Exhibitions

Event organised as part of the Brazilian Season in France 2025

Ivens Machado (1942-2015) belongs to a generation of artists who became visible in the 1970s, during the rise of the dictatorial regime in Brazil.

The exhibition presents a selection of video and photographic works documenting the artist’s performances of this period, in which he employed the body and the performative gesture as expressions of social tensions. Questions of violence, repression and sexuality are addressed, often very explicitly. The artist has explored these themes throughout his life, through a variety of materials.

He then consolidated his sculptural practice by incorporating cement, bricks, wood and iron, all materials used in construction. All these forms suggest the presence of bodies. They establish relationships between physicality and construction, architecture and ruins, sometimes in provocative ways. As in his performances, the body and sensuality are also essential dimensions in the elaboration of sculptural forms.

Interestingly, his practice is based on the subversion of conventional sculpture, making him one of the undisputed leaders of his generation of sculptors in Brazil, who has influenced many young artists.

This exhibition fits in perfectly with Carré d’Art’s programming, which has recently featured Nairy Baghramian and Tarik Kiswanson, two artists who challenge the practice of sculpture in a political field, in a relationship to the body and to performance. It’s a way of reinterpreting Ivens Machado’s work in a Brazilian context, as well as a more international one.

The exhibition will be presented in the Project Room, on the same dates as the Lucas Arruda exhibition, also part of the Brazil in France season.

!!!Some images in the videos are likely to shock young viewers!!!

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