For ArtBasel 2025, Gomide&Co is pleased to present a selection of works based on the artistic and cultural dialog that took place between Brazil and Europe in the context of the Concrete and Neo-Concrete movements that marked the 20th century. The presentation, developed in collaboration with researcher and curator Alex Balgiu, seeks to approach this dialog from the perspective of experience. The proposal is an invitation to engage with the work of art conceived as a living organism, a temporal being that exists, in the words of Lygia Clark, “always in the present, always in the process of beginning over”.
For this purpose, the presentation was conceived as an immersive environment that seeks to offer a multifaceted experience of the works, including the possibility of various points of view from the configuration of the viewer's body in the space. Each artwork questions a different facet of Concretism, unveiling a polyphony of processes and materialities. Tensions and magnetisms are at play, leading to a conversation between surfaces and volumes, form and counter-form. New relationships develop between the artworks, but also between each work itself and the world surrounding it.
The project's conception is based on the contacts of the German philosopher Max Bense (1910–1990) in Brazil, in particular his correspondence with the Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos (1929–2003), an exponent of concrete poetry in the country and at the time a member of the Noigandres group. These intellectual exchanges resulted in a series of exhibitions organized by Bense at the Studiengalerie, the gallery of the Hochschule für Technik (Technical University) in Stuttgart, where he was teaching at the time. It was there that, in 1964, Lygia Clark's first exhibition in Europe took place, in which she presented her Bichos and Espaços Modulados. In 1967, Mira Schendel exhibited her typewritten and decaled letters on paper in the same gallery, repeating her participation there in 1975. Schendel was also the subject of an issue of the series of notebooks rot, organized by Bense and Elizabeth Walther, a semiologist and companion of the philosopher, and dedicated to concrete poetry, graphic forms, and language studies.
The circle of Brazilian artists who had contact with Bense also includes Almir Mavignier, who was a student of the philosopher at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (School of Form) in Ulm at the end of the 1950s. Considered one of the hubs of design thinking and artistic experimentation in dialog with industrial production, it was home to figures such as Max Bill, Josef Albers, and others. In the midst of an effervescent context in Brazil, marked in the arts by the inauguration of the Bienal de São Paulo (1951) and the Museums of Modern Art (MASP, 1947; MAM São Paulo, 1948; and MAM Rio de Janeiro, 1948), in architecture by the foundation of Brasilia (1960), and in design by the creation of the School of Industrial Design (ESDI, 1963), Max Bense figured as an agent among the exponents of the period, spreading many of the country's names in the international context.
The main selection to be presented by Gomide&Co at Art Basel 2025 includes names who had direct contact with Bense, such as Lygia Clark, Mira Schendel, and Almir Mavignier, as well as others who are key figures of the period, such as Amilcar de Castro, Geraldo de Barros, Luiz Sacilotto, Ivan Serpa, Hélio Oiticica and Max Bill. One of the main highlights of the selection is a painting by Roberto Burle Marx, whose landscape design for Brasília was acclaimed by Bense. In the complementary selection, the presentation includes artists who were influenced by the Concrete and Neo-Concrete movements, such as Habuba Farah, Lenora de Barros, and others.
The complete selection includes: Amilcar de Castro (1920–2002); Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato (1900–1995); Almir Mavignier (1925–2018); Chico da Silva (1910/1922–1985); Chen Kong Fang (1931–2012); Geraldo de Barros (1923–1998); Habuba Farah (1931); Hélio Oiticica (1937–1980); Ivan Serpa (1923–1973); Julia Isidrez (1967); Lygia Clark (1920–1988); Lenora de Barros (1953); Luiz Sacilotto (1924–2003); Lygia Pape (1927–2004); Max Bill (1908–1994); Megumi Yuasa (1938); Maria Lira (1945); Mira Schendel (1919–1988); Nilda Neves (1961); Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994); Sergio Camargo (1930–1990).
