FIVE READINGS OF MASP: BETWEEN HISTORY AND THE PRESENT

Histories of MASP

In a timeline format, the exhibition brings together 74 works from MASP’s collection along with rarely seen materials from the museum’s Research Center, including photographs, documents, posters, books, catalogues, newspapers, and magazines. This selection offers a didactic and panoramic view of the institution’s memory, covering topics such as the museum’s founding, the formation of its collection, its first location on 7 de Abril Street, the move to Avenida Paulista, and the exhibitions and events that have marked recent decades.

Guilherme Giufrida, assistant curator of the exhibition, explained: “We organized the show according to the date each artwork was incorporated into the collection. This allows us to tell a different story to the public, highlighting how the museum positioned itself within this circuit and shaping its institutional identity.”

Histories of MASP is curated by Adriano Pedrosa, Regina Teixeira de Barros, Guilherme Giufrida, and Laura Cosendey.

Renoir
At the Pietro Maria Bardi Building, the exhibition dedicated to Renoir brings together 13 works, forming the largest group of pieces by a single modern European artist within the museum’s collection. The show demonstrates Renoir’s ability to navigate between genres, as evidenced by the portraits, landscapes, nudes, and bathers featured in this presentation. This body of work has not been exhibited in 23 years.

One of the key figures of the first generation of French Impressionists, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) took part in the independent exhibitions that, beginning in 1873, began to challenge the dominance of the academies. Renoir’s work stands out as one of the foremost examples of the new painting techniques that emerged in the 19th century, such as portable paint tubes—an invention closely tied to landscape painting and Impressionism, which encouraged painting outdoors and quickly capturing changes in light and color. His relationship with landscape painting influenced Brazilian artists like Antônio Parreiras (1860–1937) and Giovanni Castagneto (1851–1900).

The Renoir exhibition is curated by Adriano Pedrosa, MASP’s Artistic Director, and Fernando Oliva.

Geometries

The show brings together 62 works conceived from basic geometric shapes, such as the circle and the rectangle. Although MASP’s collection is mostly composed of figurative paintings, abstract works have been gaining space: of the pieces on view, 57 have been added to the collection in the past ten years, and 21 were acquired specifically for this exhibition.

In addition to painting, the show features artists working with three-dimensional forms, textiles, and geometrically structured photographic compositions. Geometries seeks not only to highlight the diversity of approaches to geometric forms, but also to promote dialogues between works from different periods, regions, and materials. Rather than outlining a panorama of abstraction or geometric figuration, the exhibition points to new possibilities of interpreting a collection historically marked by the human figure—an orientation established by Pietro Maria Bardi (1900–1999), MASP’s founding director.

Geometries is curated by Adriano Pedrosa and Regina Teixeira de Barros, with assistance from Matheus de Andrade.

Arts from Africa
The exhibition examines MASP’s trajectory of exhibitions and collecting focused on so-called traditional African art, while also including contemporary works related to this theme.

The works on display, produced in the 20th century, represent 17 different cultures—only a fraction of the nearly 500 existing societies on the continent. Most of the pieces come from West Africa, with a predominance of cultures from the Yoruba language group, along with some Bantu examples.

Two contemporary artists have created new works in dialogue with this collection, offering critical counterpoints. biarritzzz made three video pieces showing fragments of masks from the collection, while Cipriano produced paintings that layer chants from Afro-Brazilian religions to create abstract forms, demonstrating how the African heritage in Brazil remains alive and in constant reinvention.

Arts from Africa is curated by Amanda Carneiro and Leandro Muniz.

Isaac Julien: Lina Bo Bardi – A Marvellous Entanglement
Some of the projections in this exhibition are shown on walls, while others rest on concrete blocks that reference the crystal easels designed by Bo Bardi for MASP. This structure embodies her vision of an open museum that fosters a closer relationship with the public. The original soundtrack, composed by Maria de Alvear, enhances the immersive and sensory experience of the installation.

Matheus de Andrade, curatorial assistant, stated: “For Lina Bo Bardi, a museum should not be a dusty depository of historical remnants. Objects only acquire meaning when they are accessible to the public, without hierarchies, and in dialogue with contemporary life. In line with these ideals, Isaac Julien successfully conveys the relevance of Bo Bardi’s ideas, whose collective vision continues to shape spaces that encourage interaction between art, architecture, and society.”

Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, with support from Matheus de Andrade.