Raphael Fonseca

Raphael Fonseca was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is the curator of visual arts at Culturgest, Portugal. He is co-chief curator of the 37th São Paulo Biennial (2027) and co-curator of the festival Sequences (2027) in Reykjavík, Iceland. He is part of the curatorial ensemble responsible for Counterpublic 2026, a triennial recently opened in St. Louis, in the United States.

He was the chief curator of the 14th Mercosur Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil (2025), and co-curated the 22nd SESC_Videobrasil Biennial (2023) in São Paulo, Brazil. Previously, he worked as a curator at MAC Niterói (Contemporary Art Museum of Niterói, Brazil) from 2017 to 2020. He holds a PhD in Art History and Criticism from the State University of Rio de Janeiro.

Central to his practice is the juxtaposition of different temporalities and the ways they generate contemporary reflections for audiences. Humor, absurdity, pop culture, and political resistance associated with pleasure, imagination, and transformation are recurring themes in his research and curatorial work.