Zanine Caldas Exhibition Traces Six Decades of Making in São Paulo

José Zanine Caldas's work will fill the Casa-ateliê Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo until November 7, 2026. The exhibition, titled Zanine Caldas – Criação de mundos (Creating Worlds), occupies the former residence of artist Tomie Ohtake in the Campo Belo neighborhood.

Sabrina Fontenele curates the show, with Lahayda Mamani Poma assisting. It gathers furniture, models, drawings, architectural projects, photographs, films and documents spanning the career of Zanine Caldas, who worked from 1919 to 2001.

The exhibition divides into four sections, each examining one facet of his output: model maker, designer, self-taught architect and educator.

One thread follows his research with plywood, the material that led him to found Móveis Artísticos Z. Another presents what the exhibition frames as his "protest furniture" — pieces crafted from logs discarded by the timber industry, turning waste into a statement against the destructive logging practices behind it.

Models and records of his houses show how Zanine approached each project. He designed according to the site, the materials available on it, and the craftsmanship of local artisans and carpenters rather than imposing a fixed formal vocabulary.

The venue itself shapes the exhibition's argument. At the Casa-ateliê, the curators draw parallels between Zanine's career and that of Tomie Ohtake, the building's onetime occupant. The connection is methodological: both artists grounded their work in experimentation and the physical act of making.

For visitors, the show offers a rare consolidated view of a figure who moved between disciplines without formal architectural training — a model maker who became a furniture maker, then a builder of houses, then a teacher.

The exhibition runs at the Casa-ateliê Tomie Ohtake through November 7, 2026.