Antonio Társis – 36th Bienal de São Paulo

For the 36th Bienal de São Paulo — Not all travellers walk roads: Of humanity as practice, Antonio Társis presents Orchestra Catastrophe: Act I, an installation composed of fragments of matchboxes, instruments, charcoal, ropes, and electronic components, arranged around a suspended structure. The space operates as a zone of ruin and collision between matter, rhythm, and memory, an open field where noise and friction mechanisms activate sonic reactions. At the center of the installation, a drum is rhythmically struck by moving charcoal pendulums, activated by a mechanical automation system. The charcoal shatters with each impact, producing a sonic collapse and graphic stains on the drumheads, marked by repetition and erosion, evoking cycles of destruction and survival.

View of Antonio Társis’ installation at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo © Eduardo Ortega

In this work, Társis extends his broader practice of adopting the reprocessing of quotidian objects as a compositional and critical tactic. Matchboxes, fruit crates, and fragments of charcoal—materials recurrent in his oeuvre—are chosen precisely for their fragility and disposability, serving as visible registers of time’s effects. Their faded tones, brittle surfaces, and broken textures expose processes of erosion and loss, while also opening a space for re-inscription through collage, drawing, and mechanical transformation. By layering new systems of abstraction and sound over the intrinsic meanings of these objects, Társis mobilizes them as metaphors for the instability of memory, both individual and collective, within contexts of social degradation and physical transformation.

Orchestra Catastrophe: Act I stages a choreography of collapse: each shattering impact of charcoal on the drum not only produces noise but also renders audible the fragility of matter as a record of lived time. The installation becomes a living assemblage in which destruction, rhythm, and renewal are inseparable, proposing art as a field where the volatility of everyday materials mirrors the precarious cycles of survival in the contemporary world.

View of Antonio Társis’ installation at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo © Eduardo Ortega

Detail of Antonio Társis’ installation at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo © Eduardo Ortega

View of Antonio Társis’ installation at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo © Eduardo Ortega

Detail of Antonio Társis’ installation at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo © Eduardo Ortega

The 36th Bienal de São Paulo is led by General Curator Prof. Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, together with his team of co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, and Thiago de Paula Souza, as well as at-large co-curator Keyna Eleison.

September 6, 2025 — November 1, 2026
Parque Ibirapuera, São Paulo, Brazil