Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel and Quadra are pleased to present A conspiração dos ícones [The Conspiracy of Icons], a group exhibition curated by Tarcísio Almeida at Carpintaria, Rio de Janeiro. The exhibition’s curatorial focus and conceptual link between the artists ” aim to understand the artistic process and the artwork not so much as an act of shaping materialities through discourse, but as an exercise of listening and resonance through matter according to its agency, information, and trans-historicity,” says Almeida.

The show gathers twelve artists from different regions of Brazil whose works weave a network of relationships between territories, traditional knowledge, and contemporary techniques, or between material limits and uses, highlighting contexts and situations relevant to the national scene. 

The sculptural practices of Allan da Silva, Daniel Jorge, Gilson Plano, Iagor Peres, and Manuela Costa Lima articulate history, thought, form, enchantment and architecture towards a reworking of visible regimes, while the works of Brendy Xavier and Matheus Chiaratti give physical form to different manifestations of desire. Reiterating the curatorial emphasis that understands abstraction as a political tool, Arorá, Carla Santana, and Rubiane Maia create spatial relationships that invite an active and silent engagement with experience. Finally, Marcelo Pacheco and Thomaz Rosa articulate specific tensions within painting and expand their surfaces to accommodate critiques and challenges to its historical and conceptual status.

This collaborative project reinforces the cooperative nature of the two galleries’ programs and aims to contribute to the formation of a contemporary art audience in Rio de Janeiro. Most of the participating artists are part of Quadra’s program, with others invited specifically for the exhibition. All of them received the artistic and curatorial support of Tarcísio Almeida, who was part of the curatorial team for the 35th Bienal de São Paulo – Choreographies of the Impossible from 2022 through 2023. The curator works closely with Quadra, developing a support program as one of the gallery’s missions. The invited artists not only hold conceptual relevance within the focus of the exhibition but also actively engage in a dialogue with Tarcísio.