Clarissa Tossin (b. 1973, Porto Alegre, Brazil) is a Los Angeles–based visual artist investigating the intersections of global economies, colonial histories, migration, and the built environment. Through an approach grounded in research Tossin’s multidisciplinary practice often uncovers hidden links between distant geographies, examining how cultural exchanges and power relations are inscribed in architecture, landscape, and everyday objects.
Tossin studied in Brazil and later relocated to the United States, bringing a transnational lens to her artistic inquiry which employs sculpture, installation, video and photography. Her ongoing dialogue between Brasília, the utopian modernist capital of Brazil, and Los Angeles, a sprawling metropolis shaped by migration and movie industry, reveals how modernity travels, mutates, and manifests across contexts. In her project Brasília, Cars, Pools and Other Modernities (2009–2013), she compares the urban fabric of both cities to expose the contradictions of progress, leisure, and class embedded within modernist design.
Tossin’s 2017 video Ch’u Mayaa reimagines the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mayan Revival houses in Los Angeles through a decolonial lens. Performed by a Maya dancer, the piece transforms the building’s static ornamentation into living movement, reclaiming Indigenous motifs that had been appropriated by modernist architecture. This work exemplifies Tossin’s broader interest in how material culture and design can carry colonial legacies — and how performance can restore alternative narratives.
More recently, Tossin has expanded her focus toward ecological and interplanetary futures, connecting environmental degradation on Earth with the fantasies of space colonization.
The exhibition Point of No Return, currently on vie wat MASP in San Paolo, evokes the critical threshold at which the plante’s environmental degradetion becomes irreversible. Beyond portraying the climate crisis, Tossin incorporates into her works the material elements of catastrophe, grounding her practice in the remnants of a collapsed world – which she calls “future fossils”. These sculptures are made from discarded materials, plant fragments, and casts of her own body. Her work also expands to the macro scale, engagin with maps, flags, and outer space imagery.
Two major climate events shaped the scope of the exhibition: the 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul, her birthplace, which inspired Volume morto [Dead Pool] (2025), a large-scale installation evoking traces of an imagined flood; and the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, which destroyed entire neighborhoods—including the home of collectors who owned one of her works.
Tossin was recently recipient of the Bulgari Whitney Biennial American Academy in Rome Fellowship (2025). Her work has been exhibited internationally in several solo exhibitions at institutions including Museu de Arte de São Paulo – MASP (2025); Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2024); Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver (2022); Rice Public Art, The Raymond and Susan Brochstein Pavilion, Houston (2021); Harvard University, Cambridge (2019); Blanton Museum of Art, Austin (2018); Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach (2015); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014); Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2013). Her work was included in the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Musuem of American Art, New York (2024); Prospect.6 Triennial (2024); in the 14th Shanghai Biennale (2023); the 5th Chicago Architecture Biennial (2023); the 12th Gwangju Biennial, Gwangju (2018). Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Hammer Museum (2024); The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (2024); Whiteney Museum of American Art, New York (2023); Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2022); Denver Art Museum, Denver (2021); Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2021); New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans (2020); San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose (2018); SITE Santa Fe (2014).
Tossin’s work is held in the collections of the LACMA, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton; Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; New Orleans Museum of Arts, Houston; Casa Niemeyer, Universidade de Brasilia; MSU Broad Museum, East Lansing; Inhotim Foundation, Brumadinho; and The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.
[ read more ]Clarissa Tossin (b. 1973 Porto Alegre) lives and works in Los Angeles.
Upcoming group exhibitions
2026
Into the Time Horizon, Nevada Museum of Art, reno
Art in the Century of Climate Change, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver
Female avant-gardes of Latin America (1915 to present), Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn
2025
Grounded, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
Transgresoras: Mail Art and Messages, 1960s-2020s, California Museum of
Photography, University of California, Riverside
Complexo Brasil, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa
Selected solo exhibitions
2025
Clarissa Tossin: Ponto Sem Retorno / Point of No Return, Museu de Arte
São Paulo (MASP), São Paulo
All That You Touch, You Change, Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame
2024
Focus: Clarissa Tossin, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm
2023
to take root among the stars, Frye Art Museum, Seattle
Vulneravelmente Humano, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo
2022
Falling From Earth, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver
Disorientation Towards Collapse, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles
2021
Circumnavigation Towards Exhaustion, La Kunsthalle Mulhouse
The 8th Continent, Moody Center for the Arts, Rice Public Art, The
Raymond and Susan Brochstein Pavilion, Houston
2019
Future Fossil, Johnson-Kulukundis Gallery, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
21st Century Wisdom: Healing Frank Lloyd Wright’s Textile Block House, 18thStreet Arts Center
2018
Azul Maia / Maya Blue, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo
Encontro das Águas / Meeting of Waters, Blanton Museum of Art, Austin
2017
The Mayan, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles
Stereoscopic Vision: Clarissa Tossin, Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, Middletown
2016
Meeting of Waters, JOAN, Los Angeles
2015
Brasília Teimosa, Galeria Baobá, Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife
How does it travel?, Samuel Freeman Gallery, Los Angeles
Streamlined: Belterra, Amazônia / Alberta, Michigan, Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach
2014
Transplantado (VW Brasília), Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo
2013
Brasília, Cars, Pools & Other Modernities, Artpace, San Antonio
Blind Spot: Window into Houston, Clarissa Tossin, Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston
Study for a Landscape, Sicardi Gallery, Houston
2012
On Brasília, Centre 3, Hamilton, Canada
2011
Gasto / Spent, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo
2009
Real, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (MFA Thesis)
Solo screenings / video installations
2024
Ch’u Mayaa, Track II Screening Program, KADIST Art Foundation, DRC No.12, Beijing
Streamlined: Belterra, Amazônia / Alberta, Michigan, The Image Centre, Toronto
2023
Artist Film Series, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
2022
White Marble Everyday, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston
Mojo’q che b’ixan ri ixkanulab’ / Antes de que los volcanes canten / Before the Volcanoes Sing, Concert Hall, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center(EMPAC), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy
Ch’u Mayaa, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City
2020
Light and Space, The Broad Museum, Los Angeles
2019
Clarissa Tossin: Ch’u Mayaa, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton
New Media Series: Clarissa Tossin, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis
Ch’u Mayaa, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy
Unruly Alliances, Royal Nonesuch Gallery, San Francisco
2018
When the Land Speaks: Clarissa Tossin, Broad Art Museum, Michigan State, University, East Lansing
Selected group exhibitions
2025
Crivo, a perspectiva de Luisa Strina, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo
Maya Blue: Ancient Color, New Visions, San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio
You Stretched Diagonally Across It: Contemporary Tapestry, Dallas
Contemporary, Dallas
17th Gjon Mili International Exhibition of Photography and Moving Image:
She Who Starts the Song…, National Gallery of Kosovo, Pristina
Future Fossils, MassArt Art Museum, Boston (traveled to Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg – Torggler Fine Arts Center, Christopher Newport University, Newport
2024
Prospect.6 Triennial: The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home, New Orleans
Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice, (Getty PST: Art x Science x LA), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (traveled to Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston)
An Archaeology of Standards: The Production of Otherness, Foment de les Artes i el Disseny, Barcelona Design Centre, Barcelona
2024
Whitney Biennial: Even Better Than the Real Thing, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
A New View of 20th and 21st-Century Architecture and Design, Collection Installation, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
The Objects We Choose, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York
2023
14th Shanghai Biennale: Cosmos Cinema, Power Station of Art, Shanghai
Dancing about Architecture, The High Line Art, New York
Shifting Center, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy
5th Chicago Architecture Biennial: This is a Rehearsal, Chicago Cultural
Center, Chicago
Inheritance, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
2022
Mountain/Time, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen
2021
ReVisión: Art in the Americas, Denver Art Museum, Denver (traveled to Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis (2023)
Born in Flames: Feminist Futures, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York
Por um Sopro de Fúria e Esperança, MuBE-Museu Brasileiro da Escultura e Ecologia, São Paulo
Janelas para Dentro, Casa Milan, São Paulo
Mis/Communication, Paul Zuccaire Gallery, Stony Brook University (traveled to Gannett Gallery, SUNY Polytechnic Institute (2022) – Visual Arts Gallery, SUNY Adirondack (2023) – Marion Gallery, SUNY Fredonia (2023) – Dorsky Museum, SUNY New Paltz (2024)
2020
Kissing Through a Curtain, MASS MoCA, North Adams
Mending the Sky, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans
Stayin’ Alive, Another Space, New York
Mecarõ: Amazonia in the Petitgas Collection, MO.CO. Hôtel des Collections, Montpellier
Farsa, língua, fratura, ficção: Brasil-Portugal, Sesc Pompéia, São Paulo
InterStates of Mind: Rewriting the Map of the United States in the Age of the Automobile, Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University
Seismic Movements: Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Bangladesh
2019
Crossing Lines, Constructing Home: Displacement and Belonging in Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge
Museum of Modern Art and Western Antiquities, Section II – Department of Carving and Modeling: Form and Volume, Cristina Guerra, Contemporary Art, Lisbon, Portugal
garcía, Raina, Shore, Tossin, Luhring Augustine, New York
LAMOA DS#7, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles
Place: Jane Benson, Joseph Havel, Leslie Hewitt, Rick Lowe, Clarissa Tossin, Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston
2018
Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
12th Gwangju Biennial: Imagined Nations / Modern Utopias, Gwangju
Other Walks, Other Lines, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose
Mon Nord best ton Sud, Kunsthalle Mulhouse, France
The House Imaginary, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose
Somewhere in Between, California State University, Pomona
Emerald City, K 11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong
Stream Capture, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis
PST/CST, BANK/MAB Society, Shanghai
In Any Direction, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge
2017
Condemned To Be Modern, Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, Los Angeles
Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in the Americas, California Museum of Photography, University of California, Riverside (traveled to Queens Museum, Queens (2019)
Visual Intelligence, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge
Baggage Claims, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando (traveled to Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro (2018) – Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota (2019)
99¢ or less, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit
Vernacular Environments, Edward Cella, Los Angeles
Lives Between, Kadist, San Francisco and Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
Between Words and Silence: The Work of Translation, Armory Center for the Arts, Los Angeles
2016
Trans-Americas: A sign, a situation, a concept, Museum London, Canada Marler Medienkunst-Prize, Skulpturenmuseum, Glaskasten Marl, Germany
Everyday Reflections in Abstraction, Space Collection, Irvine
PlaceBound, Nan Rae Gallery, Woodbury University, Burbank
Customizing Language, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles
2015
United States of Latin America, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit
Time/Image, Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, Houston
Five Artists, David Nolan Gallery, New York
In Search of an Exit (or Eight Characters in a Parlor), Heritage Square Museum, Los Angeles
After Landscape: Copied Cities, Fabra i Coats Centre D’Art Contemporain, Barcelona
MetaModern, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois (traveled to Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (2015) – Orlando Museum of Art (2015) – De Vos Art Museum, Northern Michigan University (2016) – Palm Springs Museum of Art, Palm Springs (2016)
2014
Unsettled Landscapes, SITE Santa Fe, Sante Fe
Made in L.A. 2014, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Bringing the World into the World, Queens Museum, Queens
The Cartographer, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles
Apollo TBD, Samuel Freeman, Los Angeles
Liberdade em Movimento, Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre
Roesler Hotel #25: Dispositivos para um mundo (im)possível, Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo
Art@Tell, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
2013
Panoramas do Sul – 18º Festival Internacional de Arte Contemporânea Sesc_Videobrasil, SESC Pompéia, São Paulo
Tempo Suspenso, Brazil Fair, Miami
Sneakerotics, Edouard Malingue Gallery, Hong Kong
Soft off, ltd los angeles, Los Angeles
La Elipsis Arquitectónica, Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco,
Mexico City
2012
When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes, CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco (traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, Detroit (2013)
Dallas Biennale, Dallas Contemporary, Dallas
2011
Building Arts, Sicardi Gallery, Houston
Material Traces, The McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas
YLA 16: Thought Cloud, Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin
Nowhere Near Here, Houston Center for Photography, Houston
2010
The First Thing, Redling Fine Art, Los Angeles
I Know What You Did Last Summer, Saint Cecilia Convent, Brooklyn
2009
Feeling Feelings, Compact Space, Los Angeles
Why Theory, Spring Art Towers, Los Angeles
CAA Los Angeles M.F.A, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
2008
M.F.A. Mid-residency Exhibition, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia
Allan Kaprow: Art as Life Happenings Series – Publicity, Vasquez Rocks Park, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Truth, REDCAT Gallery, Los Angeles
2007
Exquisite Acts and Everyday Rebellions, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia
Education
2009 MFA California Institute of the Arts
2000 BFA Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado, São Paulo
Awards, fellowships, grants & residencies
2025
Bvlgari Whitney Biennial Affiliated Artist, American Academy in Rome
2023
Smithsonian Fellowship – National Air and Space Museum, Washington D.C.
2020
Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago
2019
Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award, New York
LAB VERDE: Art Immersion Program in the Amazônia, Manaus
Fellows of Contemporary Art Fellowship, Los Angeles
Artist Lab Residency, 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica
2018
Artadia Los Angeles Award, Los Angeles
Juméx Foundation Research Grant (for Artist Lab Residency at 18th Street Arts Center)
2017
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship, Harvard University, Cambridge
2016
Commission by the City of Los Angeles for Getty Foundation’s Pacific
Standard Time: LA/LA Exhibition
2015
Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Projeto Residências Artísticas, Recife
2014
Emerging Artist Fellowship, California Community Foundation, Los Angeles
2013
Artpace, International Artist-in-Residence, San Antonio
ARC Grant, Center for Cultural Innovation
2012
VI Concurso de Videoarte, Fundação Joaquim Nabuco
Artistic Innovation Grant, Center for Cultural Innovation
2011
SOMA, Mexico City
2010
Core Program Fellowship, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston (2010–2012)
2010
Fundación Botín, Santander, Spain (mentor: Mona Hatoum)
2009
Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture
