New permanent headquarters opens in São Paulo

IAC (Instituto de Arte Contemporânea), founded in 1997 by art gallerist Raquel Arnaud, opens permanent headquarters in São Paulo

The mission of the IAC is the preservation, conservation, protection, dissemination and to make available for research an extensive collection of historical documents related to the careers and works of some of the most relevant Brazilian modern and contemporary artists acclaimed for the personal expression of their art and its intellectual depth.

IAC is a private, non-profit organization founded and presided by art gallerist Raquel Arnaud, founder of the Galeria Raquel Arnaud. Since its inception in 1997, IAC is hailed a benchmark in the field of documental legacy of leading local visual artists. In 2006, the institute was awarded by the Association of Art Critics of São Paulo. In over two-decades’ activity IAC has been a valuable source of information of Brazilian art for foreign and local curators, art historians, critics, artists, scholars, etc. The institute has partnerships with cultural institutions, museums and art galleries in Brazil and abroad.

Currently the artistic estates under the guardianship of the IAC with digitalized data online at the institute’s website are: Willys de Castro (1926-1988), Sergio Camargo (1930-1990), Amilcar de Castro (1920-2002), Sérvulo Esmeraldo (1929-2017), Lothar Charoux (1912-1987), Luiz Sacilotto (1924-2003), Hermelindo Fiaminghi (1920-2004) and Iole de Freitas (1945). These estates combined represent circa 42,000 documents under the care of IAC’s Department of Documentation and Research headed by researcher and museologist Marilucia Bottallo. More recently IAC was entrusted with the estates of Antonio Dias (1944-2018), Carmela Gross (1946), Ivan Serpa (1923-1973), Rubem Ludolf (1932-2010) and architect Jorge Wilheim (1928-2014). 

The IAC databank is available free of charge for on-site or remote use by researchers. IAC’s team of experts is highly qualified to provide information and help in research as it has previously done with world-reknowned institutions such as Tate Modern, MoMA, The Getty Foundation and Fundação de Serralves, among others. At MoMA’s exhibition Sur Moderno: Journeys of Abstraction – The Patricia Phelps Cisneros Gift (2019-2020), IAC was responsible for the lythographic studies and watercolors on graph paper by Willys de Castro for the museum’s show.

The institute also offers specialized courses, talks and workshops, as well as organizes exhibitions with the documents and projects of its collections. In 2006 the fourfold exhibition, Amilcar de Castro, Mira Schendel, Sergio Camargo, Willys de Castro, was curated by Rodrigo Naves and Tiago Mesquita. Campo ampliado (Expanded Field), in 2007-2008 was curated by Paulo Sérgio Duarte. In  2015-2016, Willys de Castro lado a lado (Side by Side) in 2016 was curated by Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, and IAC 20 Years in 2017 was curated by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti.

Funded by Ms. Arnaud, the new headquarters has easy access due to its location next to Paulista Avenue, São Paulo's main artery. Architect Felippe Crescenti designed the project that fully renovated the five-floor building with a total area of approximately 10,000 sq feet. IAC offers two exhibition rooms, technical storage rooms, conference room, research room, and in the near future, a bookstore coffee shop. The country’s only institution aimed at the preservation of personal documents by artists presents state-of-the-art technology and is in compliance with safety regulations. The IAC platform has been designed with ample capacity to incorporate more collections.

The first exhibition in the new venue is Luzes da Memória (Lights of Memory), curated by art critic Ricardo Resende and IAC’s technical director, Marilucia Bottallo. It shows projects of the IAC Collection never before exhibited from artists Antonio Dias, Carmela Gross, Iole de Freitas, Ivan Serpa, Jorge Wilheim, Rubem Ludolf and Sérvulo Esmeraldo.

The opening event also comes with the launch of the book Encontros Fundamentais – IAC 20 anos (Fundamental Encounters – IAC 20 years), published in partnership with UBU Editions. Conceived and organized by curator Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, it brings texts by critics Alberto Salvadori, Aleca Le Blanc, Carla Zaccagnini, Michael Asbury, Marilúcia Bottallo, Crivelli Visconti and IAC’s founder Raquel Arnaud.