Rubens Gerchman

Rubens Gerchman (January 10, 1942 in Rio de Janeiro – January 29, 2008) was a Brazilian painter and sculptor. He was heavily influenced by concrete and neoconcrete art.

Many of Gerchman's works are paintings based on populist themes and his political beliefs, which followed those of neoconcrete artists. His sculptures with letters, stem from concrete poetry. He used faces clipped from news photos, but unlike Andy Warhol, who used infamous celebrity, he used images of anonymous individuals. These faces would be reproduced as multiple painted images in a comic-strip style.

In the late 1960s, Gerchman devoted his interest to urban isolation and alienation.

From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, Gerchman incorporated letters and words in his paintings, photographs, and sculptures. In 1967, he completed sculptural works which included Terra (Earth), Lute ("Struggle") and Sós ("Alone").

During his stay in New York City from 1968 to 1973, Gerchman adapted to his new audience by producing works with English words. His new works still reflected Gerchman's populist nature, and are rooted in concrete poetry. Some of his work with letters also addresses issues of Latin America's relative geographic location in the Southern Hemisphere.