ExhibitionMarch 4, 2025
El Museo del Barrio inaugurates "Mestre Didi: Spiritual Form"
El Museo del Barrio in New York presents the exhibition “Mestre Didi: Spiritual Form,” which will take place from March 13 to July 13, 2025. The exhibition explores the work of sculptor, writer, and Candomblé priest Mestre Didi, who passed away in 2013. This is the first major exhibition of his work in the United States in 25 years.
Mestre Didi, born in Salvador, Brazil, in 1917, is recognized for transforming Candomblé ritual objects into artistic sculptures. His work merges traditional symbols, forms, and materials related to the orishas, the deities of this Afro-diasporic religion. Throughout his career, which began in the 1960s and continued into the 2010s, Didi played a key role in reinterpreting these objects, giving them a new artistic and spiritual dimension.
The exhibition, co-curated by Rodrigo Moura and Ayrson Heráclito, includes over 30 sculptures by Didi, as well as works by contemporary artists who share his interest in African visual languages, such as Emanoel Araújo, Rubem Valentim, and Goya Lopes, who created a textile installation especially for the exhibition.
The show will also feature an illustrated catalog with scholarly essays and writings by Mestre Didi himself, which will be published in English for the first time.
Mestre Didi, born in Salvador, Brazil, in 1917, is recognized for transforming Candomblé ritual objects into artistic sculptures. His work merges traditional symbols, forms, and materials related to the orishas, the deities of this Afro-diasporic religion. Throughout his career, which began in the 1960s and continued into the 2010s, Didi played a key role in reinterpreting these objects, giving them a new artistic and spiritual dimension.
The exhibition, co-curated by Rodrigo Moura and Ayrson Heráclito, includes over 30 sculptures by Didi, as well as works by contemporary artists who share his interest in African visual languages, such as Emanoel Araújo, Rubem Valentim, and Goya Lopes, who created a textile installation especially for the exhibition.
The show will also feature an illustrated catalog with scholarly essays and writings by Mestre Didi himself, which will be published in English for the first time.
