Saint Clair Cemin (Cruz Alta, 1951) challenges sculptural tradition by articulating structural rigor and organic impulse. The diversity of his work—varying in scale, material, and technique—reveals a practice that combines scholarly references and archaic imaginaries, merging mythology, science, and art history. In bronze, steel, glass, or marble, his forms operate on the threshold between balance and instability, between density and lightness, bringing forth hybrid figures that seem to oscillate between the mineral, the animal, and the human. By exploring contrasts between opacity and transparency, shine and weight, the artist builds a sculptural vocabulary in which order and unpredictability coexist, opening space for symbolic readings that traverse different cultural traditions.
Since his first solo exhibition at the Daniel Newburg Gallery (1985, New York), Cemin has exhibited at institutions such as the Museo de Arte de Monterrey (Mexico, 1994); Hirshhorn Museum (2001, Washington, United States); Museo de Arte Moderno (2002, Mexico City, Mexico); Instituto Tomie Ohtake (2009, São Paulo); Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (2012, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain); and Fundação Brasilea (2016, Basel, Switzerland).
He has also participated in various group exhibitions, with highlights including the IX Documenta (1992, Kassel, Germany); 22nd São Paulo Biennial (1994); 4th and 10th Biennials of Mercosul (2003, 2015); “Surrealism: The Conjured Life” (2016, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, United States); “Troposphere” (2018, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, China); and “Glasstress” (2019, Fondazione Berengo Art Space, Murano, Italy).
His work is part of several public and private collections in Brazil and abroad, including: Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (Spain); Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (France); Grounds for Sculpture (United States); Hakone Open-Air Museum (Hakone, Japan); Instituto Inhotim (Brazil); Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (France); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (Mexico); Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil); Museum of Contemporary Art (United States); Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (Belgium); New Orleans Museum of Art (United States); Usina de Arte (Brazil); and Whitney Museum of American Art (United States).
