different racial groups through marriage and parenthood — in Brazil, she offers up a complex retelling of colonialism’s effect on personhood, the lasting effects of assimilation, and the darker spirit of coexistence.

As one of the most famous living artists in the country, who’s shown her work at places like the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and the Victoria Miro Gallery in London, Varejão isn’t afraid to create provocative art that challenges what interracial identity means today.

Adriana Varejão’s “Kindred Spirits” is on view until June 19, 2016, at Lehmann Maupin’s location at 201 Chrystie Street in New York City. Also on view is Varejão’s “Mimbres” series, a collection of crackled works inspired by 11th century Mimbres pottery from what is now the southwestern United States.

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June 17 marks the one-year anniversary of one of the worst mass shootings in America — the Charleston church massacre. On that day, 21-year-old Dylann Roof sat with a bible study group at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. After a full hour of sitting with the group as they worshipped, he proceeded to pull out a gun and open fire on them, killing nine innocent people — all of them African American. 

Later, we would find out in a manifesto published on Roof’s website that the intention behind his heinous act was fueled by a deep hatred for black people. He expressed disgust at the thought of black men and white women together, claiming, “you [black men] rape our women.” His desire was to spark a race war.

A year after the massacre, a year after heated debates on gun control and mental health and most of all race, we’ve now been plunged into yet another national conversation that rests at the intersection of horrific violence and hatred: the shooting in Orlando.

But what have we actually learned? 

That’s always the question when it comes to the cancer of gun violence and mass shootings that plague this country (and this world). What have we learned? How do we progress? How do we ensure that something like this never happens again? The answer, surely, lies in our policies surrounding guns, policies that currently in many states make it terrifyingly easy for citizens to legally purchase assault rifles. But the answer also lies in something we’re seemingly unwilling to do in the United States: acknowledge, recognize and work through our national demons.

The Charleston massacre was significant for a lot of reasons. It was just days before Juneteenth (the annual celebration of the end of slavery in the Americas), at a church that played an integral role in the Civil Rights movement. It also happened during what seemed like a racial boiling point in America.

In April, Walter Scott, unarmed, was shot and killed from behind in South Carolina while fleeing from a police officer — the circumstances of his death only came to light when a video taken by a bystander eventually surfaced. In May, the state of emergency had been lifted in Baltimore, where protests surrounding the death of Freddie Gray had filled the streets. Police brutality and the #BlackLivesMatter movement were both at the forefront of the country’s collective mind.

With all this tension around race in the atmosphere, what happened in Charleston was as much about the senseless destruction caused by gun violence as it was about the senseless destruction caused by racism. Roof was a radical manifestation of our race problem, a potent reminder that white supremacy and white rage are not anomalies — they’re worked into the very fabric of this country. The more we ignore them, the more we allow them to grow, just beneath the surface.

The homophobia of Omar Mateen, the shooter behind the terrorism at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, is also just beneath the surface in this country. There’s been a lot of debate about whether Mateen’s attack was fueled by “radical Islam” or homophobia, but whatever his alliances, it is clear Mateen sought out LGBT victims to kill in an LGBT space. 

And his disgust also festers in this country, a country where one week a person can say that trans people should “go pee in the bushes” instead of public restrooms, and weeks later share their condolences to the LGBT people affected by the shooting. Therein lies the blinding hypocrisy of our horror at these violent incidents.

And let us not forget when 22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed six people in Isla Vista, California, back in May 2014. He, too, exposed a sense of entitlement and hatred for women that’s very much a part of our society. The display of his hatred may have been extreme, but the hatred itself was not exclusive to him. He chose a mass shooting to express his anger at rejection, at women not freely allowing him access to their bodies. It’s a type of anger that’s expressed through physical and sexual violence against women every day. 

And that’s the thing. These shootings are reminders of the reality of these isms (homophobia, racism, sexism) in our everyday lives. The Charleston shooting laid bare a reality of this country in a brutal, raw way. But the deaths of Freddie Gray, Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, the deaths of the nine innocent people at Mother Emmanuel Church, the violent and senseless deaths of countless black people across this country and across the centuries all lie on a continuum. They are not separate. They are echoes of each other. 

Charleston, Isla Vista, Orlando. As tempting as it is to dismiss these mass shooters as maniacs (and of course, in a sense, they are), we have to recognize that they hold ideals that many Americans, behind closed doors, share. Of course, not every mass shooting in America has been fueled by an ism. But what we can learn from the common thread that link these specific incidents is that violence manifests itself in many ways. It can be explicit or it can be subtle, but all violence makes an impact, and leaves a scar.

One year after Charleston and days after Orlando, here’s what we need to learn: these mass shootings are the extreme demonstrations of hate, yes. But every time someone turns away in disgust at a gay couple kissing, misgenders a trans person, harasses a woman on the street, or questions the concept of “black lives matter,” it’s a subtle violence, a contribution to the kind of hate that explodes across the 24-hour news cycle in the form of another mass shooting. It’s time we accept that, so we can truly move forward. 

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