As mass media images are now more easily shared, replicated, and disseminated among vast audiences than ever, the ways in which these images take shape in our personal and collective memories will shape future generations for years to come. Beatriz González, born in 1932 in Bucaramanga, Colombia, spent decades distilling pop culture images from newspapers and magazines into her artwork. Supported by Iguatemi, a prominent Brazilian shopping mall conglomerate, an exhibition titled Beatriz González: A Imagem em Trânsito, spanning six decades of González's work and featuring over 100 works, opened at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo on August 30. It is the first-ever solo exhibition dedicated to González in Brazil.

​González’s work embodies a pivotal moment in Latin American history and culture. Curated by Polyanna Quintella and Natalia Gutiérrez, the exhibition highlights her vivid reinterpretations of newspaper imagery. In Decoración de interiores (1981), a photograph of then-Colombian president Julio César Turbay at a private cocktail party reappears on a decorative, curtain-like textile. By reframing elite figures within ornamental, domestic settings, González collapses the distance between private life and public power.

Los suicidas del Sisga II & III (1965) reflect on the ephemeral nature of mass media images. Los suicidas del Sisga II & III (1965) are painted depictions of a photo of a young couple used in news articles published in El Espectador and El Tiempo describing their double-suicide committed in an effort to protect the purity of their love. They’re painted in bright blocks of color, and their hands seem to join together into one, forever enshrined.

Vibrant blocks of color and simplified figures are key elements of González’s style. Eye-catching, abstracted forms are situated in each work, occupying a space and story of their own. 

Until its closing on February 1, 2026, Brazilian audiences will have the opportunity to rediscover a key figure in Latin American art at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. The exhibition is co-produced with the Barbican Centre in London and the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo, and will head to Europe after the Brazillian leg of this tour. As González’s ruminations on political violence and cultural identity become more salient to the present day, a retrospective on her work has arrived just in time. 

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