Brazil is famed for carrying a sense of the carnivalesque in everyday life. You can smell and taste it even if the festivities are a long way away.
The work of Os Gemeos ("The Twins") reflects this celebration as they offer audiences a vibrant taste of everyday life portrayed through a fantastic caste of characters, real and imagined.
Largely self-taught, the brothers started out by tagging the streets with the name "Os Gemeos" in their distinctive style. Later, they started to weave surreal narratives of Brazilian subconsciousness into their graffiti.
Over the years their street painting reached such high levels that officials invited them to paint Brazilian trains.
Now, they're equally at home on the street and in museum and galleries. While still tagging Os Gemeos, their work has been recognized by the Tate Modern in London, MAM in Sao Paulo, Museum Het Domein in The Netherlands and Deitch Projects in New York.
This summer Deitch Projects is showing the largest gallery exhibition of Os Gemeos to date. Called Too Far Too Close, the show fills the gallery with the dreams and fantasies of Brazil: street kids, family portraits with mermaids, bathing girls, street musicians, favelas, flying animals, clowns and the reoccurring theme of twinship.
The show invites viewers to visit the childhood of the Pandolfo brothers as well as revisit their own.
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