The Pinacoteca de São Paulo is hosting the first leg of a touring retrospective of Colombian artist Beatriz González, featuring nearly 100 works from across her career. The exhibition, co-curated by Pollyana Quintella and Natalia Gutiérrez, takes an art-historical reading from the perspective of the Global South and highlights González's direct confrontation with Colombia's history of violence, as well as her engagement with kitsch and popular culture. The show will travel to the Barbican Art Gallery in London and the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo in 2026.
This retrospective matters because it underscores a resurgence of interest in Latin American women artists, particularly those who lived under oppressive political regimes. González, who participated in the 11th Bienal de São Paulo in 1971 but received little recognition due to a boycott against Brazil's military dictatorship, is now receiving her first solo presentation in Brazil. The exhibition also helps fill a gap in scholarship by exploring affinities between González's practice and Brazilian Pop art movements like Nova Figuração, reinforcing a Latin American viewpoint in art history.