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Adriana Varejão, Cadernos de viagem: Yãkoana, 2003 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Patrick Grie

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Adriana Varejão in
Siamo Foresta

June 22–October 29, 2023
Triennale di Milano, Milan
triennale.org

This exhibition, whose title translates to We Are Forest, is a partnership between the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, and the Triennale di Milano, and is held in Milan. The show draws its inspiration from an aesthetic and political vision of the forest as an egalitarian multiverse of living beings—both human and nonhuman. It offers an allegory of a possible world beyond our own, and stages an encounter between thinkers and defenders of the forest, Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists. Work by Adriana Varejão is included.

Adriana Varejão, Cadernos de viagem: Yãkoana, 2003 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Patrick Grie

Installation view, Adriana Varejão: Suturas, fissuras, ruínas, Pinacoteca de São Paulo, March 26–August 1, 2022. Artwork © Adriana Varejão

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Adriana Varejão
Suturas, fissuras, ruínas

March 26–August 1, 2022
Pinacoteca de São Paulo
pinacoteca.org.br

This retrospective, whose title translates to Sutures, Fissures, Ruins, is the most comprehensive solo exhibition of Adriana Varejão’s work to date. Curated by Jochen Volz, director of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, it gathers together more than sixty works in two and three dimensions made between 1985 and 2022. From her position as both a postcolonial subject and a contemporary painter, Varejão brings an insistent critical scrutiny to bear on the enduring impact of European history, its iconography, and artistic conventions. The exhibition highlights the subversive strategies and their symptoms that have underscored Varejão’s art practice since her Baroque canvases of the early 1990s.

Installation view, Adriana Varejão: Suturas, fissuras, ruínas, Pinacoteca de São Paulo, March 26–August 1, 2022. Artwork © Adriana Varejão

Adriana Varejão, Ruína Brasilis (Brasilis Ruin), 2021 © Adriana Varejão

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Adriana Varejão in
Composições para tempos insurgentes

October 9, 2021–May 8, 2022
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro
mam.rio

This exhibition, whose title translates to Compositions for Insurgent Times, highlights a multigenerational group of artists who strategically and poetically address the relationship between nature and culture in their work. The exhibition aims to prompt discussions about sustainable urban architecture, questions of diversity and accessibility, and Afro-Brazilian and Western traditions brought together to exercise new ways of building and relating to the world. Work by Adriana Varejão is included.

Adriana Varejão, Ruína Brasilis (Brasilis Ruin), 2021 © Adriana Varejão

Adriana Varejão, Ruina de Charque Lapa, 2001, installation view, NEON, Athens © Adriana Varejão

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Portals

June 11–December 31, 2021
NEON, Athens
neon.org.gr

Portals brings together fifty-nine artists from twenty-seven countries in the newly renovated spaces of the former Public Tobacco Factory, now the Hellenic Parliament Library and Printing House. Inspired by writer Arundhati Roy’s conception of the COVID-19 pandemic as a “portal, a gateway between one world and the next,” the exhibition aims to investigate the new reality revealed through the prism of change and disruption. Work by Ed Ruscha and Adriana Varejão is included.

Adriana Varejão, Ruina de Charque Lapa, 2001, installation view, NEON, Athens © Adriana Varejão

Adriana Varejão, Ruína Modernista II, 2018 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega

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Adriana Varejão in
Casa Carioca

October 1, 2020–August 2, 2021
Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro
museudeartedorio.org.br

This exhibition, initially presented online due to the global health crisis, brings together approximately eight hundred works around themes related to the home and life in Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. It was conceived as part of the cultural program for the 27th World Congress of the International Union of Architects, which will be held in Brazil for the first time in July 2021. Work by Adriana Varejão is included.

Adriana Varejão, Ruína Modernista II, 2018 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega

Adriana Varejão, Horto Jerked-Beef Ruin (diptych), 2001 © Adriana Varejão

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Time for Outrage!
Art in Times of Social Anger

October 29, 2020–January 10, 2021
Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Germany
www.kunstpalast.de

Based on a 2010 manifesto of the same title by former French resistance fighter Stéphane Hessel, the exhibition Time for Outrage! brought together more than forty international artists who visualize, reflect on, and comment on various facets of anger and rage in our society during this era of political turmoil and democratic crisis. Work by Taryn Simon and Adriana Varejão was included.

Adriana Varejão, Horto Jerked-Beef Ruin (diptych), 2001 © Adriana Varejão

Adriana Varejão, Map of Lopo Homem II, 1992–2004 © Adriana Varejão

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Adriana Varejão in
An Exhibition with Works By . . .

January 19–August 23, 2020
Witte de With, Rotterdam, Netherlands
www.wdw.nl

Focusing on works made in the medium of ceramic, this exhibition explored how national identities can be forged through aesthetics. Considering the immigration of forms, it fostered a dialogue about global trade and about the role played by colonial enterprises and cultural influence. Work by Adriana Varejão was included.

Adriana Varejão, Map of Lopo Homem II, 1992–2004 © Adriana Varejão

Adriana Varejão, Parede com Incisões à la Fontana—Horizontal (Wall with Incisions à la Fontana—Horizontal), 2009–11, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Jaime Acioli

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Adriana Varejão in
Home Is a Foreign Place

April 9, 2019–June 21, 2020
Met Breuer, New York
www.metmuseum.org

This exhibition featured a diverse group of paintings, sculptures, installations, and videos made between 1944 and 2016 that explored artistic engagements with language, architecture, space, politics, and media. The thematic installation asked viewers to reconsider what it means to make a home in the world, whether by chance, necessity, or choice. Work by Adriana Varejão was included.

Adriana Varejão, Parede com Incisões à la Fontana—Horizontal (Wall with Incisions à la Fontana—Horizontal), 2009–11, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Jaime Acioli

Adriana Varejão, Ruína de Charque - Nova Capela (Nova Capela Jerked-Beef Ruin), 2003 (detail) © Adriana Varejão

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Adriana Varejão in
Innenleben / Interiorities

November 29, 2019–March 29, 2020
Haus der Kunst, Munich
hausderkunst.de

Based on the art historical genre of interior painting, this exhibition united four artists who explore the relationship between interior and exterior space—Adriana Varejão, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Leonor Antunes, and Henrike Nauman. Their works reveal the potential of the interior, whether as an imaginary or a real setting, as metaphor or as concrete site for intimate social actions, to reflect and alter the social and political zeitgeist.

Adriana Varejão, Ruína de Charque - Nova Capela (Nova Capela Jerked-Beef Ruin), 2003 (detail) © Adriana Varejão

Adriana Varejão, Cadernos de viagem: Yãkoana, 2003 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Patrick Grie

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Nous les arbres

July 12, 2019–January 5, 2020
Fondation Cartier, Paris
www.fondationcartier.com

Organized around several large ensembles of works, this exhibition, whose title translates to We, the Trees, gives voice to numerous figures who have developed a strong, intimate link with trees, thereby revealing the beauty and biological wealth of these great protagonists of the living world, threatened today with large-scale deforestation. Work by Giuseppe Penone and Adriana Varejão is included.

Adriana Varejão, Cadernos de viagem: Yãkoana, 2003 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Patrick Grie

Adriana Varejão, Testemunhas oculares X, Y e Z, 1997 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega

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Adriana Varejão
Otros cuerpos detrás

August 24, 2019–January 5, 2020
Museo Tamayo, Mexico City
www.museotamayo.org

This show, whose title translates to Other Bodies Behind, explores the lines of research that Adriana Varejão has developed in her artistic practice since the 1990s, bringing together work created over the past thirty years. The exhibition is structured around three different bodies of work—early figurative canvases, a selection from the series Ruínas de Charque (Jerked-Beef Ruins), and recent Polvo paintings.

Adriana Varejão, Testemunhas oculares X, Y e Z, 1997 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega

Adriana Varejão, Ruína de Charque–Vigário Geral (Vigário Geral Jerked–Beef Ruin), 2002 (detail), Dallas Museum of Art © Adriana Varejão

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Adriana Varejão in
America Will Be!: Surveying the Contemporary Landscape

April 6–September 15, 2019
Dallas Museum of Art
www.dma.org

Drawing on works from the museum’s permanent collection, this exhibition investigates the ways in which contemporary artists engage with landscapes, broadly defined, exploring how our natural and built environments intersect with our representations of ourselves and our communities. The show aims to delve into how contemporary “landscapes” might better reflect the full diversity of the people who inhabit North and South America. Work by Adriana Varejão is included.

Adriana Varejão, Ruína de Charque–Vigário Geral (Vigário Geral Jerked–Beef Ruin), 2002 (detail), Dallas Museum of Art © Adriana Varejão

Adriana Varejão, Quadro Ferido (Wounded Painting), 1992 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega

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Adriana Varejão
Por uma retórica canibal

June 28–September 8, 2019
Museu de Arte Moderna Aloísio Magalhães, Recife, Brazil
blogmamam.wordpress.com

The exhibition seeks to emphasize that Adriana Varejão was already developing research on a historical revision of colonialism long before postcolonial studies were at the center of the contemporary art debate. The show features some twenty works, made between 1992 and 2016, that refer to Salvador, Bahia, the city with the largest African heritage in Brazil and the municipality that inspired much of Varejão’s poetics. This exhibition has traveled from the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia in Salvador, Brazil.

Adriana Varejão, Quadro Ferido (Wounded Painting), 1992 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega

Adriana Varejão, Big Polvo Color Wheel V, 2018 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Jaime Acioli

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Adriana Varejão in
Hinge Pictures: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension

March 14–June 16, 2019
Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans
cacno.org

Hinge Pictures: Eight Women Artists Occupy the Third Dimension takes its name from the writings of Marcel Duchamp in his La boite verte (1934). The artists in the exhibition use formal constraint—a commitment to abstraction—to demonstrate social liberation and to confront the patrimony of European modernism. Work by Adriana Varejão is included.

Adriana Varejão, Big Polvo Color Wheel V, 2018 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Jaime Acioli

Adriana Varejão, Proposal for a Catechesis—Part I Diptych: Death and Dismemberment, 1993 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega

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Adriana Varejão
Por uma retórica canibal

April 16–June 15, 2019
Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil
www.ipac.ba.gov.br

The exhibition seeks to emphasize that Adriana Varejão was already developing research on a historical revision of colonialism long before postcolonial studies were at the center of the contemporary art debate. The show features some twenty works, made between 1992 and 2016, that refer to Salvador, Bahia, the city with the largest African heritage in Brazil and the municipality that inspired much of Varejão’s poetics.

Adriana Varejão, Proposal for a Catechesis—Part I Diptych: Death and Dismemberment, 1993 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega

Installation view, Adriana Varejão: Kindred Spirits, Dallas Contemporary, September 20–December 20, 2015. Artwork © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Kevin Todora

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Adriana Varejão
Kindred Spirits

September 20–December 20, 2015
Dallas Contemporary
www.dallascontemporary.org

Adriana Varejão’s exhibition Kindred Spirits features twenty-nine portraits of the artist donning the face painting and body ornamentation of various Native American tribes intermixed with markings derived from artworks by Minimalist and contemporary American artists. Looking to art history—both Native American as well as within the Western canon—for inspiration, Varejão’s tableau weaves together distinct artistic traditions to emphasize the constant evolution and exchange of influences that shape culture and identity.

Installation view, Adriana Varejão: Kindred Spirits, Dallas Contemporary, September 20–December 20, 2015. Artwork © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Kevin Todora

Adriana Varejão, Figura de Convite III, 2005 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega

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Adriana Varejão

November 19, 2014–April 5, 2015
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
www.icaboston.org

Adriana Varejão’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States was a survey of her work from 1993 onwards. Underscoring the exhibition was Varejão’s interpretation of antropofagia, a key concept of Brazilian modernism, in which artists sought to “cannibalize” the symbolic and cultural contribution of the country’s colonizers, absorbing and transforming it to create a new Brazilian culture for the twentieth century. Varejão’s art, which projects a singular Baroque theatricality, is correspondingly rich with references to flesh, cartography, and miscegenation.

Adriana Varejão, Figura de Convite III, 2005 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega

Adriana Varejão, O Milagre dos Peixes (The Miracle of the Fish), 1991 © Adriana Varejão

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Adriana Varejão
Historias en los márgenes

April 10–June 10, 2013
Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires
www.malba.org.ar

This first survey exhibition of Adriana Varejão’s work, whose title translates to Stories on the Margins, presents the artist’s incisive reflections on the multiplex nature of Brazilian history, memory, and culture. Evident in her hybridization of mediums in manifold forms—including sculptural paintings and floor-based sculptural works—is the syncretism immanent to Brazil’s postcolonial identity. Varejão draws upon aesthetic traditions and a visual legacy resulting from transnational exchange, imperial and otherwise, to create a confluence of forms that she ultimately conceives as a metaphor for the modern world. This exhibition originated at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.

Adriana Varejão, O Milagre dos Peixes (The Miracle of the Fish), 1991 © Adriana Varejão

 Adriana Varejão, O mistico, 2005 © Adriana Varejão

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Adriana Varejão
Histórias às Margens

January 17–March 17, 2013
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro
www.mam.rio

This first survey exhibition of Adriana Varejão’s work, whose title translates to Stories on the Margins, presents the artist’s incisive reflections on the multiplex nature of Brazilian history, memory, and culture. Evident in her hybridization of mediums in manifold forms—including sculptural paintings and floor-based sculptural works—is the syncretism immanent to Brazil’s postcolonial identity. Varejão draws upon aesthetic traditions and a visual legacy resulting from transnational exchange, imperial and otherwise, to create a confluence of forms that she ultimately conceives as a metaphor for the modern world. This exhibition has traveled from the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.

 Adriana Varejão, O mistico, 2005 © Adriana Varejão

Adriana Varejão, Tea and Tiles II, 1997 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega

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Adriana Varejão
Histórias às Margens

September 4–December 16, 2012
Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo
mam.org.br

This exhibition, whose title translates to Stories on the Margins, examines Adriana Varejão’s practice as a whole. Through her vastly evocative works and materially diverse artistic strategies, Varejão presents incisive reflections on the multiplex nature of Brazilian history, memory, and culture. Evident in her hybridization of mediums in manifold forms—including sculptural paintings and floor-based sculptural works—is the syncretism immanent to Brazil’s postcolonial identity. Varejão draws upon aesthetic traditions and a visual legacy resulting from transnational exchange, imperial and otherwise, to create a confluence of forms that she ultimately conceives as a metaphor for the modern world.

Adriana Varejão, Tea and Tiles II, 1997 © Adriana Varejão. Photo: Eduardo Ortega