milton machado

Milton Machado (b. 1947, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) began his career as an artist during the Brazilian military dictatorship, when he made drawings based on his background in architecture, creating pieces that seemed logical at first sight, but were in fact subtly irrational and unfeasible. Throughout the following decades, Machado progressively expanded his practice and increased the scale of his production to include objects, sculptures, videos, photography and large installations, all looking at a pivotal theme which explores tensions generated by artworks which challenge and uproot factuality.

In his interventions, Milton Machado seeks to capture and show the viewer surprising and unseen relationships between seemingly unrelated fields— such as industry and art, architecture and image, family and politics etc. with an undertone of irony and disillusion. For thirty years, the artist has been developing the series História do Futuro, an urban fable that brings together critical theory, architecture and urbanism to approach the dynamic and unpredictable cycles of life and death in a fictional city.

Milton Machado lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Some of his latest solo shows include: Arte não. Desenho, at Nara Roesler (2021), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; X, at Nara Roesler (2016), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Cabeça, at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB-BH) (2015), in Belo Horizonte; at Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB-RJ) (2015), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Mão pesada, at Nara Roesler (2013), in São Paulo, Brazil. Recent group shows include: In Memoriam, at Caixa Cultural Rio de Janeiro (2017), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Em polvorosa, at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio) (2016), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Made in Brasil, at Casa Daros (2015), in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Imagine Brazil, at DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art (2015), in Montreal, Canada; Where the streets have no name, at CSS Bard and Hessel Museum of Art (2014), in New York, USA. His works are included in major public collections such as those of: Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru; Museo Civico Gibellina, Gibellina, Italy; Daros Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland; Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA), University of Essex, Colchester, UK; and Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil.