Booth I03
Avenida da Índia, 1300-299 Lisboa, Portugal

Baró Galeria announces its participation in ARCOlisboa 2026. The gallery presents works by Joana Vasconcelos (b. 1971, Paris), Bruno Novelli (b. 1980, São Paulo), and Mano Penalva (b. 1976, Salvador). For this edition, the gallery introduces Back and Forth, a project that traces a path between organic imagination and geometric structure, connecting the territories of Portugal and Brazil. The presentation unfolds through a shift between distinct approaches to constructing image and form. Alongside the booth, Baró Galeria will also take part in Archipelago of Art Histories, a project led by Cosmin Costinas that explores the lineages and inherited forms of knowledge shaping contemporary practice, presenting the works of Citra Sasmita.

At one end, Bruno Novelli’s work emerges from a deeply personal and symbolic universe shaped by his experience in the Brazilian Amazon. His paintings construct imagined ecosystems populated by signs, vegetal forms, and fantastical creatures.

At the other, Mano Penalva’s practice approaches abstraction through processes of repetition, reuse, and accumulation. Working with found objects and everyday materials, his compositions tend toward essential structures, organized through modular systems and subtle geometric arrangements. His work reflects on material memory, the circulation of objects, and the narratives they carry.

Positioned between these two practices, Joana Vasconcelos operates as a point of convergence between the organic and the geometric. Through the use of traditional techniques such as Azorean crochet and azulejo tiles, her work articulates a language in which organic form and geometric pattern intertwine. In her Bestiary, animal figures are enveloped in woven structures—a repetitive matrix with the potential for continuous growth. Similarly, her use of tiles introduces a modular and ornamental logic deeply rooted in Portuguese cultural tradition. From this position, Vasconcelos connects individual imagination with collective memory and artisanal knowledge, acting as a bridge between Novelli’s imagined worlds and Penalva’s structural systems.

Back and Forth proposes a non-linear circulation of forms and ideas, where organic and geometric languages intersect and continuously redefine one another. Within the context of ARCOlisboa, the project articulates a dialogue between Portuguese and Brazilian artistic practices, highlighting cultural affinities, displacements, and shared resonances.