Leonardo Finotti: LATINITUDES

Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo (Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo House and Studio), Mexico City, Mexico, designed by Juan O'Gorman, 1931–32. Photograph by Leonardo Finotti, 2014. © Leonardo Finotti

About the program

Free; RSVP required

Talk: Leonardo Finotti, 6 p.m.
Reception to follow

Leonardo Finotti: LATINITUDES

at Graham Foundation

4 W. Burton Pl., Chicago, IL 60610

Gallery and bookshop hours: Wednesday through Saturday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Brazilian photographer and visual artist Leonardo Finotti discusses Latinitudes and his long-term project documenting modern architecture across Latin America, including the development of the exhibition and its accompanying publication series with Lars Müller Publishers. The talk is followed by a reception to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.

Latinitudes, presented for the first time in the United States, is a photographic survey of modern architecture across twelve Latin American cities: Buenos Aires, Argentina; Bogotá, Colombia; Caracas, Venezuela; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Havana, Cuba; Lima, Peru; Mexico City, Mexico; Montevideo, Uruguay; Quito, Ecuador; San José, Costa Rica; Santiago, Chile; and São Paulo, Brazil. Featuring more than 100 photographs by Finotti and curated by Brazilian architect Michelle Jean de Castro, the exhibition presents modern architecture across Latin America from a new perspective. Combining the words “latitudes” and “Latino,” the exhibition proposes a horizontal framework connecting cities across shared geographies and histories, presenting housing, civic, and cultural works by key figures of modernism—Luis Barragán, Lina Bo Bardi, Roberto Burle Marx, Félix Candela, Eladio Dieste, Emilio Duhart, Ricardo Legorreta, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Oscar Niemeyer, Juan O’Gorman, Mario Pani, Ricardo Porro, Rogelio Salmona, Clorindo Testa, and Carlos Raúl Villanueva, among others.

For more information on the exhibition, Latinitudes: A Collection of Latin American Modern Architectureclick here.

Participant

View more

Leonardo Finotti and Michelle Jean de Castro (LAMA.SP)

São Paulo, Brazil and Stockholm, Sweden

Website

Leonardo Finotti is a visual artist based in São Paulo, Brazil, whose work centers on two complementary themes: modern architecture and anonymous or informal urban spaces. Trained as an architect, he holds a bachelor of arts in architecture from the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia; completed postgraduate studies at the Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau, Germany; and began his career in Portugal before returning to Brazil to embark on a long-term photographic project that revisits and reinterprets the legacy of modern architecture across Latin America and beyond. Alongside collaborations with international architects, institutions, and publications, Finotti has produced a number of independent projects through exhibitions and books, including Pelada (2014); Latinitudes (2015); Rio Enquadrado (2016); A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture (Lars Müller, 2016); and Sacred Groves & Secret Parks (2019). His work has been widely exhibited and is held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur (Switzerland); Fundação EDP (Portugal); Architekturzentrum Wien (Austria); Bauhaus Dessau Foundation (Germany); and Museu Brasileiro da Escultura e Ecologia (Brazil), among others. He has represented Brazil at two International Architecture Exhibitions, La Biennale di Venezia; the 10th Mercosul Art Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil; and was a prizewinner at the 15th Buenos Aires International Biennial of Architecture.

Michelle Jean de Castro is an architect and curator based in Stockholm. Her work is centered on the concept of haunting—when something previously hidden or overlooked comes into view — tracing the spatial and material dimensions of memory, absence, and displacement. Current projects include Sacred Groves & Secret Parks: Orisha Landscapes in Brazil and West Africa, developed under the guidance of the Hutchins Center, which examines the materiality and spatiality of Afro-religious diasporic practices; What is Not Forest is Ruination; and Ghostly Matters.

LAMA.SP (Latin American Modern Architecture, São Paulo) is an artist-run space founded by Michelle Jean de Castro and Leonardo Finotti.

Venue

View more

Graham Foundation

Address

4 W. Burton Pl., Chicago, IL 60610

Neighborhood

Gold Coast

Description

Founded in 1956, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. The Graham realizes this vision through making project-based grants to individuals and organizations and producing exhibitions, events, and publications.

Graham Foundation, Madlener House (exterior) with "Hard Sun Interstate," Sam Chermayeff Office and Hard Sun, 2025. Photo by Bob. (Robert Heishman)
Chicago Architecture Biennial