Brazilian duo debuts their art in China
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E-mail China Daily, January 15, 2021
With lighthearted music, anti-gravity balloons adorned with smiley faces, glitter, pompoms and fairy-tale imagery, the exhibition, You Are My Guest, at the Fosun Foundation Shanghai is one that will likely have visitors smiling throughout.
The exhibition is the first by Osgemeos, which means "the twins" in Portuguese, in China and features a wide range of artworks including paintings, sculptures, installations and videos by Brazilian twins Octavio and Gustavo Pandolfo.
"The artists wanted to create a bright, lively and fun atmosphere with the background music," says Song Jiaran, a member of the curatorial team at Fosun.
"They want to invite audiences to be guests in their fantasy world."
In a video message to audiences, the brothers say that their art is meant to create a fantasy world that people can step into and recall their childhoods.
The artworks on display, adds Song, have been influenced by the street art, pop and youth culture that were prevalent in Brazil during the twins' growing up years in the 1980s.
Since they were born, the duo has developed their own way of playing and communicating with each other through artistic languages. The brothers first fell in love with pop music, making hip-hop music and taking up breakdancing as teenagers with the encouragement of their parents.
The streets where they played also became their classroom, and it was there that they explored various techniques of painting, drawing and sculpture. Through years of graffiti creation, Osgemeos built a universe of their dreams and inspirations.
In the past few years, the duo's works have been exhibited across the world, in the Mattress Factory Museum in Pittsburgh in the United States, the Museu do Pontal in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the Museum Het Domein in Sittard in the Netherlands. They have also been commissioned to create large public projects such as the HangarBicocca in Milan, Italy, and the Times Square Advertising Coalition's Midnight Moment project, Parallel Connection, in New York.
A group of large balloon-like structures with human faces painted on the surface, like bubbles emerging from the ground, greet audiences at the entrance of the exhibition hall on the second floor of Fosun Foundation Shanghai.
"They represent all human beings with no differentiation of race or nationality," Song says."The artists invite everybody to be their guest."
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