Mira Schendel (1919 - 1988) was a Brazilian artist born in Switzerland. She is one of the most important and prolific Latin American artists of the postwar period.
Language is a fundamental element in her work. During the 1960s in Brazil, art witnessed the birth of conceptualism and the consolidation of semiotics, the philosophy of language, and post-structuralism as a constant topic of public debate in social sciences. Schendel, along with other creators such as León Ferrari, tried to give a visual body to words and gestures and to give them metaphorical meanings despite their everyday value in existence. She used geometry to evoke poetry and sensuality, following the path of Lygia Clark and Helio Oiticica.
Schendel participated in the numerous editions of the Sao Paulo Biennial since its inception, the 1968 Venice Biennale and her works have been exhibited at the MoMA in New York, the TATE in London, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, among others.
