In collaboration with the Centre Pompidou

We meet Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain in a café near the Centre Pompidou. ‘We’ve lived nearby since we arrived in France over twenty years ago,’ the duo says in unison, arriving a little early. ‘We couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.’

There are artists who defy all systems of classification – Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain are among them. Collaborating seamlessly, they explore the intersections between language, space, and time, from the infinitely large to the mundane. Their hybrid work, at the crossroads of visual arts, typography, and semiotics, adheres to the strict codes that shape our perception of the world, only to then transcend them – allowing the most subtle poetry to blossom from seemingly austere frameworks.

Sitting across from me in the bright light of early afternoon, they recount the beginnings of their collaboration, their lilting accents betraying their origins. Detanico was born in 1974, Lain in 1973, in the mid-sized town in southern Brazil, Caxias do Sul, known for its vibrant cultural life and altitude. Both, dressed today in a subtle gradient of blue contrasting with the deep purple of the bench, first followed similar paths before uniting professionally. Detanico pursued studies in semiology and linguistics, ‘out of curiosity, driven by an interest in literature and language, and because semiotics opens up other forms of expression, including dance and the visual arts.’ Rafael trained as a graphic designer and typographer. They moved to São Paulo in the mid-1990s to work as graphic designers, and from this they gained a solid understanding of forms and signs.

The duo soon began to experiment with visual forms while developing a conceptual approach in which language plays an omnipresent, often playful, role. ‘We creat frameworks, systems of code and writing where chance and accidents can occur,’ says Detanico. In 2001, the couple made the leap to devote themselves entirely to art.

Their career quickly gained momentum with residencies and exhibitions in major institutions, marking the start of international recognition. Notable early shows include ‘São ou Não São Gravuras?’ at the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo (2001) and ‘Graphic Shows Brazil’ at the Ginza Graphic Gallery in Tokyo (2002). From 2002 to 2003, they were invited for a residency at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, where they worked within the creative laboratory, Le Pavillon, which culminated in a group exhibition, ‘OO: An Exhibition That Grows from the Middle’ (2002–03).

In 2003, Flatland, their first video, was born. Conceived as a succession of linear tableaux made from over 5,000 images of water and sky taken during a journey through the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam, the work is powerfully hypnotic. Through thin black lines on white or monochrome backgrounds, and basic geometric shapes, the piece already reveals the duo’s boundless fascination with space-time, the creation of meaningful visual languages, and their love of cartography. ‘Flatland contains all the early seeds of our artistic inquiries,’ says Detanico, while Lain, seated across from her, nods in agreement.

Their interdisciplinary approach also led them to explore electronic music and contemporary dance, such as during a 2004 residency at the Centre National de la Danse in Pantin in the suburbs of Paris, in collaboration with choreographer Takeshi Yazaki.

Detanico and Lain’s collaboration is grounded in a constant dialogue between two complementary realms: signs and forms. They often draw on concepts borrowed from science. ‘We conducted research with scientists on the possible reversibility of time,’ explains Lain, clearly undaunted by quantum physics. Literature also plays a key role – an interest reflected in their affinity for the poetry of Augusto de Campos and Stéphane Mallarmé. They paid homage to Mallarmé with their work Un coup de dés (2021), in which the text is replaced by a visual system based on dice. Their playful engagement with chance and their ongoing reflection on time also underpin their (impossible?) chess games. Starting in checkmate and working backward to the pieces’ original positions, the matches emphasize player collaboration over competition. Breaking and playing with codes remains a central thread in their practice.

Their entire conceptual approach stands out for its subtle reinterpretation of codification systems – games, alphabets, numbers, and even lunar cycles – offering a more subjective perception of time. In their exhibition, ‘Comme des gouttes de pluie sur la Lune’ (Like Raindrops on the Moon) at Martine Aboucaya in 2014, the works drew inspiration from scientific knowledge about the phases of the moon. Similarly, with La Grande Ourse (2021), an installation of fifteen polished stainless steel stars suspended in the courtyard of the Samuel Paty school in Valenton in Val-de-Marne, they meticulously followed the known coordinates of the stars, combining astronomy, toponymy, typography, and more, all according to precise protocols. In 2022, they took over the Fanal Tower in Marseille, invited by the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Sud and Mucem – Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée, transforming the word ‘Lumière’ into clouds and sunshine, creating an image of the sky in place of the tower which was under construction – a stunning visual experience.

For the prix Marcel Duchamp, they’ve designed ‘an installation in three parts that brings together the main axes of our artistic research – writing and the cosmos,’ says Lain, careful not to reveal too much. Detanico adds, ‘We bring together images that are very distant from one another.’ Although further details are under wraps, we know that this new project juxtaposes telescope images dating back billions of years with springtime views of blooming fields. It is a reminder that the infinitely small and the infinitely large are intrinsically intertwined, that our experience of the everyday is rooted in a cosmological perspective, and that the ephemeral can blossom within the immutable. Once again, the duo delivers to the public a refreshing ode to imagination and contemplation, inviting us to rethink our relationship to the world in light of the (dizzying) scale of what transcends us.