Organized by El Museo del Barrio, Mestre Didi: Spiritual Form is a landmark monographic exhibition exploring the work of the late Afro-Brazilian sculptor, writer, cultural advocate and spiritual leader Mestre Didi (Salvador, 1917-2013). As the first major U.S. museum exhibition of Didi’s work in 25 years, the survey unites over 30 of his sculptures and offers a rare view of his far-reaching spiritual and artistic legacy.
Over the course of his career, from the 1960s until the 2010s, Mestre Didi was a visionary emissary for Candomblé. He was perhaps the first artist to reimagine Candomblé ritual objects as artworks in their own right.
El Museo’s exhibition will foreground Mestre Didi’s spiritually evocative and formally imaginative sculptures and present new interpretations of his symbolic repertoire. His distinctive artworks combine the traditional materials, shapes, and symbols of the orishas, the Candomblé deities, to create a modern sculptural language.
About the Artist
Mestre Didi, born as Deoscóredes Maximiliano dos Santos, was closely involved in the Candomblé religious society Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá from a young age, where he spent decades making traditional ritual objects. Around 1962, he began to create sculptures and pursue exhibition opportunities, with early shows at Galeria Ralf (Salvador), Galeria Bonino (Rio de Janeiro), and the Museu de Arte Moderna, Salvador. After receiving a fellowship from UNESCO to conduct fieldwork in West Africa in 1967, Didi and the anthropologist Juana Elbein dos Santos, his wife, organized the exhibition Afro-Brazilian Art, which was presented in Lagos, Accra, Dakar, Paris, London, and Buenos Aires between 1968 and 1974 and included Didi’s work. Since the 1980s Didi has been included in landmark exhibitions such as A Mão Afro-Brasileira [The Afro-Brazilian Hand] at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) in 1988; Art in Latin America at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 1989; Magiciens de la Terre [Magicians of the Earth], Centre Pompidou, Paris, in 1989; the 23rd International Biennial of São Paulo, in 1996, with a solo presentation; and Afro-Atlantic Histories, MASP, in 2018. His works are included in public and private collections internationally, including at El Museo del Barrio, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Dallas Museum of Art, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Museu Afro Brasil, and Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro.
Mestre Didi: Spiritual Form | March 13 – July 13, 2025
Hours: El Museo del Barrio’s galleries are open Thursdays through Sundays from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Venue Details: El Museo del Barrio – 1230 5th Avenue, New York, New York 10029
Learn more about the exhibition