Best of the Year: Check Out the Most Voted Exhibitions of 2025

A public poll with over 8,500 votes has determined the top ten exhibitions of 2025 in Brazil. The number one spot went to conceptual artist Ana Amorim's show at MAC USP, followed by Goya Lopes' exhibition at MAM Bahia in second place. Other notable entries include a group show "Floresta de Espíritos" in Salvador, Thiago Martins de Melo's first solo exhibition in his hometown São Luís, and the Monet exhibition at Masp, which broke visitation records with 502,642 visitors. A special highlight is "Memórias do Inconsciente" by Jhonyson Nobre at Sesc Arapiraca, the only exhibition outside the initial shortlist to make the top ten. Maria Bonomi at Paço Imperial received the most votes according to public comments as a bonus.

The Big Review | 36th Bienal de São Paulo ★★★★

The 36th Bienal de São Paulo has opened with a site-specific installation by Nigerian-American artist Precious Okoyomon, titled "Sun of Consciousness. God Blow Thru Me – Love Break Me" (2025), which features a spiraling path of moss-covered earth and waterfalls evoking Brazil's deforested Cerrado region. The biennial, curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung with an international team, includes 125 artists—97 international and 28 Brazilian—with more than half of the works commissioned for the exhibition. Notable presentations include a career-spanning display of over 20 paintings by British artist Frank Bowling, alongside works by Brazilian artist Gervane de Paula, who has the largest presence in the show.

With its 36th edition, Bienal de São Paulo seeks to ‘exhibit silence’

The 36th Bienal de São Paulo, titled *Not All Travellers Walk Roads—Of Humanity as Practice*, takes its name from a poem by Afro-Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo. Chief curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, alongside curators Alya Sebti, Keyna Eleison, Anna Roberta Goetz, and Thiago de Paula Souza, has organized an edition featuring 125 artists, 28 of whom are Brazilian. The biennial includes a new performance program called Tributaries, created with the cultural center Casa do Povo, and debuts on September 5, 2025, with the public run from September 6, 2025 to January 11, 2026.

Agitate, Educate, Organize. A Conversation with the Indonesian Collective That Is in Venice with Two Projects

Agitare, educare, organizzare. Una conversazione con il collettivo indonesiano che è a Venezia con due progetti

Sale Docks, an activist art space born from a 2007 occupation in Venice, has invited the Indonesian collective Taring Padi to collaborate on two projects. The first is the exhibition "Taring Padi: People's Liberation," which reactivates banners as tools for propaganda, mobilization, and resistance. The second is a public intervention in Venice, where the collective and local community will repaint the walls of the historic social center Laboratorio Occupato Morion. The article includes an interview with Taring Padi, which was founded in 1998 in Yogyakarta by students and activists, and discusses their use of wayang shadow-puppet imagery and collaborative processes to agitate, educate, and organize communities.