Iran do Espírito Santo
TRACING THOUGHT.
2002-2025
22.01 – 28.03 2026
Mazzoleni, Milano
The exhibition “Iran do Espírito Santo. Tracing Thought. 2002–2025” retraces the past twenty years of the Brazilian artist’s career. His works are held in numerous major international contemporary art museums, including MoMA in New York. After the first exhibition at Mazzoleni Turin, the project has now been reimagined for the Milan space.
On view are several historical works, such as the iconic Untitled (Keyhole) (2002), a granite sculpture that magnify the scale of a keyhole, as well as new pieces like Metro and Compasso, made of stainless steel and aluminum. Both are functional reproductions executed in unusual materials and almost monumental scale. The artist reflects on the aura and function of the object, transforming it into a meditation on the relationship between everyday objects and the human condition.
“Two-dimensional works suggest three-dimensionality, invite or oblige us to consider the existence of a world beyond them in a such as direct and unequivocal manner that we find ourselves questioning which side we are on.”
Other works include Red Bulb 2 (2009), the reproduction of a light bulb in red crystal, and the series Curtains (2025), presented here in a new vertical version: meticulous drawings inspired by the detail of a curtain, composed of a single line repeated at regular intervals. These lines create rhythms of scale and proportion that transform the sheet’s flatness, offering a reflection on Time, the tension between lightness and weight, the world of ideas, and materiality.
The Curtains series (2025) is presented here in a new vertical version: meticulous graphite drawings inspired by the detail of drapery, composed of intricately drawn lines repeated at one-millimetre intervals. These lines trace rhythms of scale and proportion that transform the flatness of the page, proposing a conceptual meditation on the tension between lightness and weight, between the world of ideas and the material world.
Do Espírito Santo reinvents the language of everyday objects with an unnatural precision: stylised forms, polished surfaces, absences that become presences. Thus, what is ordinary reveals itself as pure idea, in a Platonic world of perfect geometries.
“The forms are stylised, the objects only alluded to and yet something in this unnatural precision, belonging to an ideal world, leads us to accept their reality in a manner even more complete than had they been attempts to reproduce ‘just’ an image.”
Reflexive Windows (2020) are realised in black granite, polished and honed to create, through a process of removal, the silhouette of a window. According to the quantity of light on either side of the glass, they become almost a mirror, reflecting instead of allowing light to pass through.
“Are we inside looking out, or outside looking in? These questions are almost explicitly posed in the works from the series Janelas reflexivas.”
The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue, featuring a critical text by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, from which the quotations on this page are taken.
