In the early 1990s, the artist Marcelo Cipis (*1959) conceived of Cipis Transworld, an artwork made in the wake of the Brazilian military dictatorship and in the spirit of the established models of the “artist-as-producer” and the “artist-as-enterprise”. The project was first shown as an installation at the 1991 São Paulo Biennale, but over the years, it came to include sculptures, paintings and videos. Some of them sarcastically play with authoritarian imagery, but mainly the project embodies the utopian idea of a benevolent company that makes goods for the well-being of humanity.

For his exhibition, “A maravilhosa Cipis Transworld”, curated by Tenzing Barshee, the artist revisits Cipis Transworld and finds that, rather than seeming dated, its hopeful and melancholic view of Brazil and the world seems desperately appropriate today.