art candy

Artist Team Os Gemeos Turn Art Gallery Into Favela

Os Gemeos’s Marialva, Amidala e
Almondega (2007).Courtesy of Deitch Projects


Os Gemeos, “the twins,†are Brazil’s Octavio and Gustavo Pandolfo, who vandalize the favelas by day and sleep happy at night because their illegal activity brings color and exuberance to these otherwise ragged shantytowns. Os Gemeos have transformed the Wooster Street Deitch Projects into a favela (albeit an air-conditioned, rather dustless one) through August 9, installing all manner of surreal and figurative creations like a pockmarked frying pan with happy eyes, a giant sleeping yellow man in a corner, and a wooden man with heart-shaped windows in his chest blowing bubbles. Here’s one of the twins’ painted doors, decorated with a barefoot neighborhood family, in whose home may lie any number of Eloise-style fantasies. —Emma Pearse