At Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Tatiana Blass transforms painting into an unfolding encounter with matter, time, sound and the hidden processes behind what we see.
30 September 2026
What happens before an image takes shape, and what continues after it appears? In ‘Stage Crew’, Brazilian artist Tatiana Blass turns attention towards the processes, materials and gestures that usually remain behind the scenes. Curated by Ana Roman and Lahayda Mamani Poma, the exhibition brings together around 50 works produced between 2008 and 2026, alongside a significant group of previously unseen pieces.
Painting remains the foundation of Blass’s practice, yet here it refuses to stay within the canvas. Sculpture, installation, video, performance, glass, bronze, wax and ceramics expand her investigation into matter, space, light and time. Across the exhibition, materials melt, shift and respond to their surroundings, allowing transformation itself to become part of the work.
The title borrows from theatre, referring to those who work behind the scenes to make a performance possible. Blass adopts this theatrical logic to foreground what precedes and sustains the image. Two stages integrated into the exhibition design further blur distinctions between artwork, architecture and audience.
Rather than presenting images as fixed conclusions, ‘Stage Crew’ invites viewers into a world continually becoming, where silence, movement and material remain suspended between what has happened and what is still to come.
This exhibition is on view at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo until 25 October 2026.
