PRESS KIT

The Itaú Unibanco Collection, maintained and managed by Itaú Cultural, covers modern and contemporary works of art, including paintings, prints, stamps, photographs, sculptures and installations. It also includes the Brasiliana Collection of Brazilian iconographic imagery dating since Brazil’s discovery, and the Numismatics Collection of rare coins, decorations and medals that are a part of the country’s history. The Collection is further complemented by the institute’s collection of Computer Art and Artist Films and Videos. As part of an effort to grant the public access to these works, Itaú Cultural produces free exhibitions at its headquarters in São Paulo on an ongoing basis as well as traveling exhibitions throughout Brazil and abroad.

 

The institute has already organized more than 60 exhibitions with selections from its collection, which were seen by over 1.7 million visitors at more than 20 cities throughout Brazil. Highlighting its traveling exhibitions of 2016, the institution was present at partner institutions in Belém (PA), Brasília (DF), Curitiba (PR), Salvador (BA), Fortaleza (CE), Ribeirão Preto (SP), Santos (SP), Porto Alegre (RS) and Rio de Janeiro (RJ).  The Oscar Niemeyer museum in Curitiba and the Paço Imperial museum in Rio, hosted Moderna para Sempre – Fotografia Modernista Brasileira na Coleção Itaú Cultural.

 

Pinacoteca Benedicto Calixto, in Santos, received Imagens Impressas: um Percurso Histórico pelas Gravuras da Coleção Itaú Cultural. Filmes e Vídeos de Artistas na Coleção Itaú Cultural traveled to the Contemporary Art Museum of –Dragão do Mar Center for Art and Culture. Ribeirão Preto was the first to show the new exhibition Narrativas em Processo – Livros de Artista na Coleção Itaú Cultural.

Permanent exhibition

The Itaú Brasiliana collection on its own totals 2,902 items, containing close to 6,000 iconographic images ranging from paintings from Dutch Brazil to the first editions of most the best-known print albums produced about the country in the 19th century, as well as illustrated artist books from the 20th century, works of art, objects, maps and manuscripts. Many of the publications dating from the 16th to the 20th century contain reports of foreign travelers who ventured throughout Brazil in the search of wealth and glory, whether real or imaginary.

 

The numismatics collection began with the acquisition of the coin collection of Herculano de Almeida Pires, a director of Banco Itaú’s Board of Directors, in December 1984. At that time, the collection totaled 796 gold, silver, copper, nickel, cupronickel, aluminum and bronze coins. Thanks to new acquisitions in Brazil and abroad, the collection has grown to close to 7,000 items, which also include medals, decorations and gold bars.

 

A selection of the Brasiliana and Numismatics collections is on permanent display since 2014 at the Olavo Setubal Gallery, open to the public. More than 108,000 people visited the collections as of March 30, 2017. Installed on two floors at the headquarters of the Itaú Cultural, the gallery displays 1,300 objects selected by the curatorial team among the highlights of the two collections that together hold 10,000 items.

 

Among the items on display is an oil on wood painting by Frans Post, Povoado numa Planície Arborizada, dated between 1670 and 1680 – the first work purchased by Olavo Setubal for the collection – and a vast selection of prints by Rugendas, Debret, Chamberlain, Auguste Sisson, Schlappriz, Buvelot and Moreau, Bertichen and Emil Bauch, portraying the first landscapes seen of the country.

Itaú Cultural Collections

Itaú possesses one of the largest corporate collections in the world – it is the largest in Latin America – comprised of more than 15,000 objects. The collection, along with the Computer Art and Artist Films and Videos collections created by Itaú Cultural, was entirely formed using its own funds, without resorting to the Rouanet Law tax incentive program.

Art for all Brazilians in
traveling exhibitions and
at a permanent location

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COMPUTER ART

The relationship between technology, culture and art is one of Itaú Cultural’s areas of interest. The institute also created and produced the São Paulo International Biennial of Art and Technology – Emoção Art.ficial for 10 years, while also maintaining the Itaú Encyclopedia of Art and Technology.

 

The creation of a specific collection of art and technology in the institute derives from the increased application of new media and technologies in the contemporary visual arts. With its purchase in 1997 of Regina Silveira’s work Super-Herói, Night and Day, the institution began this collection, the largest in the Southern hemisphere. This collection contains today:

 

 

1. [Op_Era] Haptic Interface (2004), by Rejane Cantoni
and Daniela Kutschat

2. OP_ERA: Sonic Dimension (2005), by Rejane Cantoni
and Daniela Kutschat

3. Life Writer (2005), by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau

4. PixFlow #2 (2007), by the Belgian collective LAb[au]

5. Les Pissenlits (2006), by Edmond Couchot and Michel Bret

6. Reflexão #3 (2005), by Raquel Kogan

7. Descendo a Escada (2002), by Regina Silveira

8. Fala (2011), by Rejane Cantoni and Leonardo Crescenti

9. Text Rain (1999), by Camille Utterback and Romy Achituv

10. Ultra-Nature (2008), by Miguel Chevalier

11. Desertesejo (2014), by Gilbertto Prado

12. Super-Herói, Night and Day (1997), by Regina Silveira

13. O Arco-Iris no Ar Curvo (1986/2005), hologram by Julio Plaza
and Moysés Baumstein

14. Sem título (2008), work by the collective O Grivo

15. RAP3 – Robotic Action Painter, a robot that paints,
created by Portuguese artist Leonel Moura

 

 

 

 

ARTIST FILMS AND VIDEOS

The collection began in May 2011, with the seminar Filme, Vídeos e Arte: Compartilhando Experiências. The event took place at the Itaú Cultural and representatives from cultural centers and galleries, collectors and specialists debated the best practices for creating collections, conservation methodologies and the dissemination of audiovisual artworks.

 

From this starting point, the institution began organizing its own collection aware of the importance of this pioneering production in the country and, essentially, of the need for its conservation, appreciation, preservation and dissemination. It is the first initiative of its type in Brazil; no other cultural institution is known to have such a collection, which brings to viewers the inventive force of these images. Currently, the institution’s video art collection possesses the following 25 works:

 

 

1. Partida (2005), by Alberto Bitar

2. Passagens #I, (1974), by Anna Bella Geiger

3. Ordinário (2013), by Berna Reale

4. Coletas, (1998 /2005), by Brígida Baltar

5. El Pintor Tira el Cine a la Basura (2008), by Cao Guimarães

6. Memória – Cristaleira (2001), by Eder Santos

7. Cinema (2009), by Eder Santos

8. Amoahiki – Árvores do Canto Xamânico (2010),
by Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima

9. Marca Registrada (1975), by Letícia Parente

10. Mar (2008), by Letícia Ramos

11. Projeção 0 e 1 (2012), by Luiz Roque

12. Homenagem a Steinberg – Variações Sobre
um Tema de Steinberg: As Máscaras Nº 1 (1975),
by Nelson Leirner

13. Registros (Meu Cérebro Desenha Assim) (1979),
by Paulo Bruscky

14. Xeroperformance (xerofilme), (1980), by Paulo Bruscky

15. After a deep sleep (getting out), (1985), by Rafael França

16. A arte de Desenhar (1980), by Regina Silveira

17. Sunday (2010), by Rivane Neuenschwander
and Sergio Neuenschwander

18. Triunfo Hermético (1972), by Rubens Gerchman

19. Translado (2008), by Sara Ramo

20. Planeta Fóssil (2009), by Thiago Rocha Pitta

21. Contramuro (2009), by Ana Holck

22. Contemplação Suspensa, (2008), by Rubens Mano

23. Poupatempo (2015), by Aline Mota

24. Sem Título, (1974- 1977), by Sonia Andrade

25. Ymá Nhandahetama (Antigamente fomos muitos) (2009),
by Armando Queiroz

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2017 - DESENVOLVIDO PELA CONTEÚDO COMUNICAÇÃO