Jarbas Lopes’s wide-ranging practice spans painting, sculpture, drawing, artist’s books, installation, and performance. Since the 1990s, he has developed a body of work that values manual and collaborative processes, creating situations in which the public is invited to interact with the works and become an active part of the artistic experience.
His ecological sensibility, linked to an investigation of the relationships between body and culture, gives rise to sensory and utopian projects that explore the possibilities for encounters between art and life. Interested in art’s potential as a catalyst for transformation, Lopes proposes symbolic exchanges, community engagement, and the invention of new ways of living in the world.
Lopes graduated in Sculpture from the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in 1992. His solo exhibitions include Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica (Rio de Janeiro, 2024); Pinacoteca de São Paulo (2023); A Gentil Carioca (Rio de Janeiro, 2023, 2017, 2013, and 2008); MAR – Museu de Arte do Rio (Rio de Janeiro, 2022); Luisa Strina (São Paulo, 2017 and 2009); CRAC Alsace (Altkirch, France, 2017); Tilton Gallery (New York, 2013 and 2010); and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Santiago, 2010).
Selected group exhibitions include Brazil, Beleza?!, Museum Beelden aan Zee (The Hague, 2016); 11th Lyon Biennale (2011); Panorama da Arte Brasileira, MAM São Paulo (2011 and 2001); 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008); 27th São Paulo Biennial (2006); and 8th Havana Biennial (2003), among others.
His work is held in public and institutional collections including the ASU Art Museum (Tempe); Bronx Museum of the Arts (New York); Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection, MAM Rio (Rio de Janeiro); Fundación ARCO (Madrid); Instituto Inhotim (Brumadinho); MAM Rio (Rio de Janeiro); MoMA (New York); Museu de Arte da Pampulha (Belo Horizonte); TBA21 – Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (Vienna); Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation – CIFO (Miami); and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), among others.