Maria Laet

Brazilian artist, lives and works in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Her works rub together subtle dynamics with elements of nature such as air, time, light and energy, which constitute a unique glossary. With breath, the artist creates an inventory of listening and actions that link earth and body to timeless experiences. The dialogue with multiple materialities, the breathing space between volumes of life, habit, balance, intuition and fluidity are expanded in photographs, installations, sculptural objects and videos, which manifest in Maria's work as a singular sensorial experience. In her empirical studies, the artist points to oscillation, freedom, gestures and memories that are diluted between silences and noises, cycles that curve one body or stretch layers of another. The density of the multiple spaces of the city is rearranged by the artist, who with an ephemeral handling transforms what she touches into seams and plots crossed by fugacity and extensions.

In 2023, the artist participates in the exhibition “Chosen Memories: Contemporary Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift and Beyond”, at MoMA. In 2022, she participated in the 37th Panorama de Arte Brasileira and took part in the group shows “Selon notre Regard" at Trafó Art Center, Budapest, "Pelas Frestas" at Galeria Marilia Razuk in São Paulo and "Espelho Labirinto" at CCBB Brasília. In 2021, she participated in the show "Bum bum praticumbum" at A Gentil Carioca in São Paulo. In 2019, she held the solo exhibitions “Almost a nothing” at the Instituto de Arte Contemporânea de Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, in France and at Galeria 3+1 in Lisbon, and “Sobrecéu” at Galeria do Lago - Museu da República in Rio de Janeiro. , Brazil. Maria Laet participated in the group shows “Matters of Concern”, at the Foundation D'entreprise Hermès, Brussels, “Apuntes para un tiempo geológico” at the Ángeles Baños Gallery, Spain, “Play-list 2” at the Martine Aboucaya Gallery and “Correspondance, autour de Jacques Roubaud” at Galeria Martine Aboucaya, both in France, “I Remember Earth” at Magasin des Horizons, Center National d'Art Contemporain, in Grenoble, “Bauhaus: Utopia in Crisis”, at Camberwell Space, Camberwell College of Arts, London, “Tecer Mundos”, Sesc Quitandinha, in Petrópolis and “Da Linha, o Fio”, at the BNDES Cultural Space, in Rio de Janeiro. She participated in the 33rd Bienal de São Paulo in 2018 and the 18th Bienal de Sydney in 2012. She held an artistic residency at “Residency Unlimited” in New York in 2014, at “Carpe Diem Arte e Pesquisa” in Lisbon in 2010 and at “Schloß Balmoral” in Germany in 2009.

Her work is part of the collections of MAM Rio, Gilberto Chateaubriand, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; MAC Niterói, Brazil; 49 Nord 6 est – Frac Lorraine, Metz, France; MSK, Ghent, Belgium; Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection; AGI, Verona, Italy; Maria Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation, Madrid, Spain; Figueiredo Ferraz Institute, São Paulo, Brazil; MoMA, New York; Special Collections, The Getty Research Institute; Rare Books and Special Collection, Princeton University; The Bienecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Ivorypress Artist's Books Collection, Madrid; Uría Menendez Collection, Spain; MAR, Rio de Janeiro.

Artist website