Brazil Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale bets on the dialogue between Adriana Varejão and Rosana Paulino

The Fundação Bienal de São Paulo unveils the curatorial project for the Brazil Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. It is a proposal that sheds institutional rhetoric and moves toward a sensorial, dense, image-driven experience.

'Comigo ninguém pode', conceived by Diane Lima, brings into an unprecedented dialogue the trajectories of Rosana Paulino and Adriana Varejão. From May 2026 onward, the artists will fully occupy the pavilion with an installation-based exhibition that pushes against the building’s own modern architecture — reconfigured by the exhibition design of Daniela Thomas in close collaboration with the curatorial team and the artists.

Da esquerda para a direita: Diane Lima, Rosana Paulino e Adriana Varejão. (Wallace Domingues/Rodrigo Ladeira/Tinko Czetwertynski/Fundação Bienal de São Paulo/CASACOR)

The starting point is the plant popularly known as comigo-ninguém-pode — a species whose toxicity has turned it, in the Brazilian domestic imagination, into a symbol of protection and resilience. It is from this ambivalence that the backbone of the project emerges: an investigation into the intersections among nature, history, and spirituality. By breaking the linearity of time, the show superimposes more than three decades of the artists’ production, bringing colonial wounds into proximity with processes of metamorphosis, memory, and fabulation.

(ReportArch/Andrea Ferro Photography/CASACOR)

The title also echoes a drawing from Paulino’s series Senhora das plantas, while Varejão, in her paintings, pushes the limits of representation by simulating materialities — from concrete to flesh, from baroque carving to ceramics — until reaching the botanical element. “The project invites us to connect to a frequency that opens up the possibility of seeing the transcendent in the visible,” says Diane Lima. “By evoking this energy, Comigo ninguém pode reflects on the manifestations of faith and spirituality in Brazilian culture, highlighting their relationship with nature and more-than-human dimensions, rebuilding the walls of memory and assigning new meanings to colonial ruins.”

An exhibition as a composition

Adriana Varejão. Anjo encarnado, 2026. Óleo e gesso sobre tela. © Adriana Varejão. (Vicente de Mello/CASACOR)

The curatorship is constructed as a composition, almost musical, in which the works are organized through overlays, tensions, and symbolic, chromatic, and material proximities. Paintings, sculptures, and drawings coexist with new large-scale productions developed especially for the pavilion. “My greatest challenge was to present them as a single voice, full of harmonies and dissonances, like in jazz,” Lima comments. “An experience that is more performative and sensorial than didactic about our history.”

Rosana Paulino, da série Búfala, 2019. Aquarela e grafite sobre papel. © Rosana Paulino. (EstudioEmObra/CASACOR)

In this territory, Paulino returns to the figure of the Black woman as a matrix of continuity: “In works such as Aracnes and Ninfa tecendo o casulo, I think of this woman as a weaver of life and memory, who draws from her own body the matter to sustain permanence.” Varejão, in turn, emphasizes the direct dialogue with the building: “The paintings are distributed in an unpredictable way, assuming an installation character and making the building an active part of the work.”

Adriana Varejão. Parede com incisões à la Fontana (Istambul), 2011. Óleo sobre tela e poliuretano sobre suporte de alumínio e madeira. © Adriana Varejão. (Vicente de Mello/CASACOR)

For Andrea Pinheiro, the convergence between curatorship and artists “consolidates a landmark project for Brazil’s presence in Venice,” reinforcing the institutional commitment to a contemporary participation connected to the global debate.

Architecture in restoration

(ReportArch/Andrea Ferro Photography/CASACOR)

Designed by Giancarlo Palanti, Henrique Mindlin, and Walmyr Lima Amaral in 1964, the Brazil Pavilion recently underwent a restoration process led by the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Divided into three phases, the intervention ranged from structural repairs to the reinstatement of original elements — such as the lateral glass walls and the facade —, and was completed in early 2026.

With the support of institutional partners and sponsors, the project reaffirms the Bienal as a platform that articulates memory and contemporaneity — a space where Brazil projects itself, simultaneously, as reflection and construction.

Service

Brazil Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

• Exhibition: Comigo ninguém pode

• Curator: Diane Lima

• Artists: Adriana Varejão and Rosana Paulino

• Venue: Giardini della Biennale, Venice

• Pre-opening: 5–8 May 2026

• Open to the public: 9 May to 22 November 2026