A Free Rio Show Honours a Self-Taught Indigenous Sculptor

Culture

A free exhibition in Rio celebrates Conceição dos Bugres, one of Brazil’s most distinctive folk sculptors, by bringing her family’s carvings to the city for the first time.

The show is called Sobre bugres e totens, meaning About Bugres and Totems. It runs at the Edison Carneiro Folklore Museum in the central Glória district until 9 September.

Some background helps for a foreign visitor. Conceição dos Bugres was a self-taught sculptor of Indigenous heritage, famed for small wooden figures she called bugres.

Who Conceição dos Bugres was

She was born in Rio Grande do Sul in 1914 and made her life in Mato Grosso do Sul. There she became one of the best-known artisans of Brazil’s Centre-West.

Her signature works were carved from wood. The small figures were coated in beeswax and paint, their features reduced to a few incisions that gave each one a quiet, human presence.

Recognition came slowly and then surged. She had local success before her death in 1984, but her reputation and prices climbed sharply afterwards.

Today her standing is national. Her work has entered important collections and featured in a major show at the São Paulo Museum of Art, the MASP.

What the Conceição dos Bugres show brings to Rio

The exhibition is really about continuity. It presents the artists who kept the tradition alive after her death, led by her grandson, Mariano Neto.

He learned at her side as a boy. As an adult he developed his own work before returning to the family bugres, which he now carves in her spirit.

His mother shows alongside him. Sotera Sanches makes totems, sculptures of faces carved into raw wood, left without the wax and paint her mother-in-law used.

For both, it is a Rio debut. The show marks the first time either artist has exhibited in the city, staged in a room dedicated to popular artists.

There is a practical twist as well. The pieces on display can be bought, priced by the artists themselves on fair-trade principles, with only a small cut kept by the museum shop.

The venue is itself a draw. The Edison Carneiro museum has championed Brazilian folk art for more than forty years, and its Popular Artist Room hosts a new maker every few months.

The show sits in a wider moment. Brazilian folk and Indigenous art is being reassessed by museums and collectors alike, and Conceição’s rising profile is part of that shift.

The location suits a day out. The museum sits on Rua do Catete, near the Catete Palace and its gardens, an easy stop on a walk through this historic slice of the city.

The name itself carries a caution. The word bugre was long used as a slur against Indigenous people, and the artist’s own story is bound up in that difficult history.

For a foreign resident, the appeal is layered. It is free, central and short, yet it opens a window onto a strand of Brazilian art rarely seen abroad.

The documentation adds depth. Researchers photographed the artist’s studio in the 1970s, and part of that archive appears in the catalogue and an accompanying video.

In the end, it is a quiet but rewarding stop. A small family show, staged for free in a historic museum, tells a large story about memory, craft and Indigenous Brazil.

Where and when can I see the Conceição dos Bugres show?

It runs at the Edison Carneiro Folklore Museum on Rua do Catete in Rio’s Glória district, until 9 September. Opening hours are Tuesday to Friday from ten to six and weekends and holidays from eleven to five, with free entry.

Who are the artists on show?

They are Mariano Neto, the grandson of Conceição dos Bugres, and his mother Sotera Sanches, both sculptors from Mato Grosso do Sul. It is the first time either has exhibited in Rio de Janeiro.

Can I buy the artworks?

Yes, the catalogue and the works on display are for sale during the exhibition and afterwards in the museum shop. Prices are set by the artists on fair-trade principles, with only a small percentage retained for administration.