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Thiago Rocha Pitta

Thiago Rocha Pitta

1980, Tiradentes, Brazil
Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, and Petrópolis, Brazil

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Thiago Rocha Pitta’s research is anchored in the investigation of elements from the natural realm on a macro or microcosmic scale. His works have the concept of entropy at their core and have an implicit dilated temporality, such as that inherent in nature’s transformations, creating silent and sometimes surreal situations.

Using languages such as video, photography, sculpture, public interventions, as well as watercolors and frescoes, the artist creates works in which, sometimes, weather conditions as well as organic and geological actions act as “co-authors”, and sometimes he draws images into narratives that overlap temporalities, pointing out the permanence of the extractivist ethos in historical and current events. The symbiotic relation between Rocha Pitta’s sculptures and installations and nature and the landscape is fully realized at the Abismo Foundation, located in Petrópolis, in a region of the Atlantic Forest, where Pitta lives and maintains his studio.

Thiago Rocha Pitta began his artistic career in 2000, after moving to Rio de Janeiro and attending art, philosophy, and aesthetics courses at UFRJ and EAV Parque Lage. He was awarded the Marcantonio Vilaça Prize in 2005 and the Open Your Mind Prize in Switzerland in 2009. In 2014, he took part in the Circulating AiR artist residency program in Norway.

Among his solo shows are The First Green, in 2018, Ocean/Atlas, in 2014, Saudades da Pangeia, 2011, and Calmaria, from 2008, all of them at Millan. In addition, he held The Torment of Cabral, Simões de Assis, São Paulo, in 2022; Opening Night, MAM, Rio de Janeiro; Hugo França & Thiago Rocha Pitta: Tropical Molecule, Marianne Boesky Gallery, Aspen, in 2019. Among his noteworthy group exhibitions are Chosen Memories, at the MoMA, New York, in 2023; Planet B: Climate Change & the New Sublime, Palazzo Bollani, Venice, in 2022; Brazilian Histories, MASP, São Paulo, also in 2022; Passado/Futuro/Presente, at the MAM, São Paulo, in 2018; 30th Bienal de São Paulo, in 2012; J’en Rêve, Fondation Cartier pour L’art Contemporain, Paris, in 2005. His works are featured in the collections of MoMA, New York; Colección Jumex, Ciudad de México; MAM, São Paulo; MAM, Rio de Janeiro; Instituto Inhotim, Brumadinho; ThyssenKrupp, Vienna; and Hara Museum, Tokyo.

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