Bené Fonteles

Bené Fonteles was born in 1953 in Bragança-PA, and lives and works in Brasília. He is a visual artist, journalist, editor, writer, poet, and composer. He began his career in 1971, participating in the 3rd National Salon of Plastic Arts of Ceará. Since then, he has transitioned between art and crafts, basing his work on the transformation of simple and often fragile materials, natural or minimally processed by humans, such as stones, pieces of trunks, ropes, rustic fabrics, wires, among others.

He has participated in the São Paulo Biennial five times, notably the 32nd edition, with the project Ágora: OcaTaperaTerreiro, invited by Julia Rebouças, as well as the Panorama of Current Brazilian Art at MAM-SP and experimental shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art of USP.

Among his solo exhibitions, notable ones include “Sudários” at Espaço Cultural Contemporâneo – ECCO in Brasília, “Audiovisuais” and “Terra” at the Pinacoteca of the State of São Paulo, “Bené Fonteles” at Parque Lage in Rio de Janeiro, and several others. He is also present in private collections and various public and institutional collections in cities such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Belém, Cuiabá, Paris, and New York. In addition to his work as a visual artist, he has organized and published several books and catalogs on artists such as Rubem Valentim, Mario Cravo Neto, Athos Bulcão, etc.

He curates and designs exhibition projects in visual arts. He was the director of the Museum of Art of UFMT and the Museum of Art of Brasília and received the Order of Cultural Merit from the Ministry of Culture and the Presidency of the Republic.