Real Illusion : curated by Guilherme Wisnik

According to Gestalt principles, the overall perception we have of a group of objects is not simply the sum of its parts. Gestalt psychology recognizes the illusionistic element that structurally governs our perception of reality. In this context, Felipe Cohen’s work extends the virtualities conjured by geometric space: the shape of a volume—even when only partially suggested—can be mentally completed by the viewer, whether through the play of reflections and shadows or through our innate predisposition to fill in forms in our minds. 

Cohen is a contemporary artist based in São Paulo. Singular in his poetics, his work carries a subtle deviation that forms connections without fully subscribing to the rational assertiveness of the constructive matrix that once underpinned Concretism. There is something elusive in his formal and perceptual ambiguity, which aligns more closely with Alfredo Volpi’s handmade geometry and dreamlike universe, the open lines of Mira Schendel’s monotypes, and the ironic paradoxes found in the work of Waltércio Caldas and Cildo Meireles. 

A similar line of reasoning applies to the furniture design of Percival Lafer, who employs evident geometries—straight lines and semicircles—in both rigid and soft materials, crafting a relationship between structure and seating in which the perception of the whole differs from the mere sum of its parts. 

In an age of virtual and augmented realities, these works prompt a recalibration of perception. Here, the ambiguity between art and the real world transcends modernist pedagogy, while simultaneously affirming the body and the concrete—yet illusory—nature of lived experience. In the end, everything adds up: two plus two makes five. 

Guilherme Wisnik 

curator

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