Exhibitions

Language as matter: Nelson Felix and the poetics of encounter

bonart sao paulo - 29/06/26

The Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC USP) presents Beijo de Língua , an exhibition that brings together decades of research by Brazilian artist Nelson Felix and confirms his place as one of the most singular voices in contemporary Latin American art. Far from offering a conventional retrospective, the exhibition proposes a journey through an artistic philosophy that understands artistic creation as a continuous process of relationships between language, matter, time, and territory.

The starting point of the exhibition, which runs until November 29, seems almost anecdotal: in 1978, Felix discovered that the words *aemara* (Aymara in Spanish) and *arameia* (Aramaic) form a palindrome. However, this linguistic coincidence became an intuition that the artist held onto for almost five decades, eventually transforming it into the conceptual axis of the exhibition. More than a word game, the palindrome functions as a metaphor for the encounter between cultures, languages, and forms of knowledge that reflect each other without ever fully coinciding.

The central core comprises three sculptures made from excavated marble slabs, bearing inscriptions by authors fundamental to Felix's intellectual universe. The texts address essential themes such as creation linked to sacrifice, love understood as an experience that permeates the body, and the possibility of building a life based on tolerance. These pieces find their continuation in Beijo de Língua (Kiss of Language) , a work in which these thoughts are reinscribed in Aramaic and Aymara, establishing a mirrored dialogue between the two languages. The visible presence of the adhesive that joins the fragments is not merely a technical decision; it becomes an aesthetic statement that affirms the fragility of the encounter, making it clear that every union retains the traces of its differences.

On the ground floor, the Vazio Coração series delves into one of the most consistent principles in the artist's work: the rejection of compositions focused solely on visual perception. Instead, Felix develops a practice where formal decisions emerge from systems of measurement related to the body, geography, or even astronomy. The result is works that shift attention from appearance to the invisible relationships that organize our experience of the world.

The tour continues on the mezzanine with a large collection of drawings that reveals the artist's creative laboratory. Far from being preparatory studies, these pieces constitute an autonomous space for experimentation where materials, procedures, and ideas reappear and transform over time. As Felix himself has pointed out, drawing is his true language: the place where thought takes shape before materializing in sculpture or installation.

Taken together, sculptures, drawings, and photographs form a single field of inquiry where language, matter, and time cease to be independent categories and become inseparable dimensions of a single reflection. Nelson Felix's work avoids immediate impact, demanding instead a slow contemplation capable of recognizing the invisible connections between seemingly distant elements. It is precisely this resistance to spectacle that endows Beijo de Língua with an intensity rarely seen in the contemporary art scene.

The choice of the MAC USP as the venue for this exhibition is particularly significant. Within the context of a university museum, artistic research finds a natural space for development, where experimentation and critical thinking are integral to the exhibition experience itself. The program is further enriched by talks, meetings, and mediation activities that extend the dialogue between the artwork and the public, reaffirming the museum's role as a place for knowledge production, not merely for exhibition.