Marilia Furman is an artist and educator. Her work intends to shape existing tensions in the modern commodity-producing society, making explicit the abstract – but ostensibly oppressive – structures that regulate social interactions. Exploring conflicting relationships between raw materials or resorting to symbolic operations, the artist diverts and appropriates diverse visual signs, originating from the field of consumption, nationalism or conventionally artistic techniques.
Her solo shows include Heroico, a long-term installation performance held at Publica (São Paulo, 2022) with support from the Moraes-Barbosa Collection; Monstrous (2022), Wrong Position (2019) and Appears, Inverts – and against (2015), released at PSM Gallery (Berlim); the installation VER, at Auroras (São Paulo, 2019), besides solo projects in art fairs. Among the group show, she highlights Contramemória, Theatro Municipal (São Paulo, 2022); No presente, a vida (é) política, Central Galeria (São Paulo, 2020); Construção, Mendes Wood DM (São Paulo, 2020); Deus está solto!, Galeria Jaqueline Martins (São Paulo, 2017); Um Trabalho | Um Texto (São Paulo, 2017); Now/Here, Franz Josefs Kai 3 (Viena, 2016); Rumos Artes Visuais, Itaú Cultural (2012-2013), and others.
Marilia Furman holds a degree in fine arts from the University of São Paulo (USP) and in photography from the SENAC University Center, and is licensed by UNIPLENA (2017). She is represented by PSM Gallery (Berlin), where she has had three solo exhibitions (2022, 19, 15) and one group exhibition (2015), and by Central Galeria de Arte in Brazil, and has participated in exhibitions at various galleries, including Central Galeria (2020), Galeria Mendes Wood DM (2020), Galeria Jaqueline Martins (São Paulo, 2020 and 2017), as well as cultural spaces such as Teatro Municipal de São Paulo (2022), Auroras (São Paulo, 2019), Casa do Povo (São Paulo, 2014) and Franz Joseph Kai 3 (Vienna, 2016), in addition to alternative projects such as Um Trabalho | Um Texto (São Paulo, 2017), curated by Daniel de Paula and Germano Duschá, and A Quebra do Sistema (Al Jeniah, 2017), curated by Beatriz Lemos, and several exhibitions at Casa da Lagartixa (São Paulo 2004-2006), where she also worked as a manager. She participated in the Pivô residency in 2019 and Fim dos contornos at Studio Pharus Design in 2018. She has also participated in programs such as Rumos Itaú Cultural (São Paulo, Recife, Joinvile, and Rio de Janeiro, 2012-2013) and SPA das Artes de Recife (2010). In 2014, she was awarded a prize scholarship from the Cultural Formation Program of the São Paulo School (PIESP), directed by Adriano Pedrosa and Ana Paula Cohen. She frequently participates in major international fairs, such as Art-BA (Buenos Aires, 2019), Art-Toronto (2015, 2019), Arco-Madrid (2017), and with solo projects at ABC Berlin (2015) and SP-Arte (2016). In 2022, she carried out the Heroico project, a long-duration installation performance supported by the Moraes-Barbosa Collection.
As an educator, she has guided the program Etapas do processo (não apenas) criativo and often leads various art workshops. She has worked at the Secretaria de Cultura da Prefeitura de São Paulo as an artist-teacher in the Programa Vocacional (2016) and as an educator in the Projeto Piá (2012). She has provided teacher training in the distance learning courses Tão Perto, Tão Longe I and II, from the Bienal Foundation (2010-11), in the municipal network of Sorocaba by the Comunidade Educativa Cedac (2014), and in the Projeto Momentos da Arte Contemporânea, by the Tomie Ohtake Institute (2014). She was a cultural mediator at Centro Universitário MariAntônia (2007-08), at Sesc Pinheiros (2013), and in the Conexões Culturais project, by TOMARA!, at various museums and cultural institutions (2018).
She also occasionally ventures into the field of criticism, with texts published by Revista Zero à Esquerda (2022), Temporada de Projetos do Paço das Artes (2017), Revista Dazibao (2014), and Revista Recibo (2015).
