Throughout his work, Ivens Machado associated the brutality of matter with primordial biological tensions and constructive strategies drawn from vernacular architecture. The use of obsolete building materials and the deliberate unfinishedness of his pieces liken them to ruined bodies, imbued with organic and naturalistic allusions. Iron, broken glass, concrete, and debris, employed as compositional elements, mount an attack on the presumed purity of art in the modern era. During the Brazilian military dictatorship, Machado also produced filmed performances that staged scenes of torture, racial conflict, and mummification, articulating a violently political dimension of his practice—one in which notions of paralysis, exhaustion, and concealment come to the fore. His process extended to drawing as well, particularly in works that document the dismantling of ruled notebook grids using corrosive substances, subjecting the pictorial support to a method of sabotage. Across his oeuvre, Machado establishes a circuit between the human body, in its constitutive vulnerability, and the sculptural body, in its inherent instability.

Among his recent solo exhibitions are Ivens Machado & Harmony Hammond, auroras, São Paulo, Brazil (2025); Ivens Machado, Carré d’Art – Musée d’Art Contemporain de Nîmes, Nîmes, France (2025); Tucci Russo, Torino, 1983, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel | Carpintaria, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2023); Ivens Machado, MON – Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brazil (2019); Ivens Machado, Andrew Krepps Gallery, New York, USA (2019); Corpo e Construção, Carpintaria, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2018); Ivens Machado, MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2016); O Cru do Mundo, Pivô, São Paulo, Brazil (2016). The artist took part in the group shows Vai, Vai Saudade, MADRE – Museu d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, Napoli, Itália (2024); Building Material: Process and Form in Brazilian Art, Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles, EUA (2017) e On the Edge: Brazilian Film Experiments of the 1960s and Early 1970s, MoMA – Museum of Modern Art, Nova York, USA (2014)

The artist has works in important public collections, such as Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, Netherlands; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; MAC USP – Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; MAR – Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Blanton Museum of Art – The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA; Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil; MAC – Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói, Niterói, Brazil; MAB – Museu de Arte de Brasília, Brasília, Brazil; MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil; Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Palazzo Di Lorenzo, Gibellina, Italy.