Download “The Man Without Limits” (pdf in our Press Release link), a short story translated from Portuguese into English by Kiki Mazzuchelli on the occasion of Thiago Barbalho’s exhibition at Kupfer. Originally published as part of the book Um Homem Bom (Editora Iluminuras, São Paulo, 2017).
Kupfer is pleased to present Thiago Barbalho’s first solo exhibition in the UK. Barbalho studied philosophy and started his career as a writer, having published short stories, novels and poetry, and founded the independent press Edições Vira-lata. After experiencing what he describes as ‘a crisis in relation to the limitations of written language’, the artist embraced pictorial language as his preferred means of expression. Working primarily with drawing, Barbalho produces extremely intricate yet unplanned compositions in which a multitude of images, symbols and colour fields merge into each other to create seamless vibrating surfaces. The artist is drawn to the immediacy of the medium both in material terms (as an art form that requires only pen and paper) and as a non-hierarchical and non-regulated space that allows him to articulate disparate references from history, high and low culture, philosophy and daily life in a sort of ‘exploded literature’ that emerges from fragmented narratives.
Thiago Barbalho (b. 1984, Natal, Brazil, lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil) earned a degree in Law and Philosophy and holds an MA in Philosophy. He is the author of the short stories collection Um Homem Bom [A Good Man] (Iluminuras, 2017), the poetry collection Doritos (Edições Vira-lata, 2013) and the novel Thiago Barbalho vai ao fundo do poço [Thiago Barbalho Reaches Rock Bottom] (Edith, 2012). He is the founder of Vira-lata, an independent press that published several fanzines in collaboration with visual artists. Recent group shows include Voyage, curated by Alexandre da Cunha (Bergamin & Gomide, São Paulo, 2017) and Rocambole with Flora Rebollo and Yuli Yamagata (Pivô, São Paulo, 2018).
