Waldemar Cordeiro (Roma, Itália 1925 - São Paulo SP 1973)
Waldemar Cordeiro was a visual artist, designer, illustrator, landscape designer, urban planner, journalist and art critic. Born in Rome to an Italian mother and a Brazilian father, he was registered at the Brazilian Embassy, thereby acquiring Brazilian nationality. He studied at the Liceo Tasso and at the Accademia di Belle Arti. In the early 1940s, under the fascist regime, he associated with members of the Italian Communist Party, maintaining his ties to communism throughout his life.
He began his career as a caricaturist in 1943 at the satirical newspaper Petirosso. He traveled to Brazil in 1946 to meet his father and, in São Paulo, began working as a journalist and art critic for Folha da Manhã. In 1947, together with Bassano Vaccarini (1914–2002), he painted the Santa Rita murals in the Bom Jesus do Brás Church in São Paulo. He returned to Italy in 1948, where he began his first abstract works. Back in Brazil for good in 1949, he took part in the inaugural exhibition of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM/SP), Do Figurativismo ao Abstracionismo [From Figurativism to Abstractionism].
Besides painting and criticism, he developed an extensive body of work in landscape design. Although he maintained a critical stance toward the project of the Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, he took part in its first edition, in 1951, and in several later editions. He became the theorist and leader of Grupo Ruptura, of concrete orientation, founded in 1952 with an exhibition of the same name at MAM/SP and the launch of a manifesto. In 1953, he opened the landscape design firm Jardins de Vanguarda.
In 1956, he took part in the 1st National Exhibition of Concrete Art at MAM/SP. In 1964, he traveled to Europe, where he strengthened ties with artists of the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel and became interested in American pop art, strongly represented at that year's Venice Biennale. He then began the Popcretos series, in partnership with Augusto de Campos. In 1965, he took part in the exhibition Opinião 65 at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM/RJ).
From 1968 onward, he began research in digital art in partnership with the physicist Giorgio Moscati. In 1971, he organized the exhibition Arteônica. The following year, he helped create the Institute of Arts of the State University of Campinas (IA/Unicamp), where he went on to direct the Image Processing Center.
Critical Commentary
A central figure in 20th-century Brazilian art, Waldemar Cordeiro managed, as few others did, to move from the field of artistic production to that of theoretical reflection1, becoming one of the main articulators of concretism in the country and later abandoning that course in favor of a less utopian art, more connected to the challenges of its time.
Throughout his short but intense career, Cordeiro explored with diligence and investigative zeal some of the main artistic currents of the 20th century. His attention first turned to expressionism, the tendency with which his early works are aligned. Soon, however, he turned to the defense of an abstract production, radically removed from figuration, naturalism and a hedonistic view of art (art for aesthetic pleasure, art for art's sake). He was convinced that art's role was to transform the world, no longer through denunciation or the mere repetition of old aesthetic patterns, but through the making of the new. From the late 1940s onward, he developed within Grupo Ruptura a body of work opposed both to social realism - the path mainly followed by left-wing artists in the country, such as Portinari and Di Cavalcanti - and to the possibly decorative character of lyrical abstraction.
One of his main conceptual pillars is the "theory of pure visibility" developed in the 19th century by the German thinker Konrad Fiedler (1841-1895) - which challenges the idea of aesthetic sensibility and claims for art the status of a means of knowledge as important as the positive sciences. The other is the defense of the effective engagement of the intellectual and the artist in the project of political and social change advocated by the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937). Cordeiro also followed with particular attention the Gestalt theories of form and the models of Russian constructivism and neoplasticism. "We defend the real language of painting, which expresses itself with lines and colors that are lines and colors and do not wish to be pears or men", he stated in a text published in 19492.
The aim was to create a new, objective, rational art. Among the most striking aspects of this production are the pursuit of order, the defense of art as an autonomous reality, the use of materials and tools derived from industry, reproducibility and the search for a collective meaning (which explains its strong affinity with other applied arts, such as design and landscape design). The colors are always the primaries, without lapsing into pictorial or expressive tonalism. Cordeiro and his companions preached the need for an art accessible to all, in which the authorial and decorative character gives way to a real action of aesthetic transformation of the world. As the critic Lorenzo Mammì sums up, "classical concretism was based on the serial arrangement of simple elements, according to orders that resulted in a unified and harmonious meaning"3.
This normative drive, which found echoes in the production of other Brazilian artists and established a rich and combative dialogue with the Rio de Janeiro artists of Grupo Frente, ended in crisis, leading the members of Grupo Ruptura to a profound reassessment from the 1960s onward. Cordeiro was one of those who made the most radical turn, moving from paintings rigorously constructed on mathematical precepts to a kind of production reflecting a view more grounded in the real social conditions faced in Brazil. Added to this was a new scene in international art, with the arrival of movements such as pop and nouveau réalisme - both of which made an impression on Cordeiro during a trip to Europe in the 1960s. In a 1965 text, the artist reaffirmed the "failure of all utopias with a technological foundation". "The irrationalism of abstract rationalism has already cost the man of our time very dearly", he added.4 Cordeiro then proposed a "new idea of thingness, which coincides with semiotics", seeking "to transform banality into improbable signs".5
Politically engaged and a defender of art as a fundamental element in the process of social transformation, he felt the impact of the military coup and began to incorporate a strongly critical dimension into his works, as in Popcreto para um Popcrítico [Popcrete for a Popcritic] or Subdesenvolvido [Underdeveloped] (1964). This experimentalism carries evident irony and critical intent and boldly broadens the field of artistic creation in Brazil. Hélio Oiticica (1937-1980) credits Cordeiro as a pioneer in the appropriation of banal everyday things. According to him, the popcreto is not "a fusion of Pop and Concretism, as many would have it, but a decisive transformation of purely structural propositions into others of a semantic-structural order", and in a way anticipates the move he himself would make two years later, in 1966, when he "proposed a return to the 'thing', to the everyday object appropriated as a work".6
After the appropriation of the object and the introduction of important issues such as the relationship between work and viewer - present in kinetic works such as O Beijo [The Kiss] (1967) -, Cordeiro made a third radicalizing move in his research, choosing as the main element of his work no longer the concrete thing but its image, anticipating the importance of the virtual, digital, manipulated and transcoded image for contemporary artistic production.7
With the works in which he uses computer language, explored from the late 1960s onward, he carries out a kind of recovery on another scale: "I go back to the starting point. What did concrete art do? It digitized the image, numbers, surfaces with quantities, related these quantities, programmed the paintings. The execution was handmade only because there was no industry that wanted to do it and the artists had no money to pay [...] The concrete paintings could have been executed by a print shop, by an industry, by a machine, because they had at their base a numerical program - mind you - like digitized art."8
This art stands apart from much of the avant-garde digital production, often marked by technological optimism. As the critic Arlindo Machado observes, Cordeiro introduced a "critical dimension to computer art, adding to the images the social commentary that was absent from world production".9 Bold and coherent, Cordeiro made his stance explicit in a recorded statement: "Fundamentally, it is an attitude that matters - a work of art is not an object, it is not a thing, it is a proposal for man, a proposal for society".10
Notes
1 It is difficult to separate artistic and intellectual production in Cordeiro's trajectory. After all, as Ana Maria Belluzzo sums up, "The rigor of the aesthetic understanding set out in texts parallels that of his visual works, which can be understood as experiments, in the broad sense". In AMARAL, Aracy (coord.). Arte construtiva no Brasil: coleção Adolpho Leirner. São Paulo: DBA, 1998. p. 97.
2 "Revista dos novíssimos n.1", 1949. BANDEIRA, João (org.). Arte concreta paulista: documentos. São Paulo: Cosac & Naify : Centro Universitário Maria Antônia da USP, 2002. p. 17
3 MAMMI, Lorenzo, et al. Op. cit., p. 31.
4 CORDEIRO, Waldemar. "Realismo: musa da vingança e da tristeza". In: Revista Habitat (May-Jun 1965). Apud FERREIRA, Glória : COTRIM, Cecília. Escritos de artistas: anos 60/70. São Paulo: Jorge Zahar, 2006. p. 108
5 Idem, pp. 111 and 112.
6 OITICICA, Hélio. Esquema geral da nova objetividade. In: FERREIRA, Glória : COTRIM, Cecília. Op. cit., p. 159
7 WALDEMAR Cordeiro: a ruptura como metáfora. Text by Helouise Costa, Vivian Boehringer. São Paulo: Cosac & Naify : Centro Universitário Maria Antônia, 2002. p. 34.
8 Statement by Cordeiro recorded on May 16, 1970, and quoted in WALDEMAR Cordeiro: a ruptura como metáfora. Text by Helouise Costa, Vivian Boehringer. São Paulo: Cosac & Naify : Centro Universitário Maria Antônia, 2002. p. 28.
9 MACHADO, Arlindo. Arte e Mídia. São Paulo: Jorge Zahar, 2007. pp. 51 and 52.
Critiques
"Waldemar Cordeiro always turned each of his works into a manifesto, each exhibition into a defense of a thesis, each title into the illustration of a theory. In December 1964, he had held an exhibition at Galeria Atrium in São Paulo in which he showed for the first time his popcretos, or, as he defined these objects (two of which would be shown in Opinião 65), 'semantic concrete art'. About them, the German aesthetician Max Bense wrote a letter-preface (15.11.1964) in which he said: 'Popcretos therefore presuppose a prior artistic experience, namely pop art and concrete art. They are art of art. But one can perceive the dialectic between two principles of style, which behave as thesis and antithesis. It should also be noted that the Platonic principle in concrete art is the stronger, insofar as the banal remnants of the pragmatic corporeal world are subjected to the clear dominance of the ideal concrete surface. Perhaps this situation could also be expressed as follows: the idea of ordering. Without doubt, this is a Hegelian course, though not in the idealist sense, in the production of the popcretos'".
Frederico Morais
MORAIS, Frederico. Opinião 65: ontem, hoje. In: OPINIÃO 65. Rio de Janeiro: Galeria de Arte Banerj, 1985. (Ciclo de exposições sobre arte no Rio de Janeiro, 5).
"The profile of Waldemar Cordeiro remains, to this day, very sharp among those who followed the course of artistic events from the late 1940s to the early 1970s.
A polemical personality, always deepening antagonisms and shifting the terms of the artistic debate, he passionately led the passage from aesthetics of expressive content to those of constructive content. (...)
A prominent personality, he was distant from the public and at the center of the concretist movement that developed in São Paulo in the 1950s. A unifier and a disseminator, both theorist and practitioner, his visual research followed free speculation, without responding to immediate demands. It was not in line with the consumption habits of the small visual arts market. Not even the industry of the time would have been able to absorb this experience, which, after all, was constituting an industrial aesthetic. The artists were ahead of the process, establishing an objective and impersonal language that they wished would become the language of real life.
Cordeiro's path is clear: an adventure of reason. The paintings were, above all, the support for research and reflection on art and its place in urban-industrial societies.
The political view of culture shapes his critical perspective on art and the predominantly ethical dimension of his proposals.
Amid the optimism generated by industrialization, Cordeiro and the concretist group adjusted artistic language to the format of the new stage of society. They desacralized and renewed the means of artistic production. They worked on the technical infrastructure of language.
In the 1960s, more precisely after 1964, with his strategy of action reoriented, Cordeiro shifted his aim to the political superstructure, to semantic concretion, to use his own words. He wanted to find meanings amid life, to read art in the world of things, to engage with living culture. In short, he sought the form of participation and of the communicative relationship.
It was the professional landscape designer who financially supported the pure artist. Landscape design, initially conceived as a means of subsistence, became part of the field of his creative activities. It is the landscape designer who marks the properly urban dimension of Cordeiro's vision. The landscape designer who plans spaces for leisure time teaches the painter what the concrete participation of the viewer is. It is also the landscape designer who brings art into the dimension of the contingent and the necessary, never the utilitarian, and in such a way as to prevent any assumption that some functionalist remnant exists in these procedures.
Reflection on communication in modern societies drove him to go beyond physical space and act within electronic circuits. The project of making artworks through advanced technological means is the last chapter of his adventure; he died before the experiment could properly be completed.
Seen today, his work refers back to the course of Brazilian history, since it was to that history that he wished to respond, and because the general thrust of his project is the movement of art toward the real".
Ana Maria Belluzzo
BELLUZZO, Ana Maria. Waldemar Cordeiro, uma aventura da razão. AMARAL, Aracy (org.). Waldemar Cordeiro, uma aventura da razão. São Paulo, MAC/USP, 1986, p. 15-16.
10 Idem, p. 36.
Testimonials
"Modern art, after a syntactic period (formal relation between signs) and a - more recent - pragmatic period (relation of signs to the interpreter), inaugurates a semantic period (relation of the sign to things).
Montage brings together several fragments, or several paintings of different tendencies, in a single painting. This is yet another expression of the anti-dogmatism, the anti-style of modern art: open art. Here the new figuration has chosen contemporary art itself as its theme.
The artist leaves the domain of decoration to address, on the terrain of the most immediate and common materiality, the contingent problems of social events. The question of social function, previously posed in terms of 'design' (infrastructure), is now addressed directly at the level of the political superstructure. The informal (anti-painting) and anti-art objects already constituted an effective critique of the pursuit of 'beautiful form'. The demands of pragmatic art - chance and the active role of the viewer - are today one more step toward a total reality: the new figuration. The n. f. should not be understood as a return to figurativism, but as a search for new signifying structures.
The new figuration denounces the forced collectivization of the individual carried out through today's powerful means of communication (TV, cinema, radio and the press), in the service of a financial oligarchy ever more greedy for profit. The Adam's apple is the thing, and gluttony is paid for with alienation. The thing as a talisman of security in the philosophy of comfort. To possess things, at any cost, is the poor ideology of the alienated.
And the thing now enters the work of art as an element of a montage, which, however, swallows it, transforming it into information, sign and constructive message".
Waldemar Cordeiro
CORDEIRO, Waldemar. VII Bienal 'Nova Figuração' denuncia a alienação do indivíduo. In: AMARAL, Aracy (org.). Waldemar Cordeiro, uma aventura da razão. São Paulo, MAC/USP, 1986, p.119.
Solo Exhibitions
1945 - Rome (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria San Marco
1959 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas
1960 - Campinas SP - Solo, at Galeria Aremar
1963 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Astréia
1964 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Atrium
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Solo, at MAM/RJ
1968 - Paris (France) - Solo, at Galerie Debret
1969 - Rome (Italy) - Solo, at Galeria Doria Pamphilli
Group Exhibitions
1942 - Rome (Italy) - Gioventù Italiana Del Littorio Comando Federale Dell'Urbe Gare Artistico-Culturali, at Teatro Argentino
1946 - São Paulo SP - Exhibition of Original Drawings by São Paulo Artists, at Biblioteca Municipal Alceu Amoroso Lima
1947 - São Paulo SP - 11th Salon of the Visual Artists' Union, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1947 - São Paulo SP - Watercolors and Gouaches, at Biblioteca Municipal Mário de Andrade
1947 - São Paulo SP - Inaugural Exhibition, at Galeria Domus
1948 - Rome (Italy) - Prima Mostra dei Sindicati Romani e Scultori
1949 - São Paulo SP - Art Club de São Paulo, at Masp
1949 - São Paulo SP - From Figurativism to Abstractionism, at MAM/SP
1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão do Trianon
1952 - São Paulo SP - Grupo Ruptura, at MAM/SP
1954 - São Paulo SP - 3rd São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - acquisition prize and silver medal
1955 - Lissone (Italy) - 9th Lissone International Prize
1955 - São Paulo SP - 4th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1956 - São Paulo SP - 1st National Exhibition of Concrete Art, at MAM/SP
1957 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Modern Art in Brazil, at Museo de Arte Moderno
1957 - Lima (Peru) - Modern Art in Brazil, at Museo de Arte de Lima
1957 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st National Exhibition of Concrete Art, at MAM/RJ
1957 - Rosario (Argentina) - Modern Art in Brazil, at Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes Juan B. Castagnino
1957 - Santiago (Chile) - Modern Art in Brazil, at Museo de Arte Contemporâneo
1957 - Tokyo (Japan) - 4th Tokyo Biennial
1957 - São Paulo SP - 4th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1958 - São Paulo SP - 47 Artists, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas
1958 - São Paulo SP - Leirner Contemporary Art Prize, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas
1959 - São Paulo SP - 5th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1959 - São Paulo SP - Leirner Contemporary Art Prize, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas
1959 - Leverkusen (Germany) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1959 - Munich (Germany) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe, at Kunsthaus
1959 - Vienna (Austria) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1959 - Amsterdam (Netherlands) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1959 - Barcelona (Spain) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1959 - Basel (Switzerland) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1959 - London (United Kingdom) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1959 - Milan (Italy) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1959 - Rome (Italy) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Hamburg (Germany) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Lisbon (Portugal) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Madrid (Spain) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Paris (France) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Concrete Art Exhibition, at MAM/RJ
1960 - São Paulo SP - 9th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia - large gold medal
1960 - São Paulo SP - Leirner Contemporary Art Prize, at Galeria de Arte das Folhas
1960 - Utrecht (Netherlands) - First Group Exhibition of Brazilian Artists in Europe
1960 - Zurich (Switzerland) - Konkrete Kunst, at Helmhaus
1961 - São Paulo SP - 10th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1961 - São Paulo SP - 6th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Pavilhão Ciccilo Matarazzo Sobrinho
1963 - São Paulo SP - 7th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1963 - São Paulo SP - Galeria Novas Tendências: Inaugural Group Show, at Associação de Artes Visuais Novas Tendências
1964 - São Paulo SP - 13th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art
1964 - São Paulo SP - Art at IAB, at IAB/SP
1965 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Opinião 65, at MAM/RJ
1965 - São Paulo SP - 8th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1965 - São Paulo SP - Propostas 65, at MAB/FAAP
1965 - Zagreb (Croatia) - New Tendencies 3
1966 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Contemporary Brazilian Artists, at Museo de Arte Moderno
1966 - Montevideo (Uruguay) - Contemporary Brazilian Artists, at Museo de Arte Moderno de Montevidéu
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Salão de Abril [April Salon], at MAM/RJ
1966 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Supermarket 66, at Galeria Relevo
1966 - Salvador BA - 1st National Biennial of Visual Arts - special room
1966 - São Paulo SP - 15th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1966 - São Paulo SP - Three Premises, at MAB/Faap
1967 - Bienal de Artes Plásticas/Exposição Internacional de Arquitetura [Visual Arts Biennial/International Architecture Exhibition] - IAB Biennial Planning Prize
1967 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Salão de Maio, at Sociedade Brasileira de Belas Artes
1967 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Nova Objetividade Brasileira [New Brazilian Objectivity], at MAM/RJ
1967 - São Paulo SP - 9th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal - Itamaraty Prize
1968 - Paris (France) - Salon Comparaisons
1968 - Paris (France) - Salon Grands et Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui
1968 - São Paulo SP - 17th São Paulo Salon of Modern Art, at Galeria Prestes Maia
1969 - Belgrade (Yugoslavia) - Computers and Visual Arts
1969 - Bienal de Artes Plásticas/Exposição Internacional de Arquitetura [Visual Arts Biennial/International Architecture Exhibition] - Biennial Prize for the Landscape Planning of the UFMG Campus
1969 - Nuremberg (Germany) - 1st Nuremberg Biennial
1969 - Paris (France) - 25th Salon de Mai, at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
1969 - Paris (France) - Salon Grands et Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui
1969 - São Paulo SP - Computer Plotter Art, at Galeria do Usis
1969 - Zagreb (Croatia) - 4th New Tendencies
1970 - Amsterdam (Netherlands) - Computer Graphic Roof of the Groeland
1970 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Computer Plotter Art, at Galeria da USIS
1971 - São Paulo SP - Arteônica: The Creative Use of Electronic Media in the Arts, at Faap
1972 - Curitiba PR - 29th Paraná Salon, at Teatro Guaíra
1972 - Hamburg (Germany) - Computer Graphics, at Kunstverein
1972 - Montreal (Canada) - International Computer Art Exhibition
1972 - Paris (France) - Grand Palais Des Champs Elysées
1972 - Nogent-sur-Marne (France) - Salon Grands et Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui
1972 - São Paulo SP - 4th Panorama of Current Brazilian Art, MAM/SP
1972 - São Paulo SP - Art/Brazil/Today: 50 Years Later, at Galeria da Collectio
1973 - Birmingham (United Kingdom) - Circuit
1973 - Edinburgh (United Kingdom) - Edinburgh Festival
1973 - Paris (France) - Grand Palais Des Champs Elysées
1973 - Zagreb (Croatia) - T5 - The Rational and the Irrational in Visual Research Today, at Galeria de Arte Contemporânea
Posthumous Exhibitions
1973 - Paris (France) - Salon Grands et Jeunes d'Aujourd'hui
1973 - São Paulo SP - 12th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1975 - São Paulo SP - 13th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1977 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Constructive Project in Art: 1950-1962, at MAM/RJ
1977 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Constructive Project in Art: 1950-1962, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1978 - São Paulo SP - The Biennials and Abstraction: The 1950s, at Museu Lasar Segall
1978 - São Paulo SP - The Object in Art: Brazil in the 1960s, at MAB/Faap
1980 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1983 - São Paulo SP - 10th Anniversary of the Death of Waldemar Cordeiro, at CCSP
1983 - São Paulo SP - Rereading Project, at Pinacoteca do Estado
1984 - São Paulo SP - Tradition and Rupture: A Synthesis of Brazilian Art and Culture, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Opinião 65, at Galeria de Arte Banerj
1985 - São Paulo SP - 18th Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, at Fundação Bienal
1985 - São Paulo SP - Art New Media/Multimedia: Brazil 70/80, at MAB/Faap
1986 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Seven Decades of Italian Presence in Brazilian Art, at Paço Imperial
1986 - São Paulo SP - Waldemar Cordeiro: An Adventure of Reason, at MAC/USP
1986 - São Paulo SP - Geometric Abstraction, at MAB-FAAP
1987 - Paris (France) - Modernity: 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at Musée d'Art Moderne de La Ville de Paris
1987 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 1st Geometric Abstraction: Concretism and Neo-Concretism, at Fundação Nacional de Arte. Centro de Artes
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Weave of Taste: Another Look at Everyday Life, at Fundação Bienal
1987 - São Paulo SP - The Craft of Art: Painting, at Sesc
1987 - São Paulo SP - Palavra Imágica [Imagic Word], at MAC/USP
1988 - São Paulo SP - 63/66 Figure and Object, at Galeria Millan
1988 - São Paulo SP - MAC 25 Years: Recent Acquisitions and Donations, at MAC/USP
1988 - São Paulo SP - Modernity: 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at MAM/SP
1990 - São Paulo SP - Figurativism/Abstractionism: Red in Brazilian Painting, at Instituto Cultural Itaú. Centro de Informática e Cultura I
1990 - Brasília DF - Figurativism/Abstractionism: Red in Brazilian Painting, at Itaugaleria
1991 - Belo Horizonte MG - Figurativism/Abstractionism: Red in Brazilian Painting, at Instituto Cultural Itaú. Núcleo de Informática e Cultura
1991 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Image upon Image, at Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto
1991 - São Paulo SP - Constructivism: Poster Art 40/50/60, at MAC/USP
1992 - São Paulo SP - The Seduction of Volumes: The Three-Dimensional Works of the MAC, at MAC/USP
1993 - Campinas SP - Figurativism/Abstractionism: Red in Brazilian Painting, at Instituto Cultural Itaú. Centro de Informática e Cultura II
1994 - São Paulo SP - Bienal Brasil Século XX, at Fundação Bienal
1995 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Opinião 65: 30 Years, at CCBB
1996 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Constructive Tendencies in the MAC/USP Collection: Construction, Measure and Proportion, at CCBB
1996 - São Paulo SP - 4th Unesp Sesc Senai Studio of Image Technologies, at Sesc Pompéia
1996 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art: 50 Years of History in the MAC/USP Collection: 1920-1970, at MAC/USP
1996 - São Paulo SP - Desexp(l)os(ing)ição, at Casa das Rosas
1996 - São Paulo SP - The World of Mario Schenberg, at Casa das Rosas
1997 - São Paulo SP - Art Support Computer, at Casa das Rosas
1997 - Porto Alegre RS - 1st Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul, at Fundação Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul
1997 - Porto Alegre RS - Constructive Strand and Design, at Espaço Cultural ULBRA
1997 - Porto Alegre RS - Political Strand, at Fundação Bienal de Artes Visuais do Mercosul
1997 - São Paulo SP - Three-Dimensionality in 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
1998 - Belo Horizonte MG - Three-Dimensionality in 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
1998 - Brasília DF - Three-Dimensionality in 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at Itaú Galeria
1998 - Penápolis SP - Three-Dimensionality in 20th-Century Brazilian Art, at Galeria Itaú Cultural
1998 - São Paulo SP - Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, at MAM/SP
1998 - São Paulo SP - Theory of Values, at MAM/SP
1999 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Constructive Art in Brazil: Adolpho Leirner Collection, at MAM/RJ
1999 - São Paulo SP - Everyday/Art. Technique - Art Machines, at Itaú Cultural
2000 - Lisbon (Portugal) - 20th Century: Art of Brazil, at Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão
2000 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Situations: Brazilian Art of the 1970s, at Fundação Casa França-Brasil
2000 - São Paulo SP - Brasil + 500 Rediscovery Exhibition. Modern Art, at Fundação Bienal
2000 - Valencia (Spain) - De la Antropofagia a Brasília: Brasil 1920-1950, at IVAM. Centre Julio González
2001 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Galeria Brito Cimino
2001 - São Paulo SP - Trajectory of Light in Brazilian Art, at Itaú Cultural
2002 - Fortaleza CE - Ceará Rediscovers Brazil, at Centro Dragão do Mar de Arte e Cultura
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brazilian Art in the Fadel Collection: From the Restlessness of the Modern to the Autonomy of Language, at CCBB
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Paths of the Contemporary 1952-2002, at Paço Imperial
2002 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Parallels: Brazilian Art of the Second Half of the 20th Century in Context, Colección Cisneros, at MAM/RJ
2002 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Art in the Fadel Collection: From the Restlessness of the Modern to the Autonomy of Language, at CCBB
2002 - São Paulo SP - From Anthropophagy to Brasília: Brazil 1920-1950, at MAB/Faap
2002 - São Paulo SP - Geometric and Kinetic, at Gabinete de Arte Raquel Arnaud
2002 - São Paulo SP - Grupo Ruptura: Revisiting the Inaugural Exhibition, at Centro Universitário Maria Antonia
2002 - São Paulo SP - Solo, at Centro Universitário Maria Antonia
2002 - São Paulo SP - Paralela, at a warehouse on Avenida Matarazzo, 530, São Paulo. Exhibition conceived and organized jointly by the galleries Fortes Vilaça, Luisa Strina, Casa Triângulo and Brito Cimino
2002 - São Paulo SP - Parallels: Brazilian Art of the Second Half of the 20th Century in Context, Colección Cisneros, at MAM/SP
2003 - Brasília DF - Brazilian Art in the Fadel Collection: From the Restlessness of the Modern to the Autonomy of Language, at CCBB
2003 - Mexico City (Mexico) - Cuasi Corpus: arte concreto y neoconcreto de Brasil: una selección del acervo del Museo de Arte Moderna de São Paulo y la Colección Adolpho Leirner, at Museo Rufino Tamayo
2003 - São Paulo SP - The Subversion of Media, at Itaú Cultural
2003 - São Paulo SP - Approaches to the Pop Spirit: 1963-1968, at MAM/SP
2003 - São Paulo SP - MAC USP 40 Years: Contemporary Interfaces, at MAC/USP
2004 - Houston (United States) - Inverted Utopias: Avant Garde Art in Latin America, The Museum of Fine Arts
2004 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Everything Is Brazil, at Paço Imperial
2004 - São Paulo SP - São Paulo 450 Years Platform, at MAC/USP
2004 - São Paulo SP - Everything Is Brazil, Instituto Itaú Cultural
2004 - São Paulo SP - Brazilian Version, at Galeria Brito Cimino
2005 - São Paulo SP - Pain, Form, Beauty: The Creative Representation of Traumatic Experience, at Estação Pinacoteca
2005 - Chicago (United States) - Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture, Museum of Contemporary Art
2005 - Porto Alegre RS - 5th Mercosul Biennial
2005 - São Paulo SP - 100 Years of the Pinacoteca: The Formation of a Collection, Galeria do Sesi
2005 - São Paulo SP - Through, or Corrupted Geometry, Galeria Bergamin
2005 - São Paulo SP - Digital Kinetic, Instituto Itaú Cultural
2005 - São Paulo SP - Fifty 50, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo
2005 - São Paulo SP - Homo Ludens: From Make-Believe to Vertigo, Instituto Itaú Cultural
2005 - São Paulo SP - Technical Visualities, Instituto Cervantes
2006 - Leeds (United Kingdom) - Espaço Aberto / Espaço Fechado [Open Space / Closed Space]: sites for sculptures in Modern Brazil, Henry Moore Institute
2006 - London (England) - Tropicália: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture, Barbican
2006 - Miami (United States) - The Sites of Latin American Abstraction, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation
2006 - São Paulo SP - Concreta 56: The Root of Form, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo
2006 - São Paulo SP - Brushstroke. Painting and Method, Projections in the 1950s, Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2007 - São Paulo SP - The 1970s: Art as Question, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2007 - Austin (United States) - The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, Blanton Museum of Art
2007 - Houston (United States) - Dimensions of Constructive Art in Brazil: The Adolpho Leirner Collection, Museum of Fine Arts
2007 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Tropicália, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro
2008 - São Paulo SP - Fotoformas and Their Margins, Centro Universitário Maria Antonia
2008 - São Paulo SP - Bonds of the Gaze, at Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2008 - São Paulo SP - Constructive Tendencies, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo
2009 - Houston (United States) - North Looks South: Building the Latin American Art Collection, at The Museum of Fine Arts
2009 - São Paulo SP - Art as Question - The 1970s, Instituto Tomie Ohtake
2009 - São Paulo SP - Concrete Dialogue, Design and Constructivism in Brazil, Caixa Cultural
2010 - Brasília DF - Brasília and Constructivism: A Postponed Encounter, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil
2010 - Newark (United States) - Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America, 1920s-50s. Newark Museum
2010 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - The Constructions of Brasília, Instituto Moreira Salles
2010 - São Paulo SP - The Constructions of Brasília, Instituto Moreira Salles
2010 - São Paulo SP - Tékhne, Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado
2010 - São Paulo SP - One Day It Will Have to Have Ended, Museu de Arte Contemporânea - USP
2011 - São Paulo SP - Sculpture Adventure: Art That (Almost) Moves, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo
2011 - São Paulo SP - Modernisms in Brazil, at Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo
2011 - Campinas SP - Instant: Experience and Event in Art and Technology, at Sesc Campinas
2011 - Porto Alegre RS - Iberê Camargo and the Postwar Cultural Environment, at Fundação Iberê Camargo
2011 - Brussels (Belgium) - Europalia.brasil
2011 - Madrid (Spain) - La Abstracción Geométrica en Latinoamérica (1934-1973), Fundación Juan March
2011 - New York (United States) - Waldemar Cordeiro & Franz Mon, MINI/Goethe-Institut
2011 - São Paulo SP - Brazil: Figuration x Abstraction in the Late 1940s, Instituto de Arte Contemporânea
2012 - São Paulo SP - Buzz, at Galeria Nara Roesler
2012 - Brasília DF - Geometry of Transformation: Brazilian Constructive Art in the Fadel Collection, at Museu Nacional do Conjunto Cultural da República
2012 - Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Arte de Contradicciones: Pop, Realismos y Política - Brasil - Argentina 1960, at Fundación PROA
2013 - Campinas SP - 100 Years of São Paulo Art in the Collection of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, at Galeria de Arte da CPFL Cultura
2013 - Madrid (Spain) - La Invención Concreta: Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
2013 - São Paulo SP - Waldemar Cordeiro: Exact Fantasy, at Itaú Cultural
Source: Itaú Cultural
