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OSGEMEOS

Silence of the Music

New York

Sep 8–Oct 22, 2016

Installation view by OSGEMEOS

536 West 22nd Street

New York

Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce Silence of the Music, the Brazilian artist duo OSGEMEOS’ first New York solo show with the gallery. Twin brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo will transform multiple rooms into an immersive installation that combines drawing, painting, collage, mixed media sculpture, and kinetic and audio elements. These newest works represent an evolution of the style OSGEMEOS has honed over decades, while also returning to their early experimentation with diverse mediums, including new oil paintings. This exhibition will offer a heightened multi-sensory experience that embraces the power of human imagination and the vast possibilities in visually interpreting the subconscious.

Installation view of OSGEMEOS at Lehmann Maupin New York
Installation Views: 1 of 4
Painting by OSGEMEOS

OSGEMEOS

The Moon, 2023

Sculpture by OSGEMEOS

OSGEMEOS

O Beijo (The Kiss), 2015-2016

Painting by OSGEMEOS

OSGEMEOS

The sunset, 2019

Rug work by OSGEMEOS

OSGEMEOS

Where we come from, 2016

Painting by OSGEMEOS

OSGEMEOS

South Bronx, 2017

Painting by OSGEMEOS

OSGEMEOS

Momentos mágicos (Magic Moments), 2015

Installation view of OSGEMEOS at Lehmann Maupin New York
Installation Views: 1 of 3

Books and Editions

Portrait of OSGEMEOS

OSGEMEOS (b. 1974, São Paulo, Brazil; live and work in São Paulo, Brazil), translated as “the twins" in Portuguese, is a collaborative art duo comprised of twin brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo. As children, the brothers developed a distinct way of playing and communicating through artistic language, but it was with the invasion of hip-hop, and the explosion of Brazilian culture during the 1980s that OSGEMEOS began to use art as a way of sharing their dynamic and magical universe with the public. Combining traditional, folkloric, and contemporary elements of Brazilian culture with graffiti, hip-hop, music, dreams and international youth culture, the artists have created an expansive body of work that includes murals, paintings, sculpture, site-specific installations, and video. They use a symbolic visual language often inspired by their dreams that, as twins, they claim to share. In addition to the use of bright colors and elaborate patterns, they are best known for their paintings that feature long-limbed yellow-skinned figures with thin outlines, enlarged faces, and simplified features. The yellow skin color indicates a universal figure, rather than a direct reference to a specific race or culture, which reflects the highly diverse population of Brazil and the world. The use of doors, canvas and mirrors, both literal—painting directly on discarded doors and incorporating reflective surfaces into their works—and as motifs, signal access to another realm or an entry point to the psyche, pulling viewers into their surreal and chimerical world.

Solo exhibitions of OSGEMEOS’ work have been organized by The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (2024); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil - Belo Horizonte, Belo Horizonte, Brazil (2023); Centro de arte contemporáneo de Málaga (CAC Málaga), Málaga, Spain (2022); Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brazil (2021); Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (2020); Storage by HyundaiCard, Seoul, South Korea (2020); Fosun Foundation, Shanghai, China (2020); Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN (2019); The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2018); Museu Casa do Pontal, Rio de Janeiro, (2015); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA (2012); Berardo Collection Museum, Lisbon (2010); and Museum Het Domein, Sittard, Netherlands (2007).

Learn about the artist
Silence of the Music | Lehmann Maupin