A wide and rich panel of national art from the 20th century and today, awaits the visitor to the Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Art . With more than 1,800 m² of area and filled with around 170 works from the Museum’s collection on a permanent basis, the Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Art exhibits some of the most expressive names in modern and contemporary artistic production, including recent donations incorporated into the MNBA collection .
The space is divided into two floors, housing paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and installations. On the 2nd floor, the exhibition concentrates works from the beginning until the end of the 20th century, while the 3rd floor of the Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Brazilian Art exhibits works produced from the 80’s until today.
20th centuryThe visual delight is provided by works by icons such as Goeldi, Carlos Oswald, Lasar Segall, Di Cavalcanti, Portinari, Zélia Salgado, Fayga Ostrower, Pancetti, Abraham Palatnik, most recently arriving at Vanda Pimentel, Daniel Senise, Gonçalo Ivo, Rubem Ludolf, Manfredo Souzaneto, Luis Áquila, Sergio Fingerman, Tomie Ohtake, among many other significant authors.
Curated by technicians from MNBA, the Gallery of Modern Brazilian Contemporary Art is endowed with modern museological language in which the exhibition is set up in a chronological orientation, containing thematic nuclei aimed at dialogue with contemporary art.
New Languages
The collection, currently in formation, has the mission of acquiring, researching and exhibiting the institution’s collection of contemporary art, particularly with regard to the new languages that appear in our art history of the last century. It also turns to act in the discussion and in the dissemination of artistic creation in the world today, especially in the Brazilian scenario, considering its varied forms and promoting reflection on issues that concern contemporary culture. In this way, it intends to present manifestations that promote recent artistic forms or that still echo as essential references in the current Brazilian production, reflecting the changes in art and culture in favor of contemporary creation. The collection incorporates languages such as video, installation, performance, object, project, artist’s book, as well as other hybrid media.
Brazil National Museum of Fine Arts
The National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA) is an art museum located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It concentrates the largest collection of works of art of the 19th century, being one of the most important museums of its kind in the country.
Located in the historical center of Rio de Janeiro in an eclectic architecture building designed in 1908 by the architect Adolfo Morales de los Rios to host the National School of Fine Arts, heir of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, the National Museum of Fine Arts / Ibram / MinC was built during the urban upgrades carried out by Mayor Pereira Passos in what it was then the Federal Capital of the country.
Created officially in 1937 by the decree of President Getúlio Vargas, it occupies an area of 18,000 m2 and is the most important art museum in the country. It brings together a collection of seventy thousand items among paintings, drawings, engravings, sculptures, objects, documents and books, constituting itself as a radiating center of knowledge and dissemination of Brazilian art.
The museum’s collection began with the set of works of art brought by Dom João VI, in 1808, and was expanded throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries with the incorporation of the National School collection and other acquisitions, and today it has about 15,000 pieces, including paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints by Brazilian and foreign artists, as well as a collection of decorative art, furniture, folk art and a set of pieces of African art.
The bicentennial Collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts originated from three distinct sets of works: the paintings brought by Joaquim Lebreton, head of the French Artistic Mission, who arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1816; the works belonging to or produced here by members of the Mission, among them Nicolas-Antoine Taunay, Jean-Batiste Debret, Grandjean de Montigny, Charles Pradier and the Ferrez brothers; and the pieces of the Collection D. João VI, left by him in Brazil when returning to Portugal in 1821. These collections have been enriched by important donations and acquisitions, such as the bust of Antínoo, a rare marble archaeological piece donated by the Empress D. Teresa Cristina to the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in 1880.