The opportunity to pay tribute to this artist, his work and his frequent cultural, took shape two years ago by the will of the Foundation Nadir Afonso, established by the artist himself, to celebrate his ninety years with a series of international exhibitions. After Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon and Rome, Venice pays homage to this amazing and versatile artist.

The exhibition shows a path that frames the work of Nadir Afonso starting from the works related to the period from the forties to the sixties up to the most recent paintings that interpret the theme of the city and its color vision. The first part of the exhibition presents the works of Surrealist phase more closely linked to the early '40s, influenced by the artist's stay in Paris and attendance and friendship with the artists of that movement, and then proceed with the pre- geometric and baroque early '50s that comes from the exercise of architecture. These paintings, often treated with a biting taste in different colors, let us think of a solution Spatialist entrusted to the game of exchange between tones and colors and a personal pleasure artist who enjoys the invention of perspective plans. But even here, in the game of the composition, the artist renounces marginal tax evasion, the pre-made patterns, the transitional ideologies painting to discover the taste of a renewed commitment that leads him to the expressionism of language is absolutely personal. But the main body of the exhibition aims above all to highlight the work of contemporary artist. Starting from the production of the last ten years, the works of Nadir Afonso transmit the force of a sign that transcends innovative patterns of artistic movements, to explore a new language of forms. The cities of Nadir Afonso present themselves as the appearance of architecture in the making and seem to emerge from a reality apparently canceled and even emerging patterns in the structures diagonal, straight lines and then rolling in different colors, where the intimacy of the vision collection expands the search for a new space, more spacious and organized. Among the many works on display the artist presents his tribute to Venice with three paintings in different periods: The Grand Canal II of 1957 where the perspective of the view is distributed in a game of shapes that evoke the Venetian skyline, Campos de San Zanipolo in 1965 that develops the profile of architecture in the charm of the colors blue and black stringent and Procissão em Veneza 2002, where St. Mark's Square emerges as an appearance by the play of color vorticismi. It is in these recent works that reveals the strength and determination of the artist to pursue a personal research on the discovery and application of a new metaphysical language. The exhibition, organized on the occasion of the Biennale Architecture, framing the figure of Nadir Afonso architect and highlights its collaboration with two leading figures of modern international: Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer, Nadir Afonso with whom he worked during the period of forties and fifties, first in Paris and then in Rio de Janeiro.