Norberto Nicola (1930-2007) brought an unprecedented approach to the practice of tapestry in Brazil, claiming its autonomy as an artistic language. In 1959, along with French-Brazilian artist, Jacques Douchez, he founded the Douchez-Nicola studio embarking on the research and improvement of tapestry techniques, permanently incorporating them into his artistic work. An important influence for the advancement of his investigations was the work of Polish artist, Magdalena Abakanowicz, whom Nicola and Douchez met in the VIII São Paulo Biennial, in 1965. Abakanowicz is known for her Abakans, title given to a series of works that the artist identified as “textile situations,” dealing with woven structures that, together, formed installations and reclaimed the non-utilitarianism of textile art. The contact with these pieces certainly impelled Nicola to launch, in 1969, his manifesto Woven Forms – and to bring to the public, in a homonymous exhibition at Galeria Documenta, the outcome of his research. What the artist conceived of as a “woven form” is that which critic Geraldo Ferraz called “carpet-object” – three-dimensional works that are not restricted by the reproduction of contours glued to the wall, but exert expressivity from their own material and structure. Thread, wool and mane are twisted and braided through the spaces created between the fabrics, evidencing gaps, divisions and fractures that are generally sewn in order to subvert the flat form.
The artist finds in three-dimensional tapestry the fulfillment of his restlessness as a creator, as stated in his manifesto: “The tapestry that I seek strays away from the traditional idea of a plane representation. We created a textile object. [...] The fiber and the fabric posses a volume with their own qualities of tension, elasticity, behavior, at last, a place in space.”
Until reaching his carpet-objects, Norberto Nicola had already been consolidating himself in the São Paulo art scene of the 1950s, especially from his entrance, in 1954, to the Abstraction Studio led by Samson Flexor. The experimentations influenced by Flexor’s geometric abstractionism marked the studies and patterns from this first tapestries, as well as the gouaches selected for the exhibition. Produced from 1960 to 1970, his Projects and Studies for tapestry bring about vibrant tones and shapes with intense movement that escape geometric rigidness whilst playing with it. We find similar aspects in the piece Amazonas (1960), whose curves and woven lines remind us of Anni Albers, great tapestry artist from the Bauhaus whose wall-hangings have a particular rhythm, and Roberto Burle-Marx in his murals and tapestry produced in the 1960s. They are ingenious works, which attract the eyes through their movement and at the same time, emit technical refinement – characteristic which, in turn, endure and extend throughout all of Nicola’s production.
The artist himself says about the transfixed in his textile forms: “it is something almost ludic.” In the tapestry Ciranda (2002), such aspect is evidenced from the title of the piece, whose circle formed in the center through twists of woolen threads remind us of the children’s game, in which the children holding hands intertwine their bodies by spinning in a circle – what we see, thus, is the transposition of this entire image in an inventive and poetic way.However, in Xamã (1997), there is a powerful allusion to the shaman who has a central role in the culture of Amerindian people. The piece alludes to their garments: mane and frayed wool mixed resemble the garish skin of an animal that could have been worn to cover the master’s body in their rituals. From pieces like this, we see the influence that Nicola’s extensive studies on indigenous feather art exerted on this work (not only the feathers, but varied elements belonging to indigenous culture were absorbed by the artist’s practice). In Esperança (2001), the somberness of the colors favors the textures and tangled threads. The title, the color and its structure converse with other pieces from the artist, like Hora Azul (1984) and Azul Esperança (1999), which reveals one more positive aspect of Nicola’s work: it is cohesive, that is, its motives and themes are not random or in vain, but are part of a solid and passionate research.
Norberto Nicolas has increasingly been gaining more recognition for his restlessness and inventiveness as an artist. His enchantment with tapestry made him strive to open the eyes of the Brazilian artistic universe to textile art: after sending a letter to the directorship board pleading for the presence of Brazilian tapestry in the institution’s program, he was the first to show a piece from the genre in the VII International São Paulo Biennial, in 1963. He was further the creator and curator of numerous exhibitions and events on the theme, like the I Mostra de Tapeçaria Brasileira (1st Exhibition of Brazilian Tapestry), in 1974, the Trienal de Tapeçaria (Tapestry Triennial), inaugurated in 1976, and the Centro Brasileiro de Tapeçaria Contemporânea (The Brazilian Center for Contemporary Tapestry), which he chaired at the time of its opening, also in 1976. Nicola’s works attest to all his dedication and love for the monumental weaving loom that lived in his studio. His famous house in São Paulo downtown, an extension of his body and mind, makes us travel in time through plants and relics, lavishing his fascination for the singular things which humanity has already produced. Herberto Helder, Portuguese poet, remind us in a certain poem that the
“ancient Greeks did not write obituaries, when someone died they just asked:
did he have passion?”
If Nicola had lived with them, they would have responded at the time of his departure: “he had – and plenty.”
