MASP looks at its own history

A museum’s history is not contained only in the works it owns. Histories of MASP, presented in São Paulo from 28 March to 3 August 2025, placed paintings beside photographs, posters, books and other records to examine how an institution had been assembled and used.

WAYFARER Brazil’s account described 74 collection works alongside material from the museum’s research centre. Curators Adriano Pedrosa, Regina Teixeira de Barros, Guilherme Giufrida and Laura Cosendey organised a chronological view beginning with MASP’s foundation in 1947.

Assis Chateaubriand, Pietro Maria Bardi and Lina Bo Bardi appeared as central figures in that formation. Early acquisitions, changes of address and the move to Avenida Paulista connected the collection’s development with the museum’s architectural and civic presence.

The archive also highlighted episodes that did not fit a narrow account of an art institution: a Dior fashion presentation in 1951 and political gatherings under the building’s open span decades later. These moments showed how the museum’s spaces could become part of public culture beyond exhibitions.

More recent acquisitions by artists including Maria Auxiliadora, Adriana Varejão and Anna Maria Maiolino broadened the chronology. Presented in the new Pietro Maria Bardi building, the exhibition linked expansion with reflection rather than treating a new address as a clean break. Its subject was an institution still being made, through decisions about objects, architecture and whose histories receive room.

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Adapted from the WAYFARER Brazil archive, first published 2025-03-26. English adaptation: 6 October 2026. This is an archival account, not a report of a new visit. Exhibitions, collections and menu details are described in their original context, not as current availability.