A Creative Confluence

If the Royal Academy’s recent Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism gave you a hunger to know more about Brazil’s art scene, then your next stop should be Paris. Taking place at Le Corbusier’s Maison La Roche, ABERTO4 (on until 8 June) is the fourth iteration of Brazilian art adviser Filipe Assis’ series of shows, all of which take place in modernist architectural masterpieces. The first three were in São Paulo, so the Parisian event marks international expansion – and reflects the growing interest in Brazil’s 20th-century and contemporary art markets.

Maison La Roche seems like the perfect venue for Assis’ latest venture. Located in the quiet and well-heeled Jasmin neighbourhood, it was completed a century ago for Raoul La Roche, a Swiss banker with a penchant for collecting cubist works; the architecture was therefore always intended to be at one with the art within it. It even has its own gallery, with clerestory windows and a curving ramp that creates what Le Corbusier called an “architectural promenade” to a mezzanine and library above.

Le Corbusier’s links with Brazil also made this venue a natural choice. The Swiss-French architect first visited the country in 1929 and his ideas had a “profound influence on Brazilian modern architecture,” says Assis, especially through his work in the 1930s as a consultant on Rio’s Ministry of Education and Health, designed by Lúcio Costa, with a young Oscar Niemeyer interning on the project. “Bringing ABERTO to a Le Corbusier house is not just about exhibiting art in a beautiful space – it’s about revisiting and honouring a crucial moment of cross-cultural architectural exchange,” says Assis.

As with all ABERTO’s events, “the Maison La Roche is not just a backdrop – it shapes how the works are seen,” continues Assis, who worked with the Brazilian curators Lauro Cavalcanti, Kiki Mazzucchelli and Claudia Moreira Salles to realise the show. In the entrance hall, a soaring space that splits the ‘gallery’ and ‘family’ parts of the house, Luiz Zerbini’s specially commissioned new painting Hotel Holiday recalls Le Corbusier’s unité d’habitation in Marseille, with its brightly painted inset balconies; Zerbini’s work is trisected by two tree trunks, breaking up the architectural rhythm.

Colour is a recurring theme at the show, picking up on Le Corbusier’s theories of ‘architectural polychromy’ to define and enhance the architectural experience, and put into practice at Maison La Roche. “Sandra Cinto has made a piece that reflects the flow of movement in the building, using delicate lines and a restrained colour palette that mirrors the transitions between spaces,” says Assis. “Luisa Matsushita worked with Le Corbusier’s purist palette – her paintings use tones like beige, blue and grey in abstract compositions that feel naturally integrated with the house’s interior.”

In the gallery, the grey-blue of the long, fin-like lighting-strip-cum-brise-soleil picks up on the palette of abstract works by Hélio Oiticica and Aluísop Carvã. Marina Perez Simão’s oil on linen Untitled (2024), with its enquiring and expressive use of colour, finds resonance with the sienna-coloured walls of the dining room, which also contains a 1952 bronze by Maria Martins, one of the surrealist movement’s leading sculptors. Oscar Niemeyer’s sinuous 1974 Marquesa bench, in a limited-edition red version, sits on the first-floor walkway that unites the house’s two wings.

Le Corbusier’s own art (usually eclipsed by his architectural achievements) also has an echo in some of the works on show. Beatriz Milhazes’ collage, A Valsa das Folhas II (The Waltz of the Leaves II) and Luísa Matsushita’s Ostra 2 (Oyster 2) both have the block colour, playfulness and cut-out shapes of many of his paintings.

Assis says that ABERTO’s approach, seamlessly uniting art, design and architecture, “allows us to create exhibitions that explore intersections rather than stick to rigid categories. These moments, where the architecture and the artwork reinforce each other, are what give this edition of ABERTO its strength.”

The mix of specially commissioned contemporary pieces that respond to the architecture with some of the great names of the last 70 years helps us to see the arc of where Brazilian art has come from, and where it is heading. Assis says that the Brazilian art market is evolving, and that “interest is growing steadily – both institutionally and commercially,” thanks to high-profile shows like the Royal Academy’s, plus Brazilian galleries becoming increasingly visible internationally.

“There’s still a lot to be discovered and understood about the depth of Brazilian production,” says Assis, “but I wouldn’t say it’s underrated anymore.”