Fairs

TEFAF 2025

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• Waldemar Cordeiro, Untitled, 1952, temper on plywood, 11.61 x 16.14 in
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In 2025, we celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Waldemar Cordeiro’s birth. To honor his legacy, Luciana Brito Galeria (São Paulo, Brazil) and The Mayor Gallery (London, UK) are presenting a selection of works at TEFAF New York that spans the major phases of his artistic production, from 1949 to 1973. More than simply illustrating the timeless ideas Cordeiro developed, these works reflect his far-reaching impact on the transformation of visual art on a global scale, beginning in the 1950s. Today, he is widely recognized as a significant figure in international cultural history.

 

Waldemar Cordeiro was born in Italy in 1925 and, at the age of 21, emigrated to Brazil, where he soon became a central figure in the emergence of Brazilian contemporary art. In the early 1950s, he played a leading role in founding and shaping the concrete art movement, which he spearheaded through the establishment of Grupo Ruptura (1952). Conceived by the artist, the Ruptura Manifesto called for a new kind of art – revolutionary, independent, and grounded in the principles of space, time, and objectivity. His work from this period reveals a striking visual complexity combined with intelligent interplay of form and color.

 

Between 1960 and 1963, Waldemar Cordeiro entered his Intuitive Geometry phase, during which he began experimenting with hand-drawn lines, demonstrating an interest in perceptual psychology – a creative tool also used in his concrete phase, in the same way he had used the forms and colors of Brazil’s tropical vegetation. A piece from this period was featured in the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024.

 

In 1964, Cordeiro began incorporating found objects from everyday life into his compositions, calling them Popcretos – a term coined by poet Augusto de Campos to combine pop and concrete art. Inspired by the concept of the “open work,” developed by scholar Umberto Eco, he included active public participation in his work, along with political critiques of Latin American realities and global consumerism.

 

By the late 1960s, Cordeiro had become a pioneer in the field of computer-based art in Latin America. Using photographic sources, he developed his own methodology to explore visual transformations of figurative imagery, experimenting with the new possibilities offered by emerging technologies. In 1971, he organized Arteônica, the first international exhibition of computer art in Brazil, which definitively introduced electronic media into artistic discourse. The term Arteônica – coined by Cordeiro to unite art and electronics – remains unique in its ability to encompass all phases of electronic media in the history of art. His contributions in this area are widely regarded as both groundbreaking and visionary.

 

SP-Arte 2025

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• Delson Uchôa, "Hemoglobina", 1990/2009, acrylic and resin on cotton canvas, 74.02 x 103.15 in
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For SP-Arte 2025, Luciana Brito Galeria is presenting works that explore expanded painting – that is, painting that transcends the traditional boundaries of this art form – and the contemporary principles guiding these practices. Spotlighting Latin American artists, the exhibition creates a dialogue between traditional painting and works within this broader field of painting, which incorporates new forms, supports, and materials. This presentation features works by Afonso Tostes (1965, Brazil), Analivia Cordeiro (1954, Brazil), Antonio Pichilla (1982, Guatemala), Bosco Sodi (1970, Mexico), Caio Reisewitz (1967, Brazil), Campana (Fernando Campana 1961–2022, Humberto Campana 1953, Brazil), Delson Uchôa (1956, Brazil), Fernando Zarif (1960–2010, Brazil), Gabriela Machado (1960, Brazil), Geraldo de Barros (1923–1998, Brazil), Hector Zamora (1974, Mexico), Iván Navarro (1972, Chile), Liliana Porter (1941, Argentina), Rafael Carneiro (1985, Brazil), Regina Silveira (1939, Brazil), Tiago Tebet (1986, Brazil), Thomaz Farkas (1924, Hungary – 2011, Brazil), and Waldemar Cordeiro (1925, Italy – 1973, Brazil), as well as by Marina Abramovic (1946, Yugoslavia) and Rob Wynne (1948, USA).

ARCOmadrid 2025

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• Geraldo de Barros, Untitled, 1953/1996, laminated plastic mounted on wood, 23.62 x 23.62 in
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Luciana Brito Galeria is pleased to announce its participation in ARCOMadrid, one of the foremost contemporary art fairs in Europe. For the 2025 edition, running from March 5 to 9, the gallery has selected works that reflect the importance of artistic research and its creative processes. In this selection, the gallery highlights the historical legacy of Geraldo de Barros (1923–1998, Brazil), Regina Silveira (1939, Brazil), and Waldemar Cordeiro (1925, Italy – 1973, Brazil). Rare works by these artists will be shown alongside those by Analivia Cordeiro (1954, Brazil), Antonio Pichillá (1982, Guatemala), Bosco Sodi (1970, Mexico), Caio Reisewitz (1967, Brazil), Gabriela Machado (1960, Brazil), Iván Navarro (1972, Chile), Rafael Carneiro (1985, Brazil) and Raphael Zarka (1977, France).

 

Throughout her 60-year career, Regina Silveira has remained at the forefront of research on perception and visual representation, primarily by investigating the principles of perspective and three-dimensionality. Works from the series In Absentia (1980s) reveal how the artist was already manipulating the perspectival codes used in visual representations, in this case simulating absent objects. The historical studies of this series illustrate the steps the artist took toward her final objective, at a time when such work was done without technological assistance, carried out with brush and paint in the physical space. One of the versions presented at the fair, M.D. (Marcel Duchamp), was first shown to the public in 1983 during the 17th Bienal de São Paulo. Another significant work by Regina Silveira, Quimera, had its first version presented at Galeria Luciana Brito in 2004, in an exhibition held in parallel to that year’s Bienal de São Paulo. This installation demonstrates the artist’s ability to play with our perception through a metalinguistic process involving light and shadow. A comprehensive retrospective of Regina Silveira’s oeuvre is currently being held at La Virreina Centre de La Imatge in Barcelona.

 

Like Regina Silveira, both Geraldo de Barros and Waldemar Cordeiro were major figures in the Brazilian artistic avant-garde. Their work proved decisive in establishing Brazilian visual arts within the contemporary scene. Geraldo de Barros’s multifaceted oeuvre is represented at the fair by more than 20 pieces that exemplify his most significant investigations, such as photographs from the Fotoforma series (1940–1950). The gallery will present a diptych from this series – shown here for the first time – which reveals the creative processes behind these works, as the original image can be compared with the final result. The selection also features artworks from the artist’s concretist period, alongside pieces from the Sobras series (1996–98), his final research project, and furniture pieces produced by the emblematic Unilabor cooperative factory that operated from 1954 to 1967 in Brazil. A key figure in the same period as Geraldo de Barros and one of his collaborators, Waldemar Cordeiro stands as a central figure of the concrete movement. Paintings and drawings representative of this period are presented together with his trailblazing works in computer art, another field that Cordeiro pioneered.

 

The show will also feature historical works by Analivia Cordeiro. The series “0°‹–›45°” (1974) belongs to her groundbreaking research in video and computer dance, now recognized as a precursor to the music video. This work provides insight into our evolving perception of space-time, reflecting both the digital world of today and that of the 1970s, when technology began showing its influence on social life.

 

The legacy of these artists paved the way for current research. Artists like Antonio Pichillá and Bosco Sodi are presenting works using textiles and weaving to give voice to their cultures and ancestral heritage, while Iván Navarro is showing luminous sculptures that use technology to signal contemporary challenges and evoke historical memory. Similarly, Caio Reisewitz is showing photographs that express his concerns about politics and the environment. In another realm, the gallery’s selection for the show features paintings by Gabriela Machado and Rafael Carneiro, demonstrating how their works complement each other and how these artists operate at the boundary between figuration and abstraction.