Posted on 28 Oct By Visionarism

Osgemeos “Silence of Music”, NYC

Lehmann Maupin had the pleasure of exhibiting ‘Silence of the Music’ the Brazilian artist duo Osgemeos’ first New York solo show with the gallery. Twin brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo will transform multiple rooms into an immersive installation that combines drawing, painting, collage, mixed media sculpture, and kinetic and audio elements. These latest projects represent an evolution of the style Osgemeos has honed over decades, while also returning to their early experimentation with diverse mediums, including new oil paintings. This exhibition offered a heightened multi-sensory experience that embraces the power of human imagination and the vast possibilities in visually interpreting the subconscious.

Osgemeos broke onto the art scene in the late 1980s as graffiti writers in their São Paulo neighborhood of Cambuci, and are now internationally recognized for a figurative style that typically features their signature yellow characters, thin dark red outlining, and intricately patterned designs.

Silence of the Music extends Osgemeos’ approach to an exhibition as a total work of art, a concept exemplified in their Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston solo exhibition in 2012. Conceived as a site-specific installation, each room contains a unique grouping of paintings and objects that cover the wall, floor to ceiling. The exhibition pays tribute to music in particular. Included in their “B-Boy” room are boom box paintings—canvases with embedded speakers that play tracks linked to the imagery on the canvas—and interactive sculptures that play LP records. For Osgemeos, the era during the 1970s and 1980s was an influential time of discovery and sharing; the improvisational structure, descriptions of everyday life on the streets, and bravado in sharing these stories that this golden age of hip hop fostered is intrinsically linked to their practice.

Visionarism went to New York City to check out the exhibition and share it with our readers…

All images by @Visionarism.