cássio vasconcellos

Cássio Vasconcellos (b. 1965, São Paulo, Brazil) began his career as a photographer at the beginning of the 1980s. Though he previously gathered extensive experience as a  photojournalist, his artistic work is characterized by fictional imagery, which he derives from elements of reality. His work blurs the boundaries of photography as a genre, creating, instead, an imaginary iconographic vocabulary geared towards a critique of contemporary society. Notably, the artist’s use of aerial photography allows for the manipulation of scale and image, which he uses to challenge the viewer’s perception of reality. Vasconcellos has published several monographs of his work, including Brasil visto do céu [Brazil seen from the sky], Editora Brasileira, 2017; Panorâmicas, DBA, 2012 and Noturnos São Paulo [Nocturnes São Paulo], 2002.

Cássio Vasconcellos’ photography highlights our society’s excessive consumerism, the abundance of products that flood our everyday-life, the uniformity of architectural structures that surround us and the elements that have become emblematic of our culture. Alternatively, his work also explores the magnificence of nature with landscape images like those from the series Viagem pitoresca pelo Brasil (2015), with which he joins the long-standing tradition of artists who have attempted to capture the grandiosity of Brazilian flora. His works embody the mysticism of the country’s sublime, untamed jungles, creating images that confront the spectator with a reality that is too large for us to comprehend.

Cássio Vasconcellos lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. His recent solo exhibitions include: Dríades e Faunos, at Nara Roesler, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2020); Collectives, at St Georges’s Gate (Castle of Ioannina) (2019), which took place during the Photometria Festival in Ioannina, Greece; Picturesque Voyage through Brazil, at Pequena Galeria 18 (2015), in São Paulo, Brazil; and Coletivos, at the Today Art Museum (TAM) (2013), in Beijing, and at Art + Shanghai Gallery (2013), in Shanghai, China. Recent group exhibitions include: 13th Mercosul Biennial, Brazil (2022); Trees, at Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain (2019), in Paris, France; Civilization: The Way We Live Now, at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) (2018), in Seoul, South Korea; Past/Future/Present: Contemporary Brazilian Art from the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, at the Phoenix Art Museum (2017), in Phoenix, USA; as well as Aquí nos vemos - Fotografía en América Latina 2000-2015, at Centro Cultural Kirchner (2015), in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His works are part of several important collections, including: Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), São Paulo, Brazil; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France; and Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH), Houston, USA.