Osgemeos: Endless Story

Enter the world of OSGEMEOS, the Brazilian twins driving international graffiti culture.

Contemporary art is sometimes considered an austere matter: ascetic in palette, serious in tone, a subject for sober contemplation. That stereotype is exploded--ecstatically, and in full color--by the work of OSGEMEOS, trailblazing twin Brazilian artists with a practice as firmly rooted in the rule-breaking world of urban graffiti as it is in the elevated spheres of museum and gallery. Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo first wielded their spray cans (and spun their discs, and breakdanced with friends) in the São Paulo hip-hop scene of the 1980s and ’90s, drawing from that vibrant milieu the lesson that art is at its best, and most meaningful, when everyone is invited to the party.

Combining historical and contemporary elements of Brazilian society with graffiti, hip-hop, and youth culture, OSGEMEOS: Endless Story extends an invitation into the artists’ expansive body of work, which embraces murals, paintings, sculpture, installations, and video, all using a symbolic visual language often inspired by dreams.

Renowned for their spindly yellow characters--seen dancing, writing graffiti, interacting with their urban settings, and stretching high across buildings and train cars worldwide--OSGEMEOS creates works that invite readers into a surreal, chimerical world filled with motifs that signal access to another realm or the deep psyche. This fantasy world, which they call Tritrez, is the apex of their vision: a land of wonder that reflects the diverse nature of Brazil itself.

OSGEMEOS: Endless Story, the artists’ first major English-language monograph, will be accompanied by their first US survey exhibition and their largest US show to date, on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, from May 2024 to July 2025. The book is given a third dimension through Hirshhorn Eye (Hi) technology: readers can activate, via smartphone, videos of the artists and the exhibition’s curators discussing the works in both book and show.

Marina Isgro is associate curator, media and performance art, and Melissa Chiu is director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.

Alan Ket is cofounder and curator of the Museum of Graffiti and Wynwood Gallery, Miami, Florida.

Peter Michalski is an expert in uncommissioned public works on walls and trains.

Jochen Volz is the director of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Brazil.

Marguerite Itamar Harrison is an expert on Brazilian art at Smith College.