In Detroit, a French Brasserie That Feels Like a Portal to Paris
The Brazilian artist Wanda Pimentel’s “Envolvimento” paintings (1968-84) are hard-edged domestic vignettes — kitchens, bathrooms, the insides of cars — rendered in a lean, almost festive palette of mostly reds, greens and yellows. In these claustrophobic spaces, feminine-seeming thighs, ankles, feet and hands make fetishistic cameos, jutting out at awkward angles or lingering near water puddles and toilet-paper rolls. Sometimes, they’re framed by thick, windowpane-like lines that cast the viewer as a peeping Tom. “The house is not only a space of intimacy but also of fear,” says Alexandre Gabriel of São Paulo’s Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel gallery, which will present Pimentel’s work at the Independent 20th Century art fair in New York City next month.