ExhibitionMarch 17, 2025
Collection in Focus | Beatriz Milhazes: Rigor and Beauty
Beatriz Milhazes: Rigor and Beauty is the second installment in the exhibition series Collection in Focus, which highlights the museum’s permanent collection. The series is part of a reinvigorated effort to make the Guggenheim New York’s world-renowned holdings more accessible to the public.
The early paintings in this exhibition, primarily from the museum’s collection—such as Santa Cruz (1995), In albis (1995–96), and As quatro estaçōes (The Four Seasons, 1997)—draw inspiration from the opulence of 18th-century Brazilian Baroque colonial churches and ornamental garments. Milhazes synthesizes these influences into abstract and representative motifs, with circles and arabesques, delicate crochet and lace, flowers and floral patterns, and ornate pearls and ironwork emerging throughout her compositions. By 2000, she began exploring optical effects in her paintings, using linear repetitions to create undulating patterns and visual rhythms, as seen in Paisagem carioca (Carioca Landscape, 2000), O cravo e a rosa (The Carnation and the Rose, 2000), and O Caipira (The Caipira, 2004).
The works on paper presented at the show, created between 2013 and 2021, demonstrate Milhazes’s continued experimentation with collage. She combines mass-produced elements like branded shopping bags, chocolate bar wrappers, and patterned paper with cutouts from her own solid-colored screenprints to create intricate patterns and bold abstract configurations.
Milhazes’s recent paintings, including Mistura sagrada (Sacred Mixture, 2022), mark a shift toward exploring the spiritual power of nature in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although references to the natural world have been present since her early career, here she delves into cycles of renewal—life and death—through colorful, angular forms and intricate patterns. Organic elements, reflective of the artist’s proximity to Rio de Janeiro’s Botanical Garden, Tijuca Forest, and Copacabana Beach, are echoed in the harmonious geometries, conceptual systems, and chromatic universes that span her oeuvre.
The exhibition is organized by Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães, Curator, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, New York.
For more information visit: https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/beatriz-milhazes
The early paintings in this exhibition, primarily from the museum’s collection—such as Santa Cruz (1995), In albis (1995–96), and As quatro estaçōes (The Four Seasons, 1997)—draw inspiration from the opulence of 18th-century Brazilian Baroque colonial churches and ornamental garments. Milhazes synthesizes these influences into abstract and representative motifs, with circles and arabesques, delicate crochet and lace, flowers and floral patterns, and ornate pearls and ironwork emerging throughout her compositions. By 2000, she began exploring optical effects in her paintings, using linear repetitions to create undulating patterns and visual rhythms, as seen in Paisagem carioca (Carioca Landscape, 2000), O cravo e a rosa (The Carnation and the Rose, 2000), and O Caipira (The Caipira, 2004).
The works on paper presented at the show, created between 2013 and 2021, demonstrate Milhazes’s continued experimentation with collage. She combines mass-produced elements like branded shopping bags, chocolate bar wrappers, and patterned paper with cutouts from her own solid-colored screenprints to create intricate patterns and bold abstract configurations.
Milhazes’s recent paintings, including Mistura sagrada (Sacred Mixture, 2022), mark a shift toward exploring the spiritual power of nature in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although references to the natural world have been present since her early career, here she delves into cycles of renewal—life and death—through colorful, angular forms and intricate patterns. Organic elements, reflective of the artist’s proximity to Rio de Janeiro’s Botanical Garden, Tijuca Forest, and Copacabana Beach, are echoed in the harmonious geometries, conceptual systems, and chromatic universes that span her oeuvre.
The exhibition is organized by Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães, Curator, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, New York.
For more information visit: https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/beatriz-milhazes
