Cem Anos de Waldemar Cordeiro

Cordeiro’s transdisciplinary and visionary approach is perhaps best exemplified by his foray into
computer art at the beginning of the 1970s. For this, he developed a “new visual grammar” – an
expansion of concrete art’s constructive logic into a realm governed by codes and variables.
Paradoxically, it was also at this moment that he chose, for the first time, to humanize his visual
discourse, incorporating the human figure into his work alongside the use and function of the
computer. Cordeiro was the first Brazilian artist – and among the earliest in the world – to
employ the computer as a creative tool, at a time when such machines were accessible only
within academic institutions and research centers.
A highlight of the exhibition is the Gente [People] series (1972–1973), created from the
appropriation of the image of a crowd. With assistance from Giorgio Moscati, from the Physics
Department of the University of São Paulo, Cordeiro devised a unique methodology that used
figurative elements from photographs as material for visual experimentation. After digitization,
the images were transformed into numerical data (graphic matrices). Through algorithmic
programming, these matrices could be adjusted for greater or lesser saturation, producing the
nuanced variations the artist assigned to the series. The exhibition also features Massa sobre
indivíduos [Mass over Individuals], 1964, an iconic work derived from the same image of a crowd
used in Gente.