Daniel de Paula

Daniel de Paula was born in Boston, United States (1987), and he lives and works between São Paulo, Brazil, and Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The multiple propositions of Daniel de Paula intend to reflect on the production of space as a reproduction of power dynamics, thus revealing critical investigations of the political, social, economic, historical and bureaucratic structures that shape places and relationships. Through a posture that is not imprisoned in the field of visual-arts, notions of geography, geology, architecture and urbanism, something that reveals his interesting understanding the complex social form hidden within the materiality, intersect his practice and production. Through strategies such as extensive negotiations with and between public and private agencies, appropriation, displacement and decon-textualization of everyday objects, in addition to interactions with agents that constitute the exhibition space and its surroundings, de Paula’s works try to propose re-significan-ces of rigid and conditioned space systems. Such procedures end up emphasizing the indivisibility between the physicality of his works and the contexts from which they arise, reiterating the criticism to the violent socio-political vectors that inscribe meaning into our lives.

Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Infrastructura, instituição, indivíduo’ Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo (2023); ‘INALIENABLE, IMPRESCRIPTIBLE E INEMBARGABLE’, Labor, Mexico City (2023); ‘and materiality becomes nothing but a mere representation of a structure of dominance’, Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam (2020), ‘the control of things over subjects is the control of subjects over themselves’, Francesca Minini, Milan (2019), ‘the conductive form of dominant flows’, Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo (2017); ‘testemunho’, Galeria Leme, São Paulo (2015) and ‘objetos de mobilidade, ações de permanência’, White Cube Gallery, São Paulo (2014). His works have also been included in recent institutional exhibitions such as 16th Biennale de Lyon (2022), ‘Brasile. Il coltello nella carne’, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy (2018), ‘Matriz do Tempo Real’, MAC, São Paulo (2018); ‘Avenida Paulista’, MASP, São Paulo (2017); ‘Metró-pole: Experiência Paulistana’, Estação Pinacoteca, São Paulo (2017); ‘ARTE PARA TODOS! Liberação e Consumo’, Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Ribeirão Preto (2016), ‘Nós entre os Extremos’, Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2015); ‘Da próxima vez eu fazia tudo diferente’, PIVÔ, São Paulo (2012).