For the 2026 edition of ArPa, Rodrigo Matheus presents a solo project that expands his longstanding interest in the notion of “time before present,” a scientific time scale used to date events following the chemical alteration of the globe caused by nuclear experiments. Together, the works unfold as a narrative field in which images and materials traverse thresholds between origin and aftermath, the natural and the constructed. At the center of the booth, an installation made of steel splinters and synthetic hair brings the organic and the industrial into proximity, forming a tableau where multiple temporalities converge and drift. Along the walls, smaller-scale works expand this vocabulary through drawings and graphisms that cite cave paintings, archaic pictograms, and moments from modern art history, negotiating their autonomy within transitive and saturated images.
Throughout the presentation, scenes emerge and dissolve: prehistoric landscapes populated by dinosaurs, echoes of cave paintings, floral still lifes, and open landscapes. These images are traversed by elemental events such as eruptions and tornadoes, in which form appears momentarily suspended. Between deep time and the immediacy of the image, the works stage a continuous passage in which what is ancient and what is yet to come remain in silent and unstable proximity.
Rodrigo Matheus, a São Paulo-born artist based in Paris, creates sculptures and installations from specialized devices and instruments displaced from their habitual uses. In dialogue with fabrics, branches, and wool, these elements become the material of a contemporary archaeology. The artist has dedicated himself to investigating the technical and symbolic transformations that shape contemporary temporality, articulating a subtle critique of technology, industrial logics, and the forms of life embedded in material culture.
Among his most recent solo exhibitions are Antes do presente, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo, Brazil (2024); A Blow Through The Gap, Ghisla Art Foundation, Locarno, Switzerland (2019); and Hiato, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo, Brazil (2018). He has also participated in group exhibitions such as 1981–2021 Arte Contemporânea Brasileira na Coleção Andrea e José Olympio, CCBB Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2021); A Máquina do Mundo: Arte e indústria no Brasil 1901–2021, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (2021); AAA Antologia de Arte e Arquitetura, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, São Paulo, Brazil (2020); Cities in Dust, Carpintaria, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2020); and Passado Futuro Presente: arte contemporânea brasileira no acervo do MAM, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2019).
The artist’s works are held in important public collections, including Instituto Inhotim, Brumadinho, Brazil; Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil; Collection Lea Weingarten, Houston, Texas, United States; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; macLYON, Lyon, France; Tiroche DeLeon Collection, Gibraltar, United Kingdom; and Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
