Paulo Monteiro
Courtesy of SKIRA
“What I like to do is work with materiality and with how my desire relates to matter. That frequency...which can be either in liquid or more solid form. Anyway, I think that’s my drive to make art. The clash with these materialities.”
The book will be Released on May 13, Paulo Monteiro ($70, 224 pages, 150 color illustrations, published by SKIRA) highlights the fascinating career of Monteiro who began his artistic journey at age sixteen, originally drawn to comic strips (born in São Paulo, 1961). Looking to Neo-Expressionists like Markus Lüpertz, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning for reference, Monteiro produces paintings, drawings, and sculptures marked by minimal, expressive gestures.
Courtesy of SKIRA
In 1982, he and some schoolmates formed a collective studio that would later be known as Casa 7. The group sought to reinvigorate Brazilian painting while embracing external influences, most notably the works of Philip Guston, the Transvanguardia movement, and more broadly Abstract Expressionism. During this period, Monteiro worked with strong and dense compositions on large paperboards. Following the dissolution of Casa 7, Monteiro experimented with various techniques, taking concepts he had been exploring to new processes and formal solutions. In response to the lasting effects of the Neo-Concrete movement, this period was marked by a deep investigation into the boundaries between drawing, painting, and sculpture—an exploration that would continue to inform his practice. His work on paper and canvas expanded to include objects and installations made from found materials such as iron, rubber, and wood, as well as sculptures cast in iron and lead. Continuously exploring the margins and limits of form, Monteiro delves into the possibilities of the line as an organic, dynamic, and yet controlled, principle. The line acts as both the trace of choreography and a boundary that demarcates different zones. The palette of his paintings oscillates between predominantly cool tones and strong, warm hues, at times, creating a strident contrast. Meanwhile, his sculptures displace handfuls of matter to create novel shapes that swell and crumble, resembling ever-transforming life forms.
Courtesy of SKIRA
His work is part of permanent museum collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Start Museum, Shanghai; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP), São Paulo; Museu de Arte Contemporânea de São Paulo (MAC SP), São Paulo; Pinacoteca de São Paulo, São Paulo; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM-RJ), Rio de Janeiro. Paulo Monteiro was included in two editions of the São Paulo Biennial, in 1985 and 1994; as well as in the Habana Biennial (1986), and the Cuenca Biennial (1997).
Courtesy of SKIRA
The book is edited by Germano Dushá, a curator, writer, and cultural agent. In the intersection of aesthetics, critical thinking, and esoteric traditions, his practice assumes multiple forms—as curatorial, literary, and hypermedia experiments—to investigate social imaginaries and dwell on the energy fluxes connected to radical subjective experiences and transmutation processes. He will be the cocurator of the 38th Panorama of Brazilian Art of the Modern Art Museum of São Paulo - MAM-SP (5 October 2024 – 26 January 2025) and he is currently the coordinator of Fora, a pluri-disciplinary organization founded in 2018 that works with cultural manifestations and institutional strategies.
Courtesy of SKIRA
