OSGEMEOS: Endless Story

  • 82,00€

About

Brazilian twin brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo, best known as Os Gêmeos, are credited as leaders of graffiti and urban art in Brazil. Quirky, yellow, oblong-headed figures have become their visual signature. Their narrative paintings and drawings synthesize their everyday lives, one defined by the color and chaos of urban Brazil, as well as rural festivals, music and folk art — all of which inspire fantastical portraits.

Despite being intimately linked to the international graffiti scene and its practitioners, Os Gêmeos unabashedly paint for the people. Their murals, which grace cities around the world, critique social inequity and aspire to create hope. Os Gêmeos’ poetic vision of the world is difficult to label: they are not solely graffiti artists, but unpredictable and visionary figurative artists who share their intimate world with the public through painting, sculpture and installations.

OSGEMEOS: Endless Story, is one a major English-language monograph, and was accompanied by 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.

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.


The book was edited by Marina Isgro, with the contributions of Mellissa Chiu, Marguerite Itamar Harrison, Alan Ket, Peter Michalski and Jochen Volz.

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

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

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.

 

Published by Rizzoli in April 2024

25.4 x 33 cm

Texts: English

Hard cover book

 

Product details

Title
OSGEMEOS: Endless Story
Publisher
Rizzoli Electa
Number of Pages
344
ISBN-10
978-0-8478-6639-7

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