December arrives with a powerful cultural agenda in São Paulo. See what deserves to be on your itinerary in the last month of the year.
Submitted at Dec 4, 2025, 8:00 AM
Trabalho de Carnaval- Pinacoteca ( Levi Fanan/CASACOR)
The month also marks the last weeks of the São Paulo Art Biennial, the last chance to visit one of the most important events in the Brazilian circuit. On stage, several productions continue to attract audiences in the city's theaters, reinforcing December as a period of strong cultural activity.
Next, check out the main highlights to explore culture in the São Paulo capital this year-end.
The MIS (Museum of Image and Sound) inaugurates the unprecedented exhibition The Human Soul, You and Jung's Universe, in honor of the 150 years of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. The exhibition proposes an immersive experience through the human psyche, exploring three dimensions: pedagogical, sensory, and provocative.
A alma humana, você e o universo de Jung. (Divulgação/CASACOR)
The CASACOR and the Park exhibition presents photos, videos, and texts that record the interventions made in the buildings and gardens during the 2025 edition, highlighting CASACOR's care with historic heritage, sustainability, and dialogue with the community. Installed in the Farmer's House at Parque da Água Branca, the event runs until December 14, always on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
(Reprodução/CASACOR)
(Fran Parente/CASACOR)
Ending the 2025 calendar, the Pinacoteca presents “Carnival Work”, a collective exhibition featuring works from 70 artists from different generations. With about 200 works including props, records, and unprecedented projects, the exhibition reveals Carnival as a production chain that unites creativity and the often invisible work behind the festival.
Trabalho de Carnaval- Pinacoteca (Levi Fanan/CASACOR)
The exhibition brings together the 19th and 21st centuries by revisiting the legacy of Jean-Baptiste Debret, especially "Voyage pittoresque et historique au Brésil", through the interpretations of 20 contemporary Brazilian artists. Curated by Jacques Leenhardt and Gabriela Longman, the exhibition places the iconography of the Brazilian Empire in dialogue with current reinterpretations that question the slavery past and propose new visual narratives.
Obra “Arqueiro digital” (2017), de Denilson Baniwa (Divulgação/CASACOR)
Japan House São Paulo presents the exhibition "Infused with the Forces of Japan's Forests - Masters of Carpentry: Skill and Spirit", which introduces the public to the tradition of Japanese carpentry. Curated by Marcelo Nishiyama, the exhibition highlights Japan's deep relationship with its forests and reveals how master carpenters, guided by respect for nature, develop refined techniques that do not require the use of nails or metal.
(Marina Melchers/CASACOR) (David Barkan/CASACOR)
At IMS Paulista, a set of about 200 photographs taken by Agnès Varda (1928–2019) between the 1950s and 1960s is presented, in dialogue with her cinematographic work. Many of these images, never exhibited before, document her travels through China, Cuba, France, Portugal, and the United States, revealing the sensitive and observant gaze of the Franco-Belgian filmmaker and photographer on everyday life, politics, and the people she encountered throughout her trajectory.
The exhibition "Radical Imagination: 100 years of Frantz Fanon", at the Museum of Favelas, celebrates the legacy of Martinican thinker Frantz Fanon and his influence in the 20th and 21st centuries. Bringing together more than 130 works from artists from eight countries, the exhibition relates his ideas to contemporary art, highlighting themes such as identity, body, territory, and dreams. Organized in four axes, it invites the public to reflect on imagination as a tool for social transformation.
Aycoobo, “Calendario”, 2025 - Histórias da Ecologia- MASP (MASP/CASACOR)
In the year Brazil hosts COP30, the MASP presents Stories of Ecology, an exhibition that broadens the debate on the climate crisis by exploring the relationships between humans and more-than-humans. Gathering 116 artists, mostly from the Global South, the exhibition proposes connections between different territories and reflects on the impacts of colonialism, environmental racism, and capitalism on the relationship between society and nature.
After her participation in the CASACOR São Paulo 2025, Juliana dos Santos now occupies the Pina Contemporânea with the exhibition “Temporã”, on display until February 8, 2026. The first artist selected by the new residency of the Pinacoteca in partnership with Chanel, Juliana presents an installation that investigates natural pigments and their transformation over time, highlighting the blue extracted from the flower Clitoria ternatea.
Juliana dos Santos: Temporã - Pina Contemporânea (Levi Fanan/CASACOR)
Until January 11, 2026, the public will have the opportunity to visit the 36th São Paulo Biennial – “Not every traveler walks roads – On humanity as practice”. For the first time, the exhibition will last four months, bringing together 125 artists from different countries. Inspired by the poem On Calmness and Silence, by Conceição Evaristo, this edition is curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, alongside Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza, Keyna Eleison, and Henriette Gallus.
Bienal de Arte- Parque Ibirapuera (Levi Fanan/CASACOR)
The play tells the story of a 60-year-old retired woman, whose quiet routine changes when she rents a room to a younger actor - transforming her life and provoking reflections on aging, intergenerational relationships, and social taboos, with humor and sensitivity.
This classic musical theater, emblematic of the hippie movement of the 60s/70s — with music, protest, freedom, and counterculture spirit — gets a new rendition in Brazil, directed by Charles Møeller & Cláudio Botelho. The production marks the reopening of the BTG Pactual Hall (formerly Teatro Alfa).
Hair- O Musical (André Wanderley /CASACOR)
