The Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) have established a major partnership. In the next two years, both institutions will exchange a significant selection of key works from their respective collections. These works will be exhibited at both museums in the radical glass easel display system designed by Italian Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi (1914-92).
The first step of this partnership will be unveiled on April 4, 2019, when a group of 18 works from the MCA Collection will be installed at MASP, in the context of the Brazilian museum’s collection exhibition called Picture Gallery in Transformation and displayed in Bo Bardi’s iconic glass easels. The selection includes works by Gertrude Abercrombie, Forrest Bess, Louise Bourgeois, Miriam Cahn, Marlene Dumas, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Wifredo Lam, Sherrie Levine, René Magritte, Kerry James Marshall, Marwan, Roberto Matta, Gladys Nilsson, Christina Ramberg, Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman, Dorothea Tanning, Andy Warhol, among others.
“It is quite special for us to bring in such an extraordinary selection of 18 key works from the MCA Collection to MASP, displaying them in Lina Bo Bardi’s iconic glass easels and in close dialog with our holdings,” MASP artistic director Adriano Pedrosa stated. “This will give us and our public the opportunity not only to look at new works but also to understood our own holdings in fresh ways, in the spirit of our ever changing Picture Gallery in Transformation, the title of our exhibition of our collection.”
In June 2020, works from MASP will be on view at the MCA, in the context of the exhibition Lina Bo Bardi: Habitat, co-organized by the MASP, the MCA and the Museo Jumex, in Mexico City. The selection includes works by Tarsila do Amaral, Maria Auxiliadora da Silva, Agostinho Batista de Freitas, Paul Cézanne, Francisco Goya, Frans Hals, Anita Malfatti, Amedeo Modigliani, Candido Portinari, Claudio Tozzi, Alfredo Volpi, among others.
Picture Gallery in Transformation: MCA Chicago at MASP will be on view from April 4, 2019 through January 2020