L-R: Tomás Toledo, Antonia Bergamin and Conrado Mesquita. Photo: courtesy Galatea
Before co-founding Galatea gallery in São Paolo in 2022, Antonia Bergamin had spent nine years as a managing partner for the São Paolo-based gallery Bergamin & Gomide, Conrado Mesquita was a prominent art dealer and collector, and Toledo was chief curator at the Museum of Art of São Paulo. Their combined range of experience and expertise has resulted in a gallery unlike any before it in Brazil. Galatea represents a tightly focused roster of 13 contemporary artists, including young cutting-edge practitioners as well as established but overlooked names such as Miguel dos Santos, who has been making glazed stoneware works – a complex syncretism of Indigenous South American and African cultures – since the 1960s. Galatea also has a permanent collection of works by prominent modernist artists including Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica. It is working to broaden our understanding of the trajectory of Brazilian modern and contemporary art. In January 2024 Galatea opened its first outpost in Salvador, Bahia.