Geraldo de Barros (1923–1998) was a Brazilian painter, photographer, and designer whose practice also encompassed engraving, graphic arts, and industrial design. A leading figure of the concrete art movement in Brazil, he co-founded Grupo Ruptura and became widely recognized for his pioneering contributions to experimental abstract photography and modernism. According to The Guardian, de Barros was “one of the most influential Brazilian artists of the 20th century.”
Geraldo de Barros’s works are held in numerous major international collections, including the Chateaubriand Museum of Art, Brazil; the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami, FL, USA; the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York, NY, USA; the Musée de Grenoble, France; the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC-USP), Brazil; the Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil; the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland; the Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany; the Max Bill Collection, Zurich, Switzerland; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, USA; the Museum of Image and Sound, São Paulo, Brazil; the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY, USA; and the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil, among others.
Over twenty-five years after his passing, his work continue to accompany us along a path that not only reveals the use of different media and techniques, but also transcends spatial boundaries.
The exhibition includes works from different periods of his career.
In his seminal series Fotoformas (1946–1951), de Barros pushed the boundaries of photographic expression through a wide range of experimental techniques. He employed solarization, multiple exposures, handmade filters, and deliberate manipulations of light and shadow, while also intervening directly on the negatives with ink, scratches, and painted marks. These works marked a decisive shift in the Brazilian cultural landscape. By transforming everyday scenes into bold abstractions, Fotoformas asserted photography as a modernist and autonomous language, establishing de Barros as one of the most innovative figures of his generation.
The series Jogos de Dados pays homage to Stéphane Mallarmé and reflects de Barros’s lifelong exploration of the relationship between art and society. From geometry to pop art, and from photography to industrial design, his work consistently challenged conventional representations of reality. The dice motif encapsulates a spirit of experimentation and the utopian vision that defined his artistic journey.
The new and original serigraphs, Form- Objects features a selection of original serigraphs Though markedly different in form and period, all the works express a shared visual vocabulary rooted in continuous interconnections between art and society.
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