Saudações a todos leitores! Greetings to all readers!. My question for you today is: how can we conhecer (get to know) a country? Some of you might say that it can be be through experience, contact with the culture, its pessoas (people) and also through reading articles and videos that try to explain some facts and curiosities about the lugar (place). In addition, another way to expand our conhecimento (knowledge) and awareness of a new culture can be through its local art and artists. And what better place to do that than museums? Though visiting these institutions in person at the moment is not ideal, compiled a list of Brazilian museums that are making part of their acervos (collections) available for free virtual tours. In addition to checking out the exhibitions, reading informative texts and watching videos are great ferramentas (tools) to practice your Portuguese skills. E aí, o que você sabe sobre arte brasileira? So, what do you know about Brazilian art?

The first suggestion is a no-brainer:, MASP (Museum of Art of São Paulo), most likely the best-known art institution in the country. The first museum dedicated to modern art in Brazil is located no coração (in the heart) of the city of São Paulo, as its name indicates, and was founded in 1947. Here we highlight two sections that deserve your attention: 1) the temporary exhibition by the highly influential modern artist Hélio Oiticica (which is also available in English) and 2) A Arte no Brasil até 1900, but feel free to get lost in the hundreds of MASP artworks available through  google arts aqui.

At the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM), you can visit the first exposição retrospectiva do artista paraibano Antonio Dias, who passed in 2018. With trabalhos (works) ranging from the military dictatorship period in Brazil that began in the 1960s to his recent production in the 2000s, the exhibition offers an overview of the artist’s trajectory. But don’t hold back, you can still go through 13 other MAM galleries by clicking aqui.

For lovers of Street Art out there, São Paulo is one of the most relevant cities when it comes to that, where its streets turn into galerias a céu aberto (open-air galleries) covered in graffiti by countless major names like Kobra, Os Gêmeos, Daniel Melim, Nina and many others. So, why not take a walk through the alleys of the city and explore these magnificent urban art works?

You probably remember the Inhotim museum in Minas Gerais, right? If you don’t, we wrote about it before, so check it out here. Inhotim é o maior (the largest) open air museum no mundo (in the world) and it also offers online tours of its exposições (exhibitions), so don’t miss out on the opportunity to have a look at the artworks by world-renowned Vik Muniz, Cildo Meireles, Hélio Oiticica or Adriana Varejão.

The list of Brazilian museums that can be visited online through Google Arts & Culture is long, and you can access it aqui. Were you familiar with any of these spaces listed here? Leave your comment below and let us know about your favorite Brazilian museums and artists. Catch you later! Até mais!