LA OFICINA REVISITS THE CRITICAL EVOLUTION OF REGINA SILVEIRA

La Oficina hosts in Madrid a selective and in-depth exhibition dedicated to the trajectory of Regina Silveira (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1939). Timeless constructs a curatorial framework based on four conceptual axes, conceived as a quasi-retrospective in which different stages of the artist’s practice are brought together in a dialogical structure. This unified perspective allows visitors to engage in a holistic and coherent understanding of her artistic development and to grasp its evolutions and shifts.

Starting from the symbolic importance of the hand, the exhibition highlights its conceptual value, emphasizing its dual role as both a representation of technical execution and as an element of political significance. Its transition from pedagogical materials to large-scale vinyl installations underscores the artist’s engagement with manual practice and enables the instrumental reinterpretation of reality from a critical standpoint.

The appropriation of images and their recontextualization and conceptual use form another essential line of inquiry. From the beginning of her practice, Silveira has drawn on photographs from media sources or postcards to intervene upon them. Through chromatic and representational manipulation, these reimagined images acquire critical power rooted in their ideological nature and constructed intentionality.

Through her engagement with insect imagery, another structuring axis of the exhibition, the artist challenges hierarchies and deliberately shifts attention away from the grand, the aesthetic, and the monumental toward the marginal. In this conceptual space, flies are associated with marginality, dirt, and residue, but also with the myth of misfortune and potential catastrophe. In this sense, the artist introduces a social and ecological dimension into her critique of political and perceptual structures.

The aesthetic projection of the shadow concludes this conceptual division. Fundamental to her work, shadows extend to the limits of distortion. This perceptual effort accompanies the conceptual notion of an autonomous projection that detaches itself from the physical body. Furthering this critique of factual and coercive power, the works appropriate space to disrupt physical logic and present the viewer with a reality and dimension that invites distrust.

Regina Silveira. Timeless can be visited until 9 May 2026 at La Oficina, Morenés Arteaga, 9, Madrid (Spain).