Overview

The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts presents “Latinitudes: A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture” at Madlener House in Chicago, running April 2 through July 18, 2026. This is the first presentation of the exhibition in the United States, following a tour that has reached institutions across Latin America and Europe since its São Paulo debut in 2015.

The exhibition brings together more than 100 photographs by Brazilian visual artist Leonardo Finotti, curated by Brazilian architect Michelle Jean de Castro. It surveys modern architecture across twelve Latin American cities, proposing a horizontal framework for understanding modernism as a shared, parallel development across the region rather than a series of isolated national stories. It is presented in partnership with the Chicago Architecture Biennial, selected by Biennial Artistic Director Florencia Rodriguez as a continuation of the CAB’s engagement with Latin American architecture in its SHIFT edition.

Focus

The title combines “latitudes” and “Latin” to propose a geographical and cultural framework for reading Latin American modernism horizontally, across shared histories and climates, rather than vertically, through individual national canons. The exhibition covers housing, civic, and cultural buildings by key figures of twentieth-century Latin American modernism, presenting them within a connected architectural landscape that spans the continent.

Finotti’s photography is not straightforwardly documentary. Trained as an architect and later at the Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau, he works at the intersection of architectural photography and independent artistic practice, producing images that reinterpret rather than merely record the buildings they depict. The exhibition asks viewers to consider how modern architecture emerged in parallel across Latin America and throughout the Americas, with Chicago, a city foundational to modern architectural experimentation, serving as a particularly resonant viewing context.

Cities Represented

Architects Represented

Combining the words “latitudes” and “Latin,” Latinitudes proposes a horizontal framework connecting cities across shared geographies and histories.
Graham Foundation Exhibition Description, 2026

Program

Opening and Talk by Leonardo Finotti

The exhibition opens on April 2, 2026 at 6pm with a talk by photographer Leonardo Finotti. This event offers the primary opportunity to hear from the exhibition’s originating artist on the project’s development and photographic approach over more than a decade.

Talk by Catherine Seavitt — April 30

“Military Gardens: Roberto Burle Marx in Brasília” — a talk expanding on the exhibition’s engagement with landscape architect and artist Roberto Burle Marx, one of the key figures represented in the photographs, in the specific context of Brasília’s monumental modernist project.

Talk by Patricio del Real — June 25

“Constructing Latin America: Architecture, Politics, and Race at the Museum of Modern Art” — a talk examining how Latin American architecture has been institutionally framed and exhibited within North American cultural contexts, a subject with direct relevance to the exhibition’s own first US presentation.

Origins and Travel History

Latinitudes originated as a project of LAMA.SP (Latin American Modern Architecture, São Paulo), an artist-run space co-founded by Michelle Jean de Castro and Leonardo Finotti. First presented in São Paulo in 2015, accompanied by a book published by Lars Müller (“A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture,” 2016), the exhibition has since traveled to Bogotá, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Montevideo, and Quito. The Chicago presentation at the Graham Foundation is its first US venue, making it simultaneously a local debut and the culmination of a decade-long international touring history.

Photographers and Curator

Leonardo Finotti is a visual artist based in São Paulo whose work spans modern architectural photography and documentation of anonymous or informal urban spaces. His photographs are held in the collections of MoMA New York, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, Architekturzentrum Wien, and other major institutions. He has represented Brazil at two Venice Architecture Biennials. Michelle Jean de Castro is an architect and curator based in Stockholm whose practice focuses on spatial dimensions of memory, absence, and displacement. Her curatorial work includes ongoing projects examining Afro-religious diasporic landscapes in Brazil and West Africa. The exhibition is organized at the Graham Foundation by director Sarah Herda and program manager Ava Barrett.

Audience

The exhibition is open to the public at Madlener House. Its primary audience is architects, historians of design, curators, and practitioners interested in Latin American modernism, architectural photography, and the politics of how non-Western or non-European architectural traditions are archived and exhibited. The accompanying talk programme extends the exhibition’s reach to academic and research audiences engaged with these questions.

Event Details