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How Do I Get There?SOLO | MIRE Public Art Program | Geneva, Switzerland
38th Panorama of Brazilian Art:
A Thousand Degrees
GROUP | Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo | São Paulo, Brazil
Black Ancient Futures
GROUP | MAAT | Lisbon, Portugal
Terceiro Mundo: A Dimensão Descoberta
SOLO | Pinacoteca de São Paulo | São Paulo, Brazil
CIRCA PRIZE: Class Of 2024
GROUP | CIRCA | London, United Kingdom
Toy Section
GROUP | Hangar Y | Meudon, France
Continuity Flaws: Rumors Of A Leak SOLO | TONO Festival, Laboratorio Arte Alameda | Mexico City, Mexico
23
SOLO | Serpentine Galleries | London, United Kingdom
Continuity Flaws: The LoopholeSOLO | Outernet Arts, Outernet London | London, United Kingdom
22
OMOIYARI: KEIKEN X GABRIEL MASSANDUO | The Photographers' Gallery | London, United Kingdom
A Thousand
Degrees
“Entitled Mil Graus [A Thousand Degrees], this edition of the Panorama of Brazilian Art critically elaborates on the current reality of the country through the concept of limit-heat—a temperature at which everything transforms. The project seeks to outline a multidimensional horizon of contemporary Brazilian artistic production, establishing points of contact and contrast between various research and practices that, in common, share a high energetic intensity. By bringing together artists and other agents addressing ecological, historical, sociopolitical, technological, and spiritual issues, the exhibition catalyzes memory and public debate. The set of works circumvents the limits of language and its preestablished meanings, revealing universal signs through regional gestures and accents. The idea of a temperature opposite to absolute zero—that is, an absolute hot—highlights this Panorama’s interest in radical experiences, extreme conditions—whether climatic or metaphysical —and transient states—of both matter and soul—that confront us with transmutation as an inevitable destiny.
The series Panorama of Brazilian Art, started in 1969, is a milestone in the history of exhibitions. The first Panorama of Brazilian Art coincides with the installation of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM) at its headquarters, on the Ibirapuera Park marquee. With the start of the marquee renovation in 2024, MAM temporarily left its headquarters and is expected to return in early 2025. The calendar and all of MAM's activities were maintained thanks to the support and hospitality of partner institutions that have historical ties to the museum, such as the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, which welcomed part of its team, and the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (MAC USP), which, in addition to providing space for collaborators, hosts the 38th Panorama of Brazilian Art.
Developed by the curators Germano Dushá, Thiago de Paula Souza e Ariana Nuala, the project of the 38th Panorama of Brazilian Art: A Thousand Degrees is part of a colloquial expression that has multiple meanings, but always with the sense of high intensity. The exhibition points to conditions marked by heat, melting and drastic changes in any existing matter. In this edition, the contemporary world is observed from extreme conditions, both in the sense of historical and sociopolitical issues, as well as in relation to ecological and technological discussions.”
Germano Dushá
Thiago de Paula Souza
Associate Curator
Ariana Nuala
Executive Production
Luciana Nemes
Ana Paula Pedroso Santana
Bianca Yokoyama
Elenice dos Santos Lourenço
Erika Hoffgen
Marcela Tokiwa Obata dos Santos
Paola da Silveira Araujo
Alberto Rheingantz
Assistance
Beatriz Sallowicz
Audio and Video Equipment
MAXI Áudio Luz e Imagem
Audiovisual Consultant and
Technical Support
Estúdio Preto e Branco
Execution of Exhibition Design
Secall Cenografia
Multichannel Video Installation, Video Performance, Digital Sculpting, vinyl, glass, foam, 07”56’, 04”11’, 04“25’, 05”25”, color, sound.
“Indecipherable beings inhabit vibrant landscapes. Dazzling lights, acid colors, and metallic tones compose ever-changing skies and grounds. In these surreal terrains—somewhat mundane and highly alien—everything seems to distort, melt, and recompose incessantly, emanating the potential of life forms in an extraordinary ecology.
With a unique aesthetic featuring fluid forms, an explosive palette, and strange creatures—digital life forms known as “actor-sculptures”—Gabriel Massan’s practice focuses on creating 3-D images and games, as well as installations and objects related to computer technologies. In his compositions, ideas take on peculiar shapes, bringing forth zooanthropomorphic figures—part human, part beast—integrated into liquefied landscapes with intricate, ultracolorful, and fiery textures. His creations are based on methods he refers to as “fictional archaeology,” combining artifact analysis, documents, and historical episodes with speculation and fabulation. Alongside this conceptual and theoretical foundation, the artist incorporates world-building techniques and storytelling in the digital realm. Through environments, dynamics, and narratives that transcend real facts, his works immerse the audience in fictional situations that recontextualize certain places, episodes, and objects, discussing their sociocultural implications and proposing critical perspectives on the past, present, and future. In this sense, his work offers (often interactive) experiences that deal with themes such as identity and emancipation within contexts of structural oppressions. Through an approach he terms “subversive alterity,” the artist asserts difference not as a basis for exclusion but as a key to accessing new understandings of the world’s structural issues. His visually synthesis, both captivating and ambiguous, work as devices to circumvent rigid preconceptions and dominant discourses, ingeniously bringing to light traditionally overlooked and marginalized perspectives.
At the 38th Panorama, Gabriel Massan presents a new development of his work Ball Of Terror (2024), drawing parallels between the escalating global tensions and violence, and the traumas of deadly brutality perpetuated by the “war on drugs” in the Rio-São Paulo axis. In this regard, the foundations of his work are informed by his experiences in Baixada Fluminense, where he was born and raised, and his experience as an immigrant since moving to Berlin, Germany, in 2020. Specifically developed for the exhibition, the multiperspective installation consists of projection screens, speakers, lights, and sculptural furniture. Its immersive nature reinforces cosmology and common concepts in the artist’s practice, providing a situation of sensory displacement and serving as a tool to challenge colonial paradigms and distorted conceptions of the so-called “Third World,” and underline the power of imagination to affirm alternative forms of life.”
by Gabriel Massan
Technical Direction and Animation
In collaboration with Carlos Minozzi
Environmental Art and Unreal Development
In collaboration with Mati Bratkowski
Unreal VFX
Liam Wolfe
Agazero
Pininga
SFX
Agazero
Studio Management
Antoine Simeão Schalk