Brazil’s top modern artist gets Rio homecoming

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ― She’s the toast of New York and beloved in Paris and London, but Beatriz Milhazes thinks there’s no place like home.

More than a decade after her last show in her native Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s highest-paid artist is gearing up for a homecoming of sorts, a major retrospective spanning most of her 30-year career. The exhibition, opening Thursday at the Paco Imperial Cultural Center in downtown Rio, brings together more than five dozen paintings, silk screens and collages covered in Milhazes’ signature riot of saturated color, concentric circles, upbeat flowers and meandering arabesques.

“I’ve shown in places that are obviously very exciting for any artist, but in a way showing in your city ― I was born here and still live and work here ― kind of grabs you more, excites you more, stirs you up more,” Milhazes told The Associated Press in a Friday interview as she supervised the installation of the exhibit, entitled “Meu Bem,” Portuguese for “My Dear.” “It’s being able to say, `Mom, look what I’ve done.”’

Milhazes has plenty to show off. The 53-year-old has exhibited in the Venice Biennial, had a solo show at Paris’ Fondation Cartier and has works in the Reina Sofia National Museum in Spain and New York’s Guggenheim and Museum of Modern Art.

In 2008, her painting “O Magico,” or “The Magician,” sold for more than $1 million, or around four times what was expected, at a New York auction, making her Brazil’s highest-paid living artist. She broke the record again last year when her “Meu Limao,” or “My Lemon,” went for $2.1 million at another auction in New York.

Though she once quipped it took her 25 years to become an overnight success, Milhazes said her slow path to international fame helped her cope with the spotlight.