:focal(1000x714:1001x715)/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/c4/89/c489e7ae-9fb0-452c-a667-05e1cc5f1ac9/pl_11228_mg_7755_copy.jpg)
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/headshot/michelle2.png)
In a dark room, a lever is switched, and a machine fills the space with excitement. The mechanical zoetrope starts working. In a circular motion, brightly colored figures turn and twist, melting into the raised platform. Blue whales gobble up boatmen. Tulips grow taller and taller. At the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, OSGEMEOS have arrived.
OSGEMEOS—os gêmeos means “the twins” in Portuguese—are Brazilian street artists and identical brothers, Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo. At the Hirshhorn, the duo will unveil the largest U.S. exhibition of their work on September 29. “OSGEMEOS: Endless Story” features 1,000 pieces of art and objects, all collected and created from their childhood to the present day. It includes murals, paintings and installations that make up whole rooms. A kaleidoscope of materials—wood, canvas, sequins and glitter—cover every surface.
And it all started with a spray can.
As children in the mid-1980s, OSGEMEOS discovered the power and artistry of hip-hop culture. After they learned to breakdance in the São Paulo neighborhood of Cambuci, their existing love of painting led them to graffiti art. As young teens, they transformed their city into an open-air gallery, inviting everyone to step into their dreamlike universe. Today, they maintain their enduring appreciation for graffiti, citing their admiration for tagging and “bombing” (a method of painting as many surfaces as possible in one specific area).
Through email, the artists speak as one, referring to themselves as “we.” With art, they are OSGEMEOS always.
“Hip-hop has been very important to us as a form of education,” OSGEMEOS say. It’s “a way of learning to respect people, to respect others, to know how to use the city so as not to let it use you, to turn the city into a sketchbook.” In 1998, OSGEMEOS traveled to Hamburg, Germany, and were moved by the city’s graffiti artists, who painted entire building facades. This inspired their decision to go large-scale with their own murals. The twins emphasized the significance of partnership, celebrating their work with graffiti and street artists like JR, Daze, Twist, José Parlá and Banksy. “Hip-hop culture has broken down barriers and saved lives,” add OSGEMEOS.
At a preview of the exhibition, OSGEMEOS described their love and concern for São Paulo, calling it an “intense” city in a state of flux. Photographs of their graffiti demonstrate how they comment on this tension—and resist it. Countless pieces no longer live on the city’s walls, as they’ve been removed by clean-up crews, again and again. OSGEMEOS lean into the meta in their art: Many of the spray-painted figures are graffiti artists themselves, seemingly daubing their own messages on highway underpasses and alleyways. One figure addresses the São Paulo mayor (“Sr. Prefeito”) directly. Written in Portuguese, it reads, “Erasing art is erasing culture, erasing culture is disrespecting the people.”
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/d2/54/d2540681-e032-43ce-8c92-fd59ca265a51/hmsg_exh_endlessstory_2024_007.jpg)
As the reputation of OSGEMEOS grew, so did their ambition. They took their art beyond Brazil, traveling the world and leaving their mark on cityscapes from New York to Berlin. Each mural told a story—some of hope, others of nostalgia and many celebrating the vibrant cultures they encountered. Their art wasn’t just a spectacle; it was an invitation to connect, to dream and to explore the unseen narratives hidden within the mundane.
“The scope and intensity of their world building is something that makes them really unique,” says Marina Isgro, the Hirshhorn curator of the twins’ exhibition. With unerring specificity, OSGEMEOS have mastered the art of spray paint, introducing thin, precise lines of color into their work. They’ve also hand-applied hundreds and hundreds of sequins, lined up in a perfect grid, to bring their characters to life. “Those layers of technique and skill are something that also sets them apart,” Isgro says.
Since childhood, the duo has relied on each other as creative partners. “We knew that we were going to be artists, I think, before we [were] born,” says Otavio in an interview with Studio Hirshhorn. “We were born with this together, with the same dreams.”
As young boys, the twins unearthed artistic potential in every sight and sound. They had the limitless support of their parents, who encouraged their artistic inclinations and allowed them to transform the family home into living art. Their exhibition at the Hirshhorn proudly validates this multigenerational collaboration.
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/0d/d6/0dd69662-c87b-4433-9bf5-064b5bc897f5/mg_4127.jpg)
From their grandfather, Gustavo and Otavio learned to appreciate classical music and opera—an influence seen in their installation called The Moon Room. It’s an immersive space with half-blue, half-red walls that merges the ordinary routine of sleep with the fantastical allure of dreaming. Through the windows of a makeshift home, a lit-up crescent moon reclines on a half-made bed. “Nessun Dorma” from the opera Turandot, sung by Luciano Pavarotti, pumps through the speakers. And no, it’s not a fever dream. But it feels like one.
From their older siblings, they grew to adore progressive rock and pop music—again, witnessed in their own work. A wall of vintage Brazilian pop records dazzles, the album covers reconfigured and painted by OSGEMEOS. The covers burst with new color, singers’ faces outlined in squares of hot pink and yellow.
As fans of streetwear, they coveted designer brands but did not have access to Adidas or Kangol as teens. In one glass case, a Kangol-like bucket hat, lovingly sewn by their grandmother, sits on a mannequin. Three textiles, a series of latch-hook rugs, were embroidered by Margarida Pandolfo, their mother. This is a story not just of OSGEMEOS, but of their first and fiercest supporters: their family.
And then, of course, there’s Tritrez, the awe-inspiring, whimsical universe conceived by the brothers as children. Trademark characters populate this vibrant world: large-headed figures with bright-yellow skin, mermaids with heavy lids and rainbow hair, breakdancers of different colors holding court on a subway platform. According to OSGEMEOS, part of their duty as artists is to “materialize the wonderful images of our experience in Tritrez—the scenes, the colors, the smell.”
The duo’s stunning Tritrez Altar is a rainbow structure first built in 2020 and shown outside of Brazil for the first time at the museum. Painted hues of orange, cream and gold depict a heavenly sunset, and a frame of bright flowers surrounds the large-scale skyscape. In front of the painting, a life-sized character from Tritrez stares out at the gallery room. He’s unzipping his signature lemon-colored skin like a suit, revealing a glowing figure underneath. It seems like a metaphor for all that the brothers have exulted about Tritrez. Like this character, they will one day shed the confines of their human body and return to their fantastical home. “It’s where we’ve come from and where we’re going,” OSGEMEOS say. “Tritrez is what we believe in, our spiritual level, our portal.”
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/f1/e8/f1e841be-a3a6-481c-8897-bb5f1ccab074/pl_11233_deusa_mg_4643.jpg)
Isgro says the title of the exhibition, “Endless Story,” was inspired by the curved design of the museum itself. As OSGEMEOS walked through the galleries, they described the experience as an “endless loop,” an idea that resonated with them and the continuity of their work. With this exhibition, they hoped to display an arc of stylistic development, one that “just keeps going around,” explains Isgro.
Indeed, their work is full of brilliant color, sound and space—it zips from fashion design to murals to the pulsing beats of electro-funk and hip-hop. From Brazil’s landscapes and cityscapes, OSGEMEOS sought to make a “world that you can jump inside.” Here, in the “Endless Story,” everyone can take that leap.
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/headshot/michelle2.png)