Curators Raquel Barreto and Phelipe Rezende on Rubem Valentim’s search for a visual language rooted in Afro-Brazilian cosmologies, modernist abstraction and the possibility of a universal order.
30 June 2026
Few artists have reshaped the language of Brazilian modernism as profoundly as Rubem Valentim. Spanning more than four decades, his practice brought together geometry, symbolism and spirituality to forge a visual vocabulary grounded in African and Indigenous cultural matrices while reaching beyond the limits of national identity. In ‘Rubem Valentim: a ordem do sensível’, curators Raquel Barreto and Phelipe Rezende trace the artist’s journey across cities, ideas and belief systems, revealing how his search for structure, clarity and transcendence continues to resonate today. Barreto and Rezende speak on the abstraction, sacred knowledge and the enduring relevance of Valentim’s vision.
The exhibition introduces Rubem Valentim as an artist who defied the boundary between local identity and global modernism. Why does this concept remain significant today?
We are talking about a global art history that is still deeply marked by differences and by the persistence of historical and cultural patterns related to the regional, social, class, and gender experiences of artists – a constitutive feature of modernism and, consequently, one of its most enduring legacies. The lack of diversity in the international art system continues to reflect these hierarchical structures, making exhibitions that promote debate on this issue essential and that, through their narratives, encourage the circulation of new ways of thinking, perspectives, and approaches to seeing art.
The trajectory of Rubem Valentim is especially significant. His production was rooted in the cultural tradition embedded in his local reality, while simultaneously engaging with universal questions and achieving a global dimension, transcending geographical, cultural, and symbolic boundaries. His work demonstrates how situated experiences can generate visual languages capable of establishing broad connections and actively participating in international artistic debates.
Presenting this exhibition is also a way of encouraging young artists and diverse audiences to recognise within themselves the capacity to cross boundaries, challenge established limits, and imagine new places of belonging and creation in the art world.
Valentim spoke about using geometry to search for clarity and spiritual meaning. When curating works that are both abstract and deeply connected to Afro-Brazilian belief systems, what specific goals or intentions guided your process?
It should be emphasised, first of all, that although Afro-Brazilian culture and belief systems constitute the central axis of Valentim’s artistic production, they were not the only references mobilised in his work. The selection presented here is largely based on the theory formulated by the artist himself and expressed in his Manifesto, in which he proposes a worldview constructed through dialogue between different cultural, symbolic, and religious matrices. Even though the Afro-Brazilian heritage is the foundation of his visual and conceptual language, his work also reveals an openness to other traditions of thought and spirituality, incorporated in a singular way into his artistic repertoire.
The way Valentim observed everyday life and interpreted different cultural references guided the geometric path he developed throughout his career. His interest in the sensory articulated systems of belief, visual codes, and diverse symbolic structures, transforming them into a distinctive visual language. In this process, geometry was not merely a formal solution, but an instrument capable of materialising relationships between the visible and the invisible, between spiritual experience and aesthetic construction. Symmetry, recurrent in his work, emerges as an expression of a search for order, balance, and transcendence, bringing together different cultural universes while never losing sight of the centrality of the Afro-Brazilian matrix that underpins his poetics.
As the exhibition traces Valentim’s journey through Salvador, Rio, Rome, and Brasília, reflect on how these cities shaped his artistic language and way of thinking.
The “contribution” of the cities through which Valentim passed occurred simultaneously through his interest in local cultures and his constant search for a state of suspension. The artist described himself as someone “tremendously restless and substantially emotional,” His time in these cities actively contributed to his creative processes. For example, in Salvador, inspiration came from certain childhood memories, the city’s architecture, popular markets, popular Catholicism, and Candomblé. In Rio, he became more closely connected to the rituals of Umbanda. In Rome, he encountered African art from various parts of the continent in European museums, but especially noteworthy is his participation in the Dakar Festival in Senegal in 1966, which brought him even closer to different African cultures—references that, in many ways, informed his paintings. In Brasília, the city’s monumentality and modernity, combined with his own artistic trajectory, led him toward three-dimensional works that emerged from his existing paintings, as well as toward this stage’s best-known works. Throughout this process, the artist participated in exhibitions, art salons, and biennials, taught art in Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, and recorded his creations in notebooks. Each city contributed to giving his artistic language its original character and reflecting its own time period.
Afro-Brazilian artists are often reduced to folklore or cultural symbolism. How does The Order of the Sensitive address and potentially overturn these limited readings of Valentim’s work?
There is a “naturalized” understanding that Black artistic production is limited to representations of popular themes linked to Afro-Brazilian cultures, in many cases, figurative works with little theoretical or aesthetic depth. These artists are often placed within the subcategory of naïve or folk art. This perception is presented as if it were permanent, a “fixed” difference. In the exhibition, we present Valentim through his own theoretical propositions, his theses published in his Manifesto, albeit late, in 1976. Throughout the exhibition, we emphasise that his work is the result of extensive study, and is not limited to traditional artistic movements, and formally explores an abstract and geometric dimension. All of this is considered in relation to Afro-Brazilian cultural elements and aspects. With this, we aim to present audiences with the work of a Black artist who demonstrates, intellectually, a highly structured artistic trajectory.
Valentim’s work draws on African and Indigenous cultural traditions while speaking a universal visual language. How did you intend to balance these ideas for viewers throughout the exhibition?
Throughout the exhibition, we explain in the texts a little about each of the references. Valentim drew on to shape his language. In this way, visitors can see how the artist used African and Indigenous cultural traditions in Brazil, while also incorporating symbols and codes from other cultural and religious matrices. Our intention was to construct and present, together with the public, nucleus by nucleus, and in a gradual manner, the artist’s creative processes.
Templo de Oxalá stands out as a major moment in the exhibition. What does this work reveal about Valentim’s understanding of spirituality and sacred space?
The work can perhaps be understood as the synthesis of Valentim’s sensory, spiritual, and geometric experience. The first studies for the installation date from 1970, and the artist only presented it as completed seven years later, at the 14th São Paulo Biennial. It is as if the artist’s references, especially those from Candomblé and Umbanda, were synthesised in the sculptures. At the same time that he conceptually develops the representation of different Orixás, the artist reaches a formal peak by constructing sculptures nearly three meters high. The monumentality of the pieces, the ensemble formed by their arrangement, and the colour white create an atmosphere of suspension, capable of translating order and sensibility into three-dimensional objects.
Valentim described his work as a search for a “sensitive order.” What was your intent in letting this idea inform both the exhibition design and the visitor experience?
We believe that two factors were important in encouraging this perception of a sensorial order. The first was the distribution of spaces divided by a colour palette specifically designed for each section. We used colours and tones that approximate those employed by the artist in each city, as well as colours that could support the works, allowing them to “rest” and receive proper emphasis. The second factor was the number of works displayed on each panel. The exhibition design proposes a model that suggests a geometry characteristic of the artist, contributing to a more immersive experience, and the limited number of works per panel allows visitors to appreciate them without haste, enabling a more careful reading of each piece. The sculptures, in turn, present their own order, but are likewise structured in a way that maintains the idea of order.
How does presenting Valentim’s work now position him as central to Brazilian modernism rather than as a rediscovered Black modernist?
Valentim’s work emerged at a time when nothing quite like it was being produced, although many critics and art historians attempted to label his output. Among these classifications, Valentim was read as abstract, concrete, or constructivist, or even as a “terreiro artist,” someone who would have “merely” transposed into the field of visual arts the artistic practices of the terreiro. However, despite these attempts at categorisation, the artist himself rejected any classification, since his creative and artistic process drew on references that were not guided by these movements. His way of translating and representing his references into an originally Brazilian visual language grants Valentim the status of an important figure in the history of Brazilian art.
This exhibition is on view at Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro until 2 August 2026.
