During Black Consciousness Month, the capital of São Paulo presents exhibitions that lead to debate about the history of the black population in Brazil, in addition to addressing racism and all violence resulting from slavery. Artists Sérgio Adriano H and Sonia Gomes are highlights of the São Paulo program, on display at the Banco do Brasil São Paulo Cultural Center (CCBB) and the Tomie Ohtake Institute, respectively.
The exhibition CORpo MANIFESTO, by artist Sérgio Adriano H, is on display at CCBB, with more than 100 works that question historical narratives about blackness and black identity in Brazil. Entry is free and lasts until February 9th of next year.
The exhibition brings together works related to the history, memory and struggle of black people in Brazil. The artist uses the body as a platform for resistance and political expression, to address structural racism, decoloniality and the construction of an empowered black identity. Celebrating 25 years of history, this is the artist’s first major solo exhibition.
An unprecedented installation, in showcases in the CCBB Annex Space, presents a proposal for art that overflows the museum.
“The showcase becomes an extension of my work, which seeks to take art everywhere. The idea is to create a direct connection with people who do not feel invited to enter cultural spaces”, stated Sérgio Adriano H, in a statement.
“It is art beyond the walls that goes beyond the limits of space, expectation, color, creed, social class. It is this power that moves me, goes beyond the walls of the museum and reaches people on the streets”, he added.
For curators Juliana Crispe and Claudinei Roberto da Silva, the exhibition reflects an urgent call for the country’s history to be revisited, in addition to giving new meaning to the function of art in contemporary times by addressing themes of great social relevance.
“May this exhibition be a manifesto for the history of Brazil, which needs to be interrogated and reconstructed, activating education as a field of action and transformation. May each person who visits CORpo MANIFESTO be able to question their role and reflect on their role in the processes of change in this society”, pointed out Crispe.
Sonia Gomes – Baroque
The exhibition Sonia Gomes – Barroco, on display at Instituto Tomie Ohtake until February 8, 2026, highlights the relationship between the work of the contemporary artist from Minas Gerais and the Brazilian baroque tradition, also recognizing in this legacy the marks of suffering caused by structural violence in a country with a colonial and slave history. The exhibition has already visited Ouro Preto and Salvador, cities considered fundamental to the Brazilian Baroque.
Curated by Paulo Miyada, artistic director of Tomie Ohtake, the project begins with a reflection on the Brazilian Baroque as a testimony to the work, technique and art of African and Afro-Brazilian people, highlighting how the artist’s work condenses and updates this heritage in the current context.
The exhibition brings together around 80 works, including materials from the artist’s studio, which brings aspects of her creative process to an exhibition space for the first time. Through combinations of fabrics, lines, ropes, wires and everyday materials, she builds sculptures and installations that give new meaning to the tradition of manual craftsmanship and establish bridges between body, territory, ancestry and invention.
According to the curator, by recognizing herself as the heir of the Brazilian Baroque, “Sonia Gomes encourages us to think of the Baroque as something more than an artistic style established in Europe and transplanted, with distortions and contradictions, to other geographies. This is an unfinished story, even unfinishable, and the artist is one of its protagonists, claiming beauty to haunt the world and dismantle its authoritarian myths of purity, unity and progress.”
