João Modé Born 1961 in Resende, Brazil

Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Modé’s artistic practice is characterized by the versatile way in which he handles visual language. In doing so, he uses a wide spectrum of diverse media. Arising from the artist's great interest in space, construction and temporality, his video works, photographs, fabrics and large- scale installations often have an essential symbiotic relationship with their spatial and temporal surroundings. They intervene subtly with the architectonic space around them and unfold through the combination and bringing together of (everyday) objects or first come into being through their interaction with their specific local public. Modé's constructed visual language links up directly with the legacy of Brazilian Constructivism and Neo Concretismo of the 1950s and 1960s. Like his predecessors, Modé experiments with an art that poses certain sensuous and emotional challenges to the beholder, integrates daily routine into art and awakens a subtle feeling for the poetry of forgotten or ignored things of everyday life.

Since 2000 Modé’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions all over the world. Among the most recent exhibitions are “Paninhos – a dialogue with the MAC collection” at MAC, Museu de Arte  Contemporânea in Rio de Janeiro (2020). His works were also shown in the group show “Troposphere” at MAM, Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro (2020). Other important institutional exihibitions include Les Calanques, FRAC Marseille (2018), the Istanbul Offsite Project Bahar for the Sharjah Biennial 13, Istanbul (2017); Panorama da Arte Brasileira, MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo (2017); the Trienale of Aichi, Nagoya, Okazaki and Toyohashi, Japan (2016); João Modé: Algumas coisas que estão comigo, A Gentil Carioca Gallery (2015), João Modé: O Passado vem de frente numa brisa, Museu do Açude, Rio de Janeiro (2015); João Modé: Land, die raum, Berlin (2014); Projeto REDE at MAC – Museu de Arte Contemporanea, Rio de Janeiro (2014); Tout est la, Pavillon Carré de Baudouin, Paris (2013); the travelling exhibition The Spiral and the square, SKMU, Sorlandets Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand (2012), Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Trondheim (2012) and Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2011). Modés works are, among other places, in the collections of MAM - Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, MAM - Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and FRAC Bretagne.