A CAIXA Cultural São Paulo presents the exhibition Collective Loneliness, an unprecedented solo performance by Julio Bittencourt which proposes a visual reflection on the contradictions of contemporary society and the modes of existence in an increasingly populated, accelerated, and regulated world. Curated by Guilherme Wisnik and with exhibition design by Daniela Thomas, the show brings together eight photographic series created between 2016 and 2023, the result of extensive observational work in major urban centers such as São Paulo, New York, Tokyo, Mumbai, Beijing, and Jakarta.
The exhibition's title engages with the thought of philosopher Hannah Arendt, for whom modern society, structured around work, tends to suppress the possibility of action and reduce the individual to the condition of a functional agent. “Bittencourt's images observe human groups immersed in productive routines, incessant flows of information, and spaces that impose physical and symbolic containment. Confinement emerges as a recurring theme, even when the control mechanisms are not explicitly presented,” says Wisnik.
In his photographs, Julio Bittencourt seeks to record not extraordinary events, but states of suspension. For the artist, these are anonymous bodies, captured in situations of waiting, repetition, or adaptation to environments that condition them. From employees isolated in offices to workers housed in capsule hotels, deprivation ceases to be an exception and becomes a structural part of urban daily life. "There is, in this gesture, a political dimension that is not based on direct denunciation, but on the insistence on making visible what usually goes unnoticed," says the curator.
The series are structured as chapters of an open narrative, marked by tension and resonance. Moving between documentary and conceptual photography, Julio Bittencourt explores photography as a critical language, free from journalistic commitment to immediate facts, but attentive to the poetic possibilities of the gaze.
Collective Solitude – Júlio Bittencourt is an exhibition presented by CAIXA Cultural, produced by Phi Projetos and Cinnamon, and sponsored by CAIXA and the Government of Brazil.
Service
Exhibition Collective Loneliness
From March 03rd to July 12th
Tuesday to Sunday, from 9pm to 18pm
