Exhibition explores forest imagery across 40 artworks

“Olhar a Floresta, Ver a Floresta” gathers 40 artworks from 25 artists under the curatorship of Ivo Mesquita.

The forest as idea and experience

The forest operates as a real place and also as an idea. In Brazil, it transcends the bioma and becomes a symbolic structure. The exhibition Olhar a Floresta, Ver a Floresta approaches this shift between experience and constructed imagery. It presents around 40 works from 25 artists, spanning the nineteenth century to today.

The curatorship by Ivo Mesquita organizes the exhibition in three continuous movements. The first highlights European naturalist travelers, who portrayed the forest as sublime and exuberant territory. Works by Facchinetti, Vinet and Hagedorn illustrate this scientific perspective.

This section also includes contemporary artists such as Sebastião Salgado and Lucas Arruda, who engage with this visual tradition. The forest appears meticulously represented and simultaneously domesticated through representation.

The transformation into productive landscape

The second movement presents the moment when monumental nature becomes productive landscape. Farms, burnings, extraction, urbanization, gardens and nurseries appear. The forest merges with daily life. Domestication completes itself when nature becomes domestic ornament.

This group includes works by Grimm, Visconti, Bakun, Portinari, Pedro Paulo Leal, Helio Melo and Ozias. Photographs by Augusto Malta, Lalo de Almeida and Luís Braga reinforce the transformation of the environment.

The forest as symbolic field

The contemporary core rethinks the forest rather than merely recording it. Sculptures, paintings, photographs and a new installation by Ana Luísa Dias Batista challenge the established imagery. Works by Frans Krajcberg, Marilá Dardot, Elaine Pessoa, Leda Catunda, Rochele Costi and others expand the reflection.

The pieces incorporate technology, memory, devastation and fiction. Artificial intelligence images coexist with photographs of burnings. The green ceases to be background and becomes political field. The exhibition avoids explicit environmental narrative and highlights contemplation.

An invitation to contemplation

The exhibition avoids diagnoses. According to the curator, it proposes a pause in accelerated times. Visitors are invited to suspend urgency and reconsider how they look. Observing the forest becomes a way to relearn how to see the world.

Highlights

The exhibition presents a new installation by Ana Luísa Dias Batista, created especially for the show. It features nineteenth-century paintings by Vinet, Hagedorn, Facchinetti and Grimm, as well as modernists such as Portinari, Paulo Pedro Leal and Miguel Bakun. Works by Sebastião Salgado appear in dialogue with images by Lalo de Almeida.

Participating artists

Alejandro Lloret; Ana Luísa Dias Batista; Augusto Malta; Detanico & Lain; Elaine Pessoa; Eliseu Visconti; Fernando Limberger; Frans Krajcberg; Friedrich Hagedorn; Gabriela Albergaria; Georg Grimm; Helio Melo; Henry Nicolas Vinet; Lalo de Almeida; Leda Catunda; Lucas Arruda; Luís Braga; Marilá Dardot; Miguel Bakun; Nicola Facchinetti; Odoteres Ricardo de Ozias; Paulo Pedro Leal; Rochele Costi; Sebastião Salgado.

Service

Exhibition: Olhar a Floresta, Ver a Floresta

Curatorship: Ivo Mesquita

Opening: November 18, Tuesday, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Duration: Until February 7, 2026

Hours: Tuesday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Danielian SP

Address: Rua Estados Unidos, 2114 — Jardim Paulista, São Paulo