Opening: Friday August 29th.
Linguatravel: The De-Poetry of Augusto de Campos is an invitation to delve into the world of the great Brazilian poet, essayist, translator, and critic of the same name (São Paulo, 1931).
As part of BIENALSUR 2025, this exhibition features works spanning his rich and vital creative journey, including key milestones such as the founding of the Concrete Poetry movement, his collaboration with the Tropicalist group, and his later, more personal work—which nonetheless retains a strong political and social thrust.
From the very beginning, his work has engaged in dialogue with the visual arts and music, consistently experimenting with new forms of poetic writing that do not rely on verse, which he considered exhausted and ineffective. Augusto de Campos presents himself as a poet who refuses to follow the well-trodden paths of conventional poetry. For this reason, he calls himself an “ex-poet,” titles one of his books De-Poetry, and pushes this art beyond its own boundaries—venturing into the visual realm and into formats such as video, music, and design.
While exploring multiple disciplines and blending languages, Augusto has never ceased writing poetry and has become a foundational figure in Brazilian culture and literature. Over time, his influence has extended beyond young poets like Paulo Leminski to prominent music composers and singers such as Caetano Veloso, Tom Zé, Arnaldo Antunes, and Adriana Calcanhotto.
At 94 years of age, Augusto remains active, writing political poems and regularly publishing on Instagram, where he has over 30,000 followers. Traveling with Augusto de Campos is a unique adventure: words metamorphose, take on new forms, and relate to each other in playful and unexpected ways. Augusto is a poet of the mind and heart, of paper and skin, of memory and love.
Image: Augusto de Campos, amortemor (equivocábulos), 1970