Frans Krajcberg. Reencontrar a árvore exhibition at MASP
Exhibition poster
In 2025, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP) presented Frans Krajcberg. Reencontrar a árvore / Rediscovering the Tree. The exhibition brought together more than 50 large-scale works, including sculptures, reliefs, engravings, and paintings, that challenge convention. They reflect the artist’s appreciation for Brazilian nature and his commitment to denouncing environmental destruction.
Curated by MASP’s artistic director, Adriano Pedrosa, and assistant curator, Laura Cosendey, the exhibition provided a comprehensive overview of Frans Krajcberg’s work. Krajcberg was born in Kozienice, Poland, in 1921 and died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2017. A pioneer in integrating art and ecology, Krajcberg is known for raising awareness of environmental issues in Brazil. Throughout his career, he conducted artistic research that branched out into themes such as ferns, blooms, reliefs, and shadows. These investigations culminated in works created from vines, roots, remnants of tree trunks, charred wood, and natural pigments. These materials comprise the bulk of his body of work.
The visuals for the exhibition were created by Alles Blau, using Gaya and FT Aktual. The designers comment on the concept for the accompanying publication:
The catalog was designed to carry the weight of the artist’s environmental protest without aestheticizing it.
Krajcberg transformed destruction into sculptural form: charred wood, violated roots, scorched pigment. The design follows that logic. Typography with organic, irregular contours echoes the texture of his work; generous white space and deliberate rhythm between text and image give the material room to breathe – and to press.
The project works within MASP’s established parameters: hardcover, fixed format, a classical approach to texts and reproductions. Within those constraints, the cover’s gradient is extended onto the painted top edge of the book, turning a structural element into a sensory and poetic continuation of the image.
