Celebrating the 90th birthday of Sonia Andrade [1935—2022], Superfície presents the exhibition Situações [Situations]. A pioneer of video art in Brazil, Sonia began her career in 1970, amid a historical and artistic context marked by intense transformations. Alongside a group of artists interested in the use of new media and committed to conceptual research, she produced videos with a strong poetic and critical charge, which investigate the complex relationships between the production, circulation, mediation, reception, and commercialization of art—issues that remain relevant today.

In many of these works, the artist positions herself in front of the camera, making her own body the center of the action and creating performances whose immediate audience is only the gaze of the lens. But her production goes far beyond video art: Sonia Andrade explored multiple media and languages, from drawing to writing, from the appropriation of objects to photography, including mail art, image projection, and installation. Refusing labels, she sought in each work to reveal layers of meaning that highlight ethical-political dimensions, the enigma of time, and the episodic and relational nature of her practice—opening space for an infinity of possible situations, as suggested by the title of this exhibition.

Panoramic in nature, the exhibition brings the São Paulo public closer to the work of the Rio de Janeiro artist, bringing together around 30 works ranging from her first videos in the 1970s to more recent productions, such as … às contas [2019], presented at MAM-RJ. The installation was created from electricity, gas, telephone, cable TV, internet, and cell phone bills paid and accumulated over five decades, between 1968 and 2018.

Throughout her career, Sonia Andrade has presented works at institutions such as the Musée du Louvre [Paris], MoMA [New York], and Museo Reina Sofía [Madrid] — the latter having acquired works by the artist. In 2011, she received a major solo exhibition at the Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica. Her work is part of leading public collections, such as the Getty Research Institute [Los Angeles] and Kunstgewerbemuseum [Zurich].

In 2024, the Centre Georges Pompidou [Paris], through the Don des amis du Centre Pompidou Cercle International program, acquired two installations by the artist. They are A Obra/O Espetáculo/O Caminho/Os Habitantes [1975-1977] and the video installation Sem título [2001]. In an interview with curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist for the book Entrevistas brasileiras 1 [Brazilian Interviews 1] (Cobogó, 2017), Sonia Andrade recalls the beginning of her relationship with video art: “I started [working with video] and really liked it, mainly because of the immediacy of video: we do the work and it’s ready, without depending on a lab or anything else.”

Sonia Andrade — Situations opens on Saturday, August 23, at Superfície’s main headquarters, with a critical text by Marisa Flórido, and remains on display until October 25.