The day Emanoel Ara\u00fajo died last year, his museum was in shambles.<\/p>\n
It was Sept. 7, the 200th anniversary of Brazil\u2019s independence, and renovations at the Museu Afro Brasil had just begun the month before.<\/p>\n
An artist known as much for his geometric sculptures and reliefs as for his tenacity and penchant for getting what he wanted, Ara\u00fajo (pronounced Ahra-OO-zhoh) was just two months shy of his 82nd birthday at the time of his death \u2014 18 years after he founded the museum and later fought for state funding for much-needed updates.<\/p>\n
Even as floors were being torn up and walls taken down, Ara\u00fajo was adamant that the Museu Afro Brasil \u2014 which bears his name on the building and which he considered his most important work \u2014 not shutter completely, leaving the long-term exhibitions open to the public.<\/p>\n
Although he is not well known in many parts of the world, Ara\u00fajo is a household name in Brazil\u2019s art world. He spent his life trying to create much-needed exhibition spaces for underrecognized Afro-Brazilian artists \u2014 this in a country with a population that is majority Black \u2014 and it pained him to think that the doors of the museum, in S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s Ibirapuera Park, would be closed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already had to shut down for eight months in 2020 because of the pandemic, and Emanoel was so distressed about it, so worried,\u201d Sandra Salles, executive director of the Museu Afro Brasil, said in a recent interview. \u201cHe refused to work from home. We laughed because even when the park was closed and we couldn\u2019t physically get to the museum, he wanted to go in to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
So when Ara\u00fajo died, there was no need to discuss where his funeral would be held. Friends and colleagues got together and started clearing out the gallery next to the museum\u2019s ground-floor entrance. At the center of the high-ceilinged room, its stark-white walls bare save for two of Ara\u00fajo\u2019s reliefs, they placed one of the artist\u2019s best-known pieces, \u201cBaob\u00e1.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sculpture, an imposing vertical figure with sharp angles carved in wood and painted black, is named after a tree sacred to the West African Yoruba people. It represents the connection between the physical and spiritual worlds and is considered a witness to time and a guardian of memory. It\u2019s also a fitting symbol for a man who spent his life trying to preserve the history and culture of Afro-Brazilians through its artists.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe used to say, \u2018If I don\u2019t remember them, remember their story, nobody will,\u2019\u201d Salles said. \u201c\u2018This country has no memory. They\u2019ll think this all fell from the sky.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Now the spotlight is being turned back on Ara\u00fajo\u2019s work: His first solo exhibition in the United States will be at Jack Shainman Gallery, in New York, which also represents his estate. The show, opening Sept. 12, will highlight pieces the artist created throughout his career, from the 1970s to 2022, in various mediums, including wood, metal and found objects.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe spent so much of his life supporting other artists,\u201d the gallery\u2019s co-founder, Jack Shainman, said. \u201cIn a way, he was hiding in plain sight. And his concerns, his intentions, his work really parallels so many of the artists I work with already that adding his voice feels almost like it\u2019s part of a chorus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of Ara\u00fajo\u2019s personal collection of pieces from African and Afro-Brazilian artists \u2014 which number in the thousands and are spread out across his homes and the Museu Afro Brasil \u2014 will also be put up for auction later this year in S\u00e3o Paulo, with hopes that they will continue to be available for public viewing.<\/p>\n
Born into a family of goldsmiths in the town of Santo Amaro da Purifica\u00e7\u00e3o in Brazil\u2019s northeastern state of Bahia, Ara\u00fajo learned to work with wood in the studio of a master woodcarver, Eufr\u00e1sio Vargas. At 13, he took a job as a graphic designer for his hometown\u2019s Official Press, a company that prints government communications and announcements.<\/p>\n
Six years later, certain that he was on the right path as an artist, he held his first solo exhibition. He soon moved to the state capital, Salvador, where he studied printmaking at the Escola de Belas Artes da Bahia. He would go on to show his work in some 50 solo shows and more than 150 group exhibitions, winning several awards along the way, including a gold medal at the 1972 Graphic Biennial in Florence.<\/p>\n
After a stint as director of the Museu de Arte da Bahia in the early 1980s, Ara\u00fajo headed to New York, where he taught courses in graphic arts and sculpture at City College. Back in Brazil, he spent a decade as the director of S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s Pinacoteca, one of the country\u2019s most important art museums, before founding the Museu Afro Brasil in 2004.<\/p>\n
An avid collector, he filled the museum\u2019s immense galleries with art he\u2019d accumulated over the years: a mix of works touching on the themes of labor, farming and slavery. All tell the story of the journey Africans took when they were forcibly brought to Brazil and of the resilience they needed to rebuild their communities and hold on to their cultures.<\/p>\n
When Ara\u00fajo liked an artist, he made it his mission to buy every piece of theirs he could find. He was passionate about collecting and exhibiting the works of little-known Black artists, like the brothers Jo\u00e3o and Arthur Tim\u00f3theo da Costa, who worked together at Brazil\u2019s mint, designing stamps and prints before turning their focus to painting in the early 1900s.<\/p>\n
But while Ara\u00fajo had been winning praise for supporting certain artists, he was criticized for not including others.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone with a critical eye can see there are few women artists represented in the museum,\u201d said Amanda Carneiro, curator and artistic organizer of the Vienna Biennial who used to work alongside Ara\u00fajo as a coordination assistant at the Museu Afro Brasil\u2019s education center. \u201cEverything has its limits. The Museu Afro Brasil is wonderful, but when something stands alone, it ends up carrying more weight and not being plural enough in its representation of diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s something that Salles thinks Ara\u00fajo was trying to change in the months before his death. The last two exhibitions that Ara\u00fajo oversaw were \u201cMultiple Female Voices,\u201d showcasing 86 works from 28 female artists.<\/p>\n
While Ara\u00fajo\u2019s fondness for accumulating as many works by a single artist as possible may have seemed excessive, it also pointed to his generosity. He gave countless pieces from his personal collection to the Museu Afro Brasil \u2014 about 2,000 works in the museum\u2019s 9,000-piece collection are on loan from him \u2014 and made donations to several other art institutes, including the Pinacoteca.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe made a big difference, he still makes a big difference,\u201d says Keyna Eleison, curator and a former artistic director of Rio de Janeiro\u2019s Museum of Modern Art. \u201cWe need to keep talking about Emanoel. He needs to be referenced. We need to make him a household name.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ara\u00fajo spent little time in the office tucked away in a corner of the museum and rarely sat, but when he did, it was at the desk of his secretary of more than 30 years, Maria de F\u00e1tima P\u00e1dua, so they could discuss the day\u2019s tasks. A demanding boss who also loved to joke around, he could generally be found flitting around the museum in one of his signature hats and designer shoes \u2014 Burberry and Prada were his favorites \u2014 with his dogs, Joca and Tim, by his side.<\/p>\n
For Ara\u00fajo, some of the longtime staffers were like family. His secretary now cares for his dogs, their yellow and white ceramic bowls still on the shelf in his office. Next to them sits a framed photo of a chubby, smiling baby, the son of another museum employee and Ara\u00fajo\u2019s godson and namesake.<\/p>\n
For the people who worked closest with him, he was like family, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe might be gone, but the museum will never be without him,\u201d Salles said. \u201cAll of this will always have come from him.\u201d<\/p>\n