We are pleased to present Planos de expansão [Plans for Expansion], a group show featuring 13 artists on the gallery’s team. The show is structured on two main axes that at times confront and at times merge into each other; architecture and urbanity on one side, abstraction and geometry on the other side.

The works by Franz Ackermann, Luiz Zerbini and Sarah Morris deconstruct elements of architecture. In the painting Torrada, by Zerbini, volumes are overlaid in a pattern of interlocking shapes that form a large vanishing point. The surface of the canvas is activated by white gaps that lend the image a virtual nature. On Ackermann’s canvas one can see details of fragmented buildings in a centerless, accelerated composition. In Praça da Apoteose, by Morris, the title reveals the reference to Niemeyer, which would otherwise be discreet and abstract. The relation between abstraction and history is at the center of the artist’s production and is evident in the collage Black Tie, where the same forms by Niemeyer are overlaid to the American poster for the film Eles não usam Black-tie, by Leon Hirszman.

Armando Andrade Tudela presents a sculpture that suggests a rigid construction where materials of a corporative nature, like acrylic, are mixed with jute. This work, like the video by Rodrigo Cass, makes reference to Brazilian neoconcretism and Hélio Oiticica’s pavilions, constructed by planes of color. For its part, Gabriel Lima’s painting Leste, transits between abstraction and signification, forcing us to adopt a point of view. The work has a white flag overlaid and stretched on a wooden panel, also white.

The works Forma, by Rodrigo Matheus, and Les Actualités, by Marine Hugonnier trace an explicit dialogue between the city and abstraction. Marine counterposes a photo of the World Trade Center to an abstract sculpture, while Matheus reinforce the geometric abstraction present in construction companies logo’s through out the city.

The city as a setting, theme, starting point, or expanding plan is the common thread in this show that features works by Armando Andrade Tudela, Cerith Wyn Evans, Franz Ackermann, Gabriel Lima, Iran do Espírito Santo, Julião Sarmento, Los Carpinteros, Luiz Zerbini, Marine Hugonnier, Mauro Restiffe, Rodrigo Cass, Rodrigo Matheus and Sarah Morris.