Maxwell Alexandre was born and raised in one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest favelas, Rocinha. At 28, he burst onto the contemporary art scene, and his works are sold for exorbitant prices. His success hides a painful wound and reveals a structurally racist system.
Films are constructed in many ways, and Pardo is Paper is no exception. Its director, a French filmmaker with a degree in mathematics and a background in political science from Chile, began his cinematic journey there. And perhaps for this reason, his creative territory lies outside the cinematic elite, yet close to the artist. To the person who works daily and turns their movements into art, even when the noise inherent to their origins seems to bar them from entering a museum. The artist Maxwell Alexandre was born and raised in one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest favelas, Rocinha. And with that, his destiny seemed set, at best for street art. The film shows the artist’s absolutely relentless working process – he never stops working – and, at the same time, we follow the preparation of an exhibition in Paris, at the Palais de Tokyo, perhaps one of the most elitist venues in the world of contemporary art. What is the artist’s place and what is the work’s place, ask the artist himself and his director? This is a portrait full of doubts, questions, and even contradictions. For if the art world is structurally racist, the fact that the artist becomes part of it and has a place within it places him in the position of an impostor. And his works on brown paper speak to this very point: his protagonists are not the museum visitors, but those who work there, particularly in the most precarious jobs. How does one maintain the coherence of one’s discourse whilst being part of that system? Hence, this film does not take the stance of wonder, but rather that of social consciousness, power structures, representation and racial hierarchies. (Miguel Valverde)
