Fernando Zarif

1960 – 2010, São Paulo, Brazil

A visionary and ceaseless questioner, Fernando Zarif produced a vast oeuvre, in which he established an authentic language independent from the cultural precepts of his time and associated with vanguard expressions such as performance art and video installations. Zarif is considered one of the most emblematic figures of the generation of artists from the city of São Paulo in the 1980s. From the 1990s onward, the artist began to appropriate various objects in his research, sometimes maintaining the integrity of their materials, sometimes not, but always resignifying them. Besides sculpture, video and performance, the artist explored other artistic supports, such as writing, drawing, painting and music.

Fernando Zarif studied architecture and took open courses in the arts. In 1982, he held his first solo show at the Gabinete Fotográfico of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. The following year, he presented performances with music by Richard Wagner and John Cage, as part of the musical programming of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (Masp). In 1995, he held his largest solo show at a Brazilian institution, at the Museu de Arte Moderna of Rio de Janeiro. In 1998, he had a solo show at the Maison des Arts et de la Culture André Malraux, in Créteil, France (1998). In 2009, he participated in his last show during life, at Espaço Tom Jobim, Rio de Janeiro. Beginning in 2011, his family began the Projeto Fernando Zarif, aimed at preserving, cataloging, and disseminating the artist’s work, with 2000 artworks recovered until today, including photographs, books, documents and writings. In 2015, the artist’s first large posthumous exhibition was held, at Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Ribeirão Preto, SP, followed by a show in honor of Zarif, held by Luciana Brito Galeria.