The Design Sector returns to SP-Arte’s 13th edition with nine new exhibitors and a project space dedicated to leading Brazilian architects. Launched last year, the section highlights Brazil’s long history of design, and offers visitors a unique opportunity to view and acquire locally produced signature pieces by iconic names such as Oscar Niemeyer, Lina Bo Bardi, Jorge Zalszupin, Sergio Rodrigues and the Campana Brothers.

Characterized by the local landscape, which boasts an abundance of wood and natural resources, Brazilian modern and contemporary designs are distinguished by skillful woodwork. Exhibitors in Design, focus on the individuality of authorial design and its evolution over time in furniture, objects, and antiques. The galleries will present colonial, modern and contemporary pieces that have contributed to the consolidation and sophistication recognized in Brazilian design today.

The nine newcomers welcomed by SP-Arte in the Design section this year are: Apartamento61, Ary Perez, By Kamy, Estúdio Mameluca, Herança Cultural, Paulo Alves, Prototyp&, Rafael Moraes, and Resplendor. Herança Cultural’s booth traverses the history of Brazilian furniture through a father and son duo. The gallery will be showing rare pieces by Zanine Caldas and the more contemporary and urban interaction created by his son Zanini de Zanine, who is also responsible for the concept of the space.

Zanine Caldas will also be shown at Apartamento 61 and Teo. The former, a gallery based in an exquisite modernist house designed by Italian-Brazilian sculptor Victor Brecheret, presents historical and vintage pieces. Lovers of Brazilian modernism will find pieces by Lina Bo Bardi, the iconic architect responsible for the São Paulo Museum of Art (Masp) building. In addition to being an architect, Bo Bardi was an accomplished furniture designer, set designer and artist. Her work will be shown at both Artemobilia and Etel, with Etel reissuing six pieces that she designed in the 1940s.

Etel’s booth will also feature the Artist’s Cabinet of Curiosities, a special collaboration with the artist, Carlos Vergara, who will present a reliquary of monotypes on handkerchiefs, photographs, keepsakes and memoirs that the artist carried with him on his travels to places such as Cappadocia, Santiago de Compostela and Pompei. Paired together, the objects and furniture engage in a conversation that crosses borders and tells a story. In addition to Lina Bo Bardi, specifically her iconic bowl chair, Artemobilia will bring Geraldo de Barros’ iconic bookcase designed for Unilabor. Through this juxtaposition, the gallery presents the duality in Brazilian modernism, the rationality of geometric forms established in the 1920s alongside the biomorphic sensuality developed in the 1940s second wave of modernism.

In contrast, Firma Casa will bring a collection breaking against modernist paradigms, beginning with the pieces designed by the Memphis Group, founded by Ettore Sottsass, with its colorful, asymmetrical shapes and plastic material. Exploring the local and contemporary answer to modernism, Firma Casa will have the Campanas Brothers newest work, the mirror-lamp Kaleidos,inspired by the geometric forms in artist Lygia Clark’s famous Bichos sculptures. Furniture by the contemporary collective Hillsideout will also be on view. The works by the German-Italian duo were produced during an artist residency program offered by the gallery in 2016, and will present their utilitarian transformations of antique design.

Pé Palito and Passado Composto Século XX offer a selection of Brazilian and international design from the 20th century. Pé Palito will focus on the Brazilian furniture of the 1950s, 60s and 70s: pure lines, geometry, polished surfaces of Jacaranda, in contrast to organic elements and unusual objects of memory.

Passado Composto Século XX will feature the hand-woven tapestries developed by the Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz, in a unique technique interlacing various materials in a system of lines and knots. The work entitled Helena participated in the VIII São Paulo Biennial of 1965. Magdalena is one of the main representatives of the Polish tapestry school and was instrumental in the New Tapestry movement in the world. Looking toward Brazil’s design heritage and objects, exhibitors Sandra & Marcio, Itamar Musse, and Resplendor will showcase rare and exceptional antiques from colonial times.

On the contemporary scene, Ary Perez brings a fresh perspective. The designer, artist, and set- designer will launch his first collection of furniture and objects, inspired by the biodiversity found in Brazilian mangroves. Hugo França will also showcase 15 new sculptures made from recycled trees. Returning to SP-Arte with their whimsical and dynamic pieces, Ovo will introduce six previously unseen furniture pieces by Luciana Martins and Gerson de Oliveira that look at the past 25 years of the studio’s authentic design practice.

Jacqueline Terpins will feature only new works at SP-Arte. The pieces refer to the rock formations and geological movements of the Earth. Materials such as quartz, wood, corten steel, carbon and stainless steel, besides blown glass, record the time of this constant life that occurs in the various layers of terrestrial soil. Driven by both the social and functional aspects of design, Estúdio Mameluca presents the series Symbiotic Objects, where the tension of the object adapts to the space it occupies. Through this new series of objects, Mameluca presents solutions for a more harmonious coexistence with nature.

Projetos de Arquitetos [Architects’ Projects], the Design sector’s newest space will show works by renowned architects such as Arthur Casas, Dado Castello Branco, Lia Siqueira, Isay Weinfeld, Felipe Crescenti, Pedro and Paulo Mendes da Rocha. Highlights include a presentation of the furniture designed exclusively for the newest branch of the Brazilian cultural institution, Sesc, by Paulo Mendes da Rocha. The new Sesc space scheduled to open in São Paulo’s downtown district was also designed by the architect.

Also, an exhibition of Bei Publishing House’s collection of indigenous stools can be seen within the Pavilion. The selection covers more than 200 wooden pieces produced by people from 80 different indigenous communities of various regions of Brazil. Some represent animals of the Brazilian fauna; others are in the form of conventional benches decorated with graphics or notches. In all cases, they balance symbolic, utilitarian and decorative aspects, facing the cultural universe and cosmology of the ethnicities that make them. The exhibition will travel to Japan and Europe afterwards.