Rubem Valentim is one the most relevant Brazilian artists of the twentieth century. Over more than four decades of creation, he developed a plastic-visual-signographic language with universal appeal, created with geometric compositions and colour combinations in dialogue with Brazilian cultural matrices, especially those of African and Indigenous origins.
The originality of his work is the result of his opposition to narrow definitions of Brazilian culture. In contrast to dominant views that limited artistic practice to a choice between local experience and global ambition, Valentim sought to reveal a universal quality inside the local, which transcends the local without negating it. In this way, he created an original synthesis in which difference, order and meaning exist side by side.
This synthesis operates simultaneously in semantic, formal and chromatic terms. In 1976, Valentim discussed the search for a sensitive order in his Manifesto ainda que tardio (Manifesto, Albeit Late). “Geometry is a means. I seek clarity, the light of light”, he wrote. Reflecting on his own work, he identified an organisation of experience: “[…] I am a terribly restless and substantially emotional person. Perhaps that is precisely why I avidly seek, in the plastic-visual language that I use, a sensitive, contained, structured order.”
The exhibition follows the artist’s work through the geographic displacements which directly or indirectly contributed to the development of his language. Starting in Salvador, where he was born, it continues through Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Brasilia and São Paulo – places where he lived, revised working processes, expanded his repertoire and consolidated his practice. Finally, there is Templo de Oxalá (Oxalá Temple), a work that represents, in form, theme and scale, the culmination of his artistic project.
Rubem Valentim: the Order of the Sensitive features more than 180 works from important institutional and private collections from different regions of Brazil, and was developed in collaboration with the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia and the Museu Afro Brasil Emanoel Araujo.
The exhibition dedicated to Rubem Valentim at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro reasserts the relevance of initiatives that promote access to art and the recognition of trajectories that are fundamental to Brazilian culture. As a sponsor of MAM Rio, Petrobras contributes to the continuity of a programme that values a diversity of artistic languages and perspectives.
The work of Rubem Valentim establishes a unique dialogue between the constructivist tradition and Afro-Brazilian symbolic matrices, developing a vocabulary of its own that expands the possibilities for understanding Brazilian art. His production remains current by challenging aesthetic and cultural boundaries, inviting the public to new forms of interpretation.
By sponsoring MAM Rio, Petrobras reinforces its commitment to culture as an essential part of social development, fostering access, critical reflection and the preservation of Brazilian artistic memory.
We wish everyone an enriching experience.
