Adriana Varejão

Adriana Varejão (Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 1964)

Adriana Varejão is a contemporary artist who has been gaining increasing prominence nationally and internationally. The artist, who established herself through her visceral paintings and works, featuring torn skin, exposed interiors, cannibalism, and dismemberment, is beginning to forge new paths. Currently, she is one of the most prominent Brazilian artists on the contemporary scene, both in Brazil and abroad.

Born in 1964, Adriana, a Rio native, began her career in the 1980s, at a very young age. Between 1981 and 1985, she attended independent courses at the Parque Lage School of Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro and held her first solo exhibition in 1988 at the Thomas Cohn gallery.

The daughter of an air force pilot and a nutritionist, she attended college preparatory courses at Impacto School. She went on to study engineering at PUC (Central Catholic University). Meanwhile, she took art courses. And that was it. "I think one day I woke up and became an artist," she jokes. She rented a studio and began producing.

"I didn't think about whether or not I could make a living from my art. I was living, doing things, discovering my language. I wasn't worried about whether or not I would exhibit, how much I would earn, or who my gallery owner would be. I tell students this when I give lectures. I see people very concerned about the outcome. It's not that way. You just have to find your voice. And finding that language, according to her, is never easy. It's a lot of suffering. Every time you look at a blank canvas, you firmly believe you won't have any more ideas, that you'll be blocked. The creative process is painful."

In the 1990s, she was included in numerous important exhibitions and gradually revealed the maturity of her work. Highlights include her participation in the São Paulo Biennial in 1994 and 1998; at the Biennials of Havana (1994), Johannesburg (1995), and Liverpool (1999). Adriana was also a central figure in the Sydney Biennial (2000), as well as in the group shows UltraBaroque (USA, 2000-2002), TransCulture (Venice; Tokyo, 1995), New Histories (ICA, Boston, 1996), and Mapping (MoMA-NY, 1994).

Her work reproduces historical and cultural elements, with themes linked to colonization, the Baroque, and tilework. She also investigates the use of the human body, viscerality, and the representation of flesh as aesthetic elements. Despite harking back to the Baroque, it acquires a strong contemporary feel due to the excessive accumulation of materials, layers of paint, and information.

"Painting is my roots, just like Brazil"

Adriana Varejão's symbolic density is so great that it shocks viewers, but at the same time, it is responsible for earning her ever-increasing admiration and respect in the international art scene.

Her works are part of the collections of the world's leading museums and have achieved record prices at auction houses in London and New York, attesting to her international recognition. In Brazil, Adriana gained a pavilion entirely dedicated to her work at the Inhotim Institute in Minas Gerais.

Critical Commentary

In the late 1980s, Adriana Varejão produced canvases with thick layers of paint, using Brazilian Baroque churches and their tilework as a reference, as in Altar I, 1987. Later, she began to appropriate images from Brazilian history, revisiting ethnographic representations of Indigenous and Black people, such as the illustrations from the book Viagem Pitoresca e Histórica ao Brasil (Picturesque and Historical Journey to Brazil), by Debret (1768-1848), to comment on the process of miscegenation in the country and the violence of the colonization process. The artist thus explores the repertoire of images related to the Brazilian Colonial Period: tiles, maps, and travelers' records.

In other works, she uses shards of china and plates from the Companhia das Índias, which are molded and painted by the artist, as in Linha do Equinócio II (Equinócio II), 1997. Adriana Varejão also makes incisions and sutures in her canvases, as in Filho Bastardo II (Bastard Son II), 1997, or Parede com Incisões a la Fontana (Wall with Incisions a la Fontana), 2000, in which, through the cuts, she reveals an internal matter, which has the appearance of flesh. She also reproduces anatomical fragments in her paintings, making references to dismemberment and cannibalism, in works of great symbolic density.

Critiques

The space of pictorial representation proposed by Adriana Varejão aims to capture the multi-faceted gaze of the spectator, which theater and cinema usually demand of them, so that they may witness moving images that race, on a stage or screen, in pursuit of a discursive performance. However, in Adriana's case, the staging process makes the simultaneous weight of the composite image so excessive that it leads it to delegitimize the properly discursive requirement of performances driven by the temporal succession of images. There is narrative in Adriana's paintings, although there is no discourse in the linguistic sense of the word.
Her narrative is that of "a river without discourse," to borrow João Cabral de Melo Neto's image. (...) The shape of the tile—whether intact or chipped, it doesn't matter—is always "breaking into pieces" (JCMN) the powerful intentions of any discursive endeavor. Therefore, in each minute and throughout the entire time of contemplation, no point of view adopted by the spectator is the final one, demanding sovereignty over the others. In a play or film, moving images lead the audience from start to finish until—as happens in Hollywood films—the happy ending. This is not the case with the multiprogrammed mise-en-scène, through overlapping and simultaneous effects, proposed in Adriana's pieces. (...)
Silviano Santiago
Excerpt from the book "Entre Carnes e Mares"

Adriana Varejão's works explore implicit and untold stories, creating a type of critical historiography (...) in which the pastiche of academic portraits illuminates what was hidden from the violent experience of the female universe in colonial Brazil. The obliterated violence returns in the staged relationship between the paintings—the external, official images—and the glass eyes whose interiors are imprinted with other images—internal and private—less idyllic behind the censorship of the visible. (...) The flesh that emerges from Adriana Varejão's walls is not Merleau-Ponty's tranquil "flesh" (viande) that founded the encounter between the subject's body and the body of the world and that touched in Cézanne's brushstroke on the canvas; Here, we are dealing with flesh of desire (chair) in cruel movement (raw, bloody, and relentless) that project themselves into space with sensual and invasive force, as in Azulejaria verde em carne viva (2000), revealing nothing beyond the wound in formless texture.
Karl Erik Schøllhammer
Excerpt from the book "Entre Carnes e Mares"

It's possible to say that the tiles pave, tile, and fill Adriana Varejão's work. Pavement along the path; pavement that binds these fabrics of stories that unravel with each new phase, with each challenge. Adriana, like a bricoleur, collects fragments of stories and translates them into others. Like ancient watchmakers, the artist starts with what she finds and develops her project from there. (...) Adriana starts from what she has: she scatters, reassembles, and creates, based on narratives that she patiently collects, rereads, and remakes. We know that every translator is a traitor, and Adriana acts in the style of Chinese boxes. She opens one box within another and makes her work a sea of ​​stories.
Lilia Moritz Schwartz
Excerpt from the book "Entre Carnes e Mares"

Adriana Varejão's Saunas e Banhos series immediately refers to the very genesis of the space of painting in the Western tradition, that is, to the construction of a pictorial space through the representation of the perspective of architectural structures.
In Saunas e Banhos, light is the metaphor for the time during which man exists in the world. It is an event, a phenomenon, a duration. As a phenomenon, light preexists and subsists man. She represents Nature as the Absolutely Great, timeless, and infinite, and, as a metaphor, is indifferent to its constitution and origin. The presence of light contrasted with the absence of humanity in Adriana's paintings alludes to that sublime Nature manifest in its permanence and that shelters humanity in its state of impermanence. (...) The sheltering spaces of Adriana's paintings are founded on absences that essentially reveal the clash between the outside (the world, Nature, the Absolutely Great) and the inside (the subject, the shelter, the Absolutely Small).
In the voids of these recent canvases by Varejão, in the colors that insinuate themselves through the cracks of light in the tiles, the viewer is invited to suspend their expectations, to allow themselves to be captured by the nuances of the nameless, and, above all, to waste time looking.
Zalinda Cartaxo
Excerpt from the book "Entre Carnes e Mares"

Bringing the Baroque to the contemporary scene, Varejão restores to the agenda a painting that does not fear artifice, illusion, the delirious and sensual play with appearance.
Luiz Camillo Osório
Excerpt from the book "Between Flesh and Seas"

The large Plates revisit the maritime convulsion of Adriana's Baroque, now no longer as a mesh, nor as movement, but as the fertile space of creation-recreation-birth. The convulsive sea—of the melted or deformed figures of the Baroque, in shadows and transparencies drowning in waves of colors, stains, and watery molds—is also present in Celacanto, in the Azulejões, but in a violent, abstract, decomposed manner. A great sea in which the song (of the sirens?) provokes a tidal wave. The tidal wave of Adriana's tiles conceals mermaids that appear in the Plates in explicit figures; mad, drunk, beautiful, twisted. (...) Adriana explores the materiality of paint and the surface of canvases and other supports, constructing narratives that intersect throughout her trajectory, principally through two elements: flesh and the sea. Mixing one and the other, a baroque quality, in the profusion of colors (or shades of blue, in the case of Azulejões) and the carnality-viserality of the gesture. Adriana's seas are carnal, and her flesh bursts in crashing waves.
Isabel Diegues
Excerpt from the book "Entre Carnes e Mares"

Interview

"Visual arts are not a matter of talent. You don't need to be a technical prodigy, like Nelson Freire or Mozart. It's an adult language, which depends on knowledge, cultural background, sensitivity. It's linked to thought, to creativity."
Adriana Varejão to Personalité Magazine, No. 2, MARCH 2008, YEAR I

"I try not to construct any discourse; I give narrative clues for the person to introduce their own narrative. There are works from the series Ruínas de charque (below, Ruína de charque Caruaru, 2000, oil on wood) and polyurethane), with simulations of pieces of wall with this allusion to the flesh inside, destroyed, with tears in the canvas. The cuts appear because I used to work with a lot of materiality, a lot of paint on the canvas. I came into contact with the Barraco mineiro, a very visceral style, whose emblem is the sacred bleeding heart, the wounds, everything very theatrical. When I paint flesh, I refer a bit to the Baroque, to the history of painting itself, because Goya painted flesh, Rembrandt too—there's The Quartered Ox, Anatomy Lesson—, Gericault, Francis Bacon. So I talk about the history of painting, and not of flesh directly, but of Goya's painting, of Caravaggio, that finger in the wound, which has always been a very strong image in my head. And the interpretation of this is sometimes more erotic, sometimes more painful.

The Beginning

Adriana Varejão: When I enrolled in a painting course, I didn't even know that someone could make a living painting, that it could be a profession. I remember walking into my painting teacher's house and thinking, "Wow, he's a painter, he makes a living painting." It was a surprise to me; I wasn't familiar with that environment, much less the contemporary art scene. Things just happened naturally. I never planned much, never put my desires or my plans before what was happening, like, "I'm going to be a professional artist." That moment never came.

I started taking painting courses out of curiosity about the subject. At that time, I was studying engineering, and painting took over, taking over my space. I dedicated myself more and more to it, and naturally, I started exhibiting in a gallery—very early, in 1988, when I had just turned 24.

Work, daily life, phases

Adriana Varejão: I try to keep myself in the studio, even if I go there to do nothing. In painting, as in art in general, you have to have a predisposition for things to start happening, you have to detach yourself from the world, and you can only do that after a certain number of hours. I get to the studio, do a bunch of things, stare at the painting, and then I start to immerse myself in the thing, the painting, after three or four hours there. Then the painting starts to work, to happen, things start to flow, the world becomes increasingly distant, my mind stops, and then I start to get into that high. Time here isn't just about execution, but it's the time needed for your mind to disconnect a bit from the world's events, to get into a more or less free state of mind so you can simply look.

Interruptions, Commitments

Adriana Varejão: When a daughter interrupts you in the middle of a process like this, you have to stop. Then you come back here the next day. Sometimes I delay my commitments when I'm in a really good painting mood, I go into the night. But there are days when I go into the studio and everything goes wrong, my hand, my eye, everything is wrong. There are days when I do a bunch of things and think it was brilliant, "Wow, today I solved all the problems." The next day, I go in and see that it was all rubbish. It varies, but now when I'm in a good mood, I feel like things are working, so I try to extend as many hours as possible painting. There were several moments in my life when I forgot it was Saturday, Sunday, Christmas, Carnival, the World Cup.

It's a lifelong project, a dedication, every day. The routine of coming to the studio is a constant in my life. And work isn't just about coming to the studio to create. Those who work creatively are constantly perceiving the world. I remember that when I started being an artist and discovered what art was, reality completely transformed, things transformed. There was a freshness in everything I read, the films I saw, being there, in front of the sea, on the beach, listening to music. Everything is material for painting, for art. The artist never rests, they're on vacation, they go home and disconnect from work. There's no such dynamic. You work all the time, living, feeling, looking, listening, smelling. You're working all the time.

The Series

Adriana Varejão: When I start a new series, it's a sensational event. It has a bit of that freshness from the beginning, when I started out as an artist, the freshness of discovering new places, new subjects. Saunas e Banhos (2001-2009) (above, the work The Guest, 2004, oil on canvas) was a bit like that; I started this series completely by chance. I opened a book about the architecture of Macau [a former Portuguese colony, the Asian peninsula became an administrative region of China on December 20, 1999] in Portugal. I was in a bookstore, started looking at a book, and saw some photos of a tiled corner, completely makeshift architecture, without the slightest importance—that's what the book was about. Macau completely resembled Rio de Janeiro. And I've always worked with these ideas of cultural transpositions.

A long time ago, I did an exhibition called Terra Incógnita (1991-2003), which spoke of a Brazilian China, always with this relationship between China and Brazil playing out in my work. And that was a more contemporary idea. Then I happened to be in Paris and I started visiting the saunas in Muslim neighborhoods, those women-only saunas. I ended up in an incredible underground sauna, all tiled. At the same time, I associated it with the bars in Rio de Janeiro, also with the meat markets. Everything had a bit of that same functional architecture of vulgar, contemporary tiles. That kind of environment began to really captivate me. I went to Budapest and also looked at films, like Baths [by Yang Zhang, 1999], an incredible Chinese film, which brought me to the presence of swimming pools. That's more or less how it happens.

I've now come across the work of a Portuguese ceramist who lived in the late 19th century, [Rafael] Bordalo Pinheiro [also a caricaturist and journalist, who lived in Brazil between 1875 and 1879]. He ran a ceramics factory in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, for 20 years. I've been eyeing this work for two years, and now I've gone to Lisbon to see private collections of these plates up close. I went to Caldas da Rainha, to the house where Bordalo lived, and I bought biographies of him. I'm consumed, but not by research—I wouldn't call it research, but by passion. I fall in love with a subject, a universe, a sensation, and I try to build stories around it and experience these things a little. The series unfolds a bit like this.

Music

Adriana Varejão: When I was developing Azulejões (above, the painting Celacanto provoca maremoto, 2004, oil and plaster on canvas), it was a time when I was listening to a lot of samba and choro, experiencing it very intensely. Paulo Herkenhoff looked at it and said it had a syncopated order. I knew Baden Powell's work—in fact, I met Baden, I went to a circle to see him play. And in "Choro para metronome" I had the musical translation of what that work was, of what I hoped to visually construct with that piece. Not that I heard the music and wanted to make the piece, but it's when things meet, coincidences happen. I found the form of the tilework's always regular, square rhythm very coherent with the metronome, which imposes this rhythm, that solo on top of this rhythmic monotony [imitates the choro solo with his mouth]. I saw this within my composition, which at the same time was not continuous, there was the idea of ​​this syncopated order, made of breaks, but constructed in a melodic flow, dominated by blue. I visualized and identified a lot with that music.

Unlearning with Children

Adriana Varejão: I think every child is incredible, as they go through a process of unlearning. Artistically, they're very talented, capable of making incredible associations, true installations, without prejudice, very connected to the process. I see my daughter much more interested in mixing paints on a palette than on paper. There's a spontaneity in her approach to art; it's all so direct.

Adriana Varejão in an exclusive interview with SaraivaConteúdo

Books

"Entre carnes e mares" is the most comprehensive book on the work of this Rio de Janeiro-born artist, containing more than 170 reproductions of her paintings, as well as photographs and installations. This bilingual publication brings together her most important works and also features five critical essays by renowned authors such as Silviano Santiago, Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, Karl Erik Schøllhammer, Luiz Camillo Osorio, and Zalinda Cartaxo.

This volume offers the reader a rich overview of the artist's career, beginning with her most recent Plates and moving on to Baroque influences, the blue of tiles and seas, and her raw paintings. The book's incredible visual style reflects the power of the intense research behind her work. There are over 170 reproductions of her paintings, as well as photographs and installations, much of it from Varejão's collection.

The book chronicles a 26-year career with works that evoke the Baroque, Minas Gerais tilework, and the experience of motherhood. Unexhibited works from the 1980s, as well as recent ones, such as the plates, begun in 2009. "This series of enormous plates, measuring five feet tall, is inspired by the ceramics of Portuguese artist Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro and explores the feminine universe. This is the work Adriana is currently working on, and it has been overseen by editor Isabel Diegues, the book's organizer. "It all began with a lecture by Adriana Varejão, given at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Based on aspects of the work, authors from different fields developed their own perspectives on the artist's work," explains Isabel.

Collections

Bouwfonds Kunststichting - Hoevelaken (Netherlands)
Inhotim Contemporary Art Center - Brumadinho, MG
Culturgest - Lisbon (Portugal)
Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art - Paris (France)
La Caixa Foundation - Barcelona (Spain)
Ghent Museum - Ghent (Belgium)
Guggenheim Museum - New York (United States)
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art - Tokyo (Japan)
San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art - San Diego (United States)
Rio de Janeiro Museum of Modern Art - Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Sintra Museum of Modern Art - Sintra (Portugal)
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam - Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Tate Modern - London (England)

Awards

2013 - Mario Pedrosa Award (contemporary artist), from the Brazilian Association of Art Critics (ABCA)
2012 - Grand Critics' Prize, Visual Arts category, from the São Paulo Association of Art Critics (APCA), for the exhibition "Histórias às margem"
2011 - Order of Cultural Merit from the Brazilian Ministry of Culture
2008 - Chevalier des Arts et Lettres Medal from the French government

Solo Exhibitions

1988 - Rio de Janeiro RJ, Brazil - Solo, at Galeria Thomas Cohn
1991 - Rio de Janeiro RJ, Brazil - Solo, at Galeria Thomas Cohn
1992 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Solo, at Galerie Barbara Farber
1992 - São Paulo SP, Brazil - Solo, at Galeria Luisa Strina
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ, Brazil - Proposta para uma Catequese, at Galeria Thomas Cohn
1995 - New York, USA - Solo, at Annina Nosei Gallery
1996 - São Paulo SP, Brazil - Pintura/Sutura, at Galeria Camargo Vilaça
1996 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Solo, at Galerie Barbara Farber
1997 - Paris, France - Solo, at Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot
1997 - Caracas, Venezuela - Solo, at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofía Imber
1998 - Madrid, Spain - Solo, at Galería Soledad Lorenzo
1998 - Lisbon, Portugal - Imagens de Troca, at Pavilhão Branco, Museu da Cidade
1999 - São Paulo SP, Brazil - Alegria, at Galeria Camargo Vilaça
2000 - New York, USA - Solo, at Lehmann Maupin Gallery
2000 - São Paulo SP, Brazil - Azulejão, at Galeria Camargo Vilaça
2000 - Umeå, Sweden - Solo, at BildMuseet
2000 - Borås, Sweden - Solo, at Borås Konstmuseum
2001 - London, UK - Solo, at Victoria Miro Gallery
2001 - Porto, Portugal - Solo, at Galeria Pedro Oliveira
2001 - Rio de Janeiro RJ, Brazil - Azulejões, at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil - CCBB
2001 - Brasília DF, Brazil - Azulejões e Charques, at CCBB
2002 - London, UK - Solo, at Victoria Miro Gallery
2002 - Madrid, Spain - Solo, at Galería Soledad Lorenzo
2002 - São Paulo SP, Brazil - Solo, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2003 - New York, USA - Solo, at Lehmann Maupin
2004 - London, UK - Saunas, at Victoria Miro Gallery
2005 - Paris, France - Chambre d'echos, at Fondation Cartier pour l'art Contemporain
2005 - Lisbon, Portugal - Solo, at Centro Cultural de Belém
2005 - Salamanca, Spain - Solo, at Galería DA2
2005 - São Paulo SP, Brazil - Solo, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2006 - Petrópolis RJ, Brazil - Photography with Painting, at Sesc Petrópolis
2007 - Tokyo, Japan - Solo, at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
2008 - Brumadinho MG, Brazil - Solo, at Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea
2008 - Belo Horizonte MG, Brazil - Solo, at Museu de Arte da Pampulha
2009 - São Paulo SP, Brazil - Solo, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2009 - New York, USA - Solo, at Lehmann Maupin
2011 - London, UK - Solo, at Victoria Miro Gallery
2012 - São Paulo SP, Brazil - Histórias às margens, at Museu de Arte Moderna
2013 - Rio de Janeiro RJ, Brazil - Solo, at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro
2013 - London, UK - Solo, at Victoria Miro Gallery

Group Exhibitions

1984 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 8th Salão Carioca
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Ao Mestre com Pinturas, at EAV/Parque Lage
1986 - Belo Horizonte MG - 9th National Salon of Visual Arts: Southeast, at Fundação Clóvis Salgado, Palácio das Artes
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 9th National Salon of Visual Arts, at Funarte - MEC Acquisition Prize
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Novos Novos, at Galeria de Arte Centro Empresarial Rio
1988 - Leverkusen (Germany) - Brasil Já, at Morsbroich Museum
1988 - Stuttgart (Germany) - Brasil Já, at Galerie Landesgirokasse
1989 - Amsterdam (Netherlands) - U-ABC, at Stedelijk Museum
1989 - Cologne (Germany) - 23rd Art Cologne, at Messehalle Koeln
1989 - Hannover (Germany) - Brasil Já, at Sprengel Museum
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Rio Hoje, at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro - MAM/RJ
1989 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Stand E 204, at Thomas Cohn Arte Contemporânea
1990 - Lisbon (Portugal) - U-ABC, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
1991 - Stockholm (Sweden) - Viva Brasil Viva, at Liljevalchs Konsthall
1991 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo Exhibition, at Galeria Thomas Cohn
1991 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Processo nº 738.765-2, at EAV/Parque Lage
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Contemporary Art, at EAV/Parque Lage
1992 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Contemporary Art, at Galeria Sérgio Milliet
1993 - Mexico City (Mexico) - De Rio a Rio, at Galeria OMR
1993 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Arte Erótica, at MAM/RJ
1993 - São Paulo SP - 23rd Panorama of Brazilian Contemporary Art, at Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM/SP
1993 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Contemporary Art, at MAC/USP
1994 - Havana (Cuba) - 5th Havana Biennial
1994 - New York (USA) - Mapping, at MoMA
1994 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - As Potências do Orgânico, at Museus Castro Maya, Museu do Açude
1994 - São Paulo SP - 22nd São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1995 - Belém PA - Pará Art Salon, at Fundação Rômulo Maiorana
1995 - Berlin (Germany) - Havana/São Paulo, at Haus der Kulturen der Welt
1995 - Mexico City (Mexico) - Viajeros del Sur - A View on Mexico, at Museo Carrillo Gil
1995 - Curitiba PR - 11th Curitiba Print Exhibition, at Museu da Gravura
1995 - Johannesburg (South Africa) - 1st Johannesburg Biennial
1995 - Okayama (Japan) - TransCulture, at Benesse House Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Libertinos/Libertários, at Funarte
1995 - São Paulo SP - Group Exhibition, at Galeria Camargo Vilaça
1995 - Venice (Italy) - TransCulture, at 46th Venice Biennale, Palazzo Giustinian Lolin
1996 - Boston (USA) - New Histories, at The Institute of Contemporary Art
1996 - Copenhagen (Denmark) - 96 Containers: Art Across the Oceans
1996 - Paris (France) - Avant-Première d’un Musée - Le Musée d’Art Contemporain de Gand, at The Institut Néerlandais
1996 - Paris (France) - Group Exhibition, at Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Guignard: The Artist’s Choice, at Paço Imperial
1996 - São Paulo SP - Excesso, at Paço das Artes
1997 - Curitiba PR - Contemporary Printmaking, at MuMA
1997 - London (England) - Lines from Brazil, at Whitechapel Art Gallery
1997 - Mexico City (Mexico) - Asi Está la Cosa: Arte Objeto and Installations from Latin America, at Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo
1997 - Porto Alegre RS - 1st Mercosur Visual Arts Biennial, at Fundação Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul
1997 - Porto Alegre RS - Vertente Cartográfica, at Usina do Gasômetro
1998 - Aachen (Germany) - Der Brasilianische Blick, Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst
1998 - Berlin (Germany) - Der Brasilianische Blick, Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Haus der Kulturen der Welt
1998 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Desde el Cuerpo: Allegories of the Feminine, at Museo de Bellas Artes
1998 - Mexico City (Mexico) - Situationism - A Photography Group, at Galeria OMR
1998 - Geneva (Switzerland) - The Edge of Awareness, at World Health Organization Headquarters
1998 - New York (USA) - The Edge of Awareness, at United Nations Building
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - A Imagem do Som de Caetano Veloso, at Paço Imperial
1998 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Contemporary Art - One and the Other, at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil - CCBB
1998 - São Paulo SP - 24th São Paulo International Biennial, at Fundação Bienal
1998 - São Paulo SP - Camargo Vilaça Bis, at Galeria Camargo Vilaça
1998 - São Paulo SP - Borders, at Itaú Cultural
1998 - São Paulo SP - The Contemporary in the Artistic Production of Brazil and Portugal, at CCSP
1999 - Belo Horizonte MG - Inconfidência Mineira - Images of Freedom, at Palácio das Artes
1999 - Mexico City (Mexico) - Five Continents and One City, at Museo de la Ciudad
1999 - Heidenheim (Germany) - Der Brasilianische Blick, Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at Kunstmuseum Heidenheim
1999 - Liverpool (England) - 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, at Tate Gallery
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - A Imagem do Som de Chico Buarque, at Paço Imperial
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Fundição em Conserto, at Fundição Progresso
2000 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Brasil: Plural y Singular, at Museo de Arte Moderno
2000 - Caracas (Venezuela) - Território Comum, Miradas Diversas: Latin American Artists in the 20th Century, at Espacios Unión
2000 - Curitiba PR - 12th Curitiba Print Exhibition: Marks of the Body, Folds of the Soul
2000 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Brasil + 500: Exhibition of Rediscovery. Contemporary Art, at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
2000 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Brasil 2000 - An Entire Ocean to Swim, at Culturgest
2000 - Lisbon (Portugal) - Berardo Collection, at Centro Cultural Belém
2000 - Lisbon (Portugal) - 20th Century: Art from Brazil, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
2000 - London (England) - Raw, at Victoria Miro Gallery
2000 - Madrid (Spain) - The Enigma of the Everyday, at Casa de América
2000 - Madrid (Spain) - Versiones del Sur, at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - A Imagem do Som de Gilberto Gil, at Paço Imperial
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - New Acquisitions from the Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at MAM/RJ
2000 - San Diego (USA) - Ultra Baroque: Aspects of Contemporary Latin American Art, at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brasil + 500: Exhibition of Rediscovery, at Fundação Bienal
2000 - São Paulo SP - Cá Entre Nós, at Paço das Artes
2000 - São Paulo SP - Collective Idea, at Galeria Camargo Vilaça
2000 - Sydney (Australia) - 12th Sydney Biennale
2001 - Copenhagen, Denmark - New Settlements, at Copenhagen Art Center
2001 - Fort Worth, USA - Ultra Baroque: Aspects of Contemporary Latin American Art, at Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
2001 - Granada, Spain - El Final del Eclipse: The Art of Latin America in the Transition to the 21st Century
2001 - Madrid, Spain - El Final del Eclipse: The Art of Latin America in the Transition to the 21st Century, at Fundación Telefónica
2001 - New York, USA - Brazil: Body and Soul, at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
2001 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 9th Universidarte, at Universidade Estácio de Sá, Galeria Maria Martins
2001 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Espelho Cego: Selections from a Contemporary Collection, at Paço Imperial
2001 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - O Espírito de Nossa Época, at MAM/RJ
2001 - San Diego, USA - Ultra Baroque, at Museum of Contemporary Art
2001 - San Francisco, USA - Ultra Baroque, at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
2001 - São Paulo, SP - Espelho Cego: Selections from a Contemporary Collection, at MAM/SP
2001 - São Paulo, SP - O Espírito de Nossa Época, at MAM/SP
2001 - São Paulo, SP - Rotativa Phase 1, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2001 - São Paulo, SP - Trajectory of Light in Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
2001 - Washington, USA - Virgin Territory: Women, Gender, and History in Contemporary Brazilian Art, at National Museum of Women in the Arts
2002 - Badajoz, Spain - El Final del Eclipse: The Art of Latin America in the Transition to the 21st Century, at MEIAC
2002 - Mexico City, Mexico - El Final del Eclipse: The Art of Latin America in the Transition to the 21st Century
2002 - Madrid, Spain - El Final del Eclipse, at Fundación Telefónica
2002 - Madrid, Spain - ARCO/2002, at Parque Ferial Juan Carlos I
2002 - Minneapolis, USA - Paths of the Contemporary, at Walker Art Center
2002 - Miami, USA - Paths of the Contemporary, at Miami Art Museum
2002 - New York, USA - Tempo, at MoMA
2002 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Andar com Fé..., at Galeria Sesc Copacabana
2002 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Artefoto, at CCBB
2002 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Paths of the Contemporary 1952-2002, at Paço Imperial
2002 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Identities: The Brazilian Portrait in the Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at MAM/RJ
2002 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 1980s Painting, at Sala MAM-Cittá América
2002 - São Paulo, SP - Paralela, at Galpão, Avenida Matarazzo 530
2002 - Toronto, Canada - Ultra Baroque: Aspects of Post-Latin American Art, at Art Gallery of Ontario
2002 - Toronto, Canada - Paths of the Contemporary, at Art Gallery of Ontario
2002 - Salamanca, Spain - El Final del Eclipse: The Art of Latin America in the Transition to the 21st Century
2002 - Santa Fe, Spain - El Final del Eclipse: The Art of Latin America in the Transition to the 21st Century
2002 - Seville, Spain - The Excesses of the Mind, at Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo
2003 - Brasília, DF - Artefoto, at CCBB
2003 - Buenos Aires, Argentina - El Final del Eclipse: The Art of Latin America in the Transition to the 21st Century
2003 - Iowa City, USA - Layers of Brazilian Art, at Faulconer Gallery
2003 - Paris, France - Yanomami: The Spirit of the Forest, at Foundation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain
2003 - Prague, Czech Republic - 1st Prague Biennial
2003 - Monterrey, Mexico - El Final del Eclipse: The Art of Latin America in the Transition to the 21st Century
2003 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Infantil, at A Gentil Carioca
2003 - São Paulo, SP - Pele, Alma, at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil
2003 - São Paulo, SP - 28th Panorama of Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
2003 - São Paulo, SP - The New Geometry, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2003 - São Paulo, SP - The Subversion of Means, at Itaú Cultural
2003 - São Paulo, SP - Tomie Ohtake in the Spiritual Fabric of Brazilian Art, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2003 - Umeå, Sweden - Overview: Highlights from the Collections of Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, at BildMuseet
2004 - Curitiba, PR - Tomie Ohtake in the Spiritual Fabric of Brazilian Art: Commemorative Exhibition for the Artist's 90th Birthday, at Museu Oscar Niemeyer
2004 - Kyoto, Japan - Brazil: Body Nostalgia, at National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
2004 - Recife, PE - Aloísio Magalhães Museum of Modern Art Collection: Donations, at MAMAM
2004 - Recife, PE - Panorama of Brazilian Art 2003, at MAMAM
2004 - Lima, Peru - El Final del Eclipse: The Art of Latin America in the Transition to the 21st Century
2004 - Montreal, Canada - We Come in Peace… Histories of the Americas, at Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montreal
2004 - Quito, Ecuador - Baroque Strategies: Contemporary Brazilian Art, at Centro Cultural Metropolitano de Quito
2004 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - The Iconic Face of Brazilian Art, at MAM/RJ
2004 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Educação, Olha!, at A Gentil Carioca
2004 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 28th Panorama of Brazilian Art, at Paço Imperial
2004 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Brazilian Contemporary Art in Rio Collections, at MAM/RJ
2004 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - New Acquisitions 2003: Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, at MAM/RJ
2004 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Tomie Ohtake in the Spiritual Fabric of Brazilian Art, at MNBA
2004 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Yanomami: The Spirit of the Forest, at CCBB
2004 - Santa Fe, USA - V SITE Santa Fe
2004 - São Paulo, SP - Summer Bazaar, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2004 - São Paulo, SP - The Price of Seduction: From Corset to Silicone, at Itaú Cultural
2004 - São Paulo, SP - The Biennials: A View on Brazilian Production, at Galeria Bergamin
2004 - São Paulo, SP - El Final del Eclipse: The Art of Latin America in the Transition to the 21st Century
2004 - Santiago, Chile - El Final del Eclipse: The Art of Latin America in the Transition to the 21st Century
2004 - Tokyo, Japan - Brazil: Body Nostalgia, at National Museum of Modern Art
2005 - Miami, USA - Portraits: 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits, at Bass Museum of Art
2005 - New York, USA - Group Exhibition, at El Museo del Barrio
2005 - Porto Alegre, RS - 5th Mercosul Visual Arts Biennial
2005 - San Diego, USA - inSite_05: Farsites: Urban Crisis and Domestic Symptoms in Recent Contemporary Art
2005 - Salamanca, Spain - Baroque and Neo-Baroque: The Hell of Beauty, at DA2 Gallery
2005 - San Diego, USA - Portraits, at Museum of Art
2005 - São Paulo, SP - The Body in Contemporary Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
2005 - Thun, Switzerland - (Hi)story, at Kunstmuseum Thun
2005 - Washington, USA - Portraits: 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits, at Smithsonian Institution
2006 - Belém, PA - 25th Pará Art Salon
2006 - Belém, PA - Traces and Transitions of Contemporary Brazilian Art, at Espaço Cultural Casa das Onze Janelas
2006 - Helsinki, Finland - ARS 06 Kiasma, at Museum of Contemporary Art
2006 - Liverpool, UK - 4th Liverpool Biennial
2006 - San Antonio, USA - Portraits: 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits, at San Antonio Museum of Art
2006 - São Paulo, SP - Fortes Vilaça at Choque Cultural, at Galeria Choque Cultural
2006 - São Paulo, SP - Radical Maneuvers, at CCBB
2006 - São Paulo, SP - Paralela 2006, at Pavilhão dos Estados
2006 - Tokyo, Japan - Collection of the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, at Museum of Contemporary Art
2007 - Melbourne, Australia - Guggenheim Collection, 1940s to Now, at National Gallery of Victoria
2007 - New York, USA - Global Feminism, at Brooklyn Museum of Art
2007 - New York, USA - Latin American Art: Myth & Reality, at Nassau County Museum of Art
2007 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - More Precious than Silver, at Caixa Cultural
2007 - São Paulo, SP - Itaú Contemporâneo: Art in Brazil 1981–2006, at Itaú Cultural
2007 - São Paulo, SP - Projeto Parede 10 Years, at MAM/SP
2007 - São Paulo, SP - 80–90: Moderns, Post-Moderns, etc., at Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2007 - Japan (Tokyo) - Adriana Varejão, at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
2008 - Bucharest, Romania - 3rd Bucharest Biennial
2008 - São Paulo, SP - Ties of the Gaze, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2008 - São Paulo, SP - Embroidering Art, at Pinacoteca do Estado
2008 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Poetics of Perception, at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro
2009 - São Paulo, SP - Nudes, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2009 - Madrid, Spain - Return: Latin American Art and Memory, at Casa de América
2009 - Milan, Italy - Americas Latinas. The Strains of Desire, at Spazio Oberdan
2009 - Lisbon, Portugal - Drawings A–Z, at Museu da Cidade
2009 - Sines, Portugal - From Malangatana to Pedro Cabrita Reis: Works from the Caixa Geral de Depósitos Collection, at Centro de Artes de Sines
2009 - Tibães, Portugal - From Malangatana to Pedro Cabrita Reis: Works from the Caixa Geral de Depósitos Collection, at Mosteiro São Martinho
2009 - Caldas da Rainha, Portugal - From Malangatana to Pedro Cabrita Reis: Works from the Caixa Geral de Depósitos Collection, at Centro Cultural e Congressos
2010 - São Paulo, SP - Ten Years of the Photography Collectors Club at MAM, at Museu de Arte Moderna
2010 - São Paulo, SP - War Games, at Galeria Marta Traba
2010 - São Paulo, SP - Paralela, at Liceu de Artes e Ofícios
2010 - São Paulo, SP - Selections from a Collection, at Galeria Ricardo Camargo
2010 - Niterói, RJ - New Acquisitions 2009, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea
2010 - Ecatepec de Morelos, Mexico - El Gabinete Blanco, at Fundación/Colección Jumex
2010 - New York, USA - Law of the Jungle, at Lehmann Maupin Gallery
2010 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - If Painting Is Dead, MAM Is a Heaven!, at Museu de Arte Moderna
2010 - São Paulo, SP - 6th SP-Arte, at Fundação Bienal
2011 - São Paulo, SP - 7th SP-Arte, at Fundação Bienal
2011 - London, UK - Testing Ground | Time Scale, at Zabludowicz Collection
2011 - Lisbon, Portugal - Mappamundi, at Fundação de Arte Moderna e Contemporânea
2011 - Valencia, Spain - Giant by Nature, at Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderna
2011 - Recife, PE - Traces of Brazilianness, at Santander Cultural
2011 - Cascais, Portugal - The Last First Decade, at Ellipse Foundation Art Centre
2011 - São Paulo, SP - Vieira da Silva/Arpad Szenes and Space Ruptures in Brazilian Art, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2011 - Paris, France - Tous Cannibals, at Maison Rouge, Fondation Antoine de Galbert
2011 - Berlin, Germany - All Cannibals, at me Collectors Room
2011 - Istanbul, Turkey - 12th International Istanbul Biennial
2011 - São Paulo, SP - Destricted.br, at Galeria Fortes Vilaça
2011 - São Paulo, SP - Contemporary Scene Photographers, at MAC/USP
2011 - Ribeirão Preto, SP - The Dream Collector, at Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz
2011 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - War Games: Confrontations and Convergences in Contemporary Brazilian Art, at Caixa Cultural
2012 - São Paulo, SP - 6th SP-Arte/Foto, at Shopping JK Iguatemi
2012 - Lisbon, Portugal - Outdoor Project|P-28
2012 - Porto, Portugal - Outdoor Project|P-28
2012 - Brasília, DF - Amazonia: Cycles of Modernity, at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil
2012 - St. Moritz, Switzerland - St. Moritz Art Masters
2012 - Barcelona, Spain - Cartographies, at Fundació la Caixa
2012 - Madrid, Spain - Cartographies, at Fundació la Caixa
2012 - London, UK - From the Margin to the Edge, at Somerset House
2012 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Amazonia: Cycles of Modernity, at CCBB
2012 - Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Reflected Mirror: Surrealism and Contemporary Brazilian Art, at Centro de Arte Hélio Oiticica
2013 - Imagine Brazil, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Norway
2013 - 30x Bienal, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
2013 - Correspondences, Galeria Bergamin, São Paulo, Brazil
2013 - Gulf, Fordham Center, New York, USA
2013 - Cinematic Visions: Painting at the Edge of Reality, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, UK
2013 - Brasil Vívido, S|2, New York, USA
2013 - Trajectories – Brazilian Art in the Edson Queiroz Foundation Collection, Fundação Edson Queiroz, Fortaleza, Brazil
2013 - On Painting, Centro Atlântico de Arte Moderno (CAAM), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
2013 - Everyday Life in Art, Santander Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil