ANNA DE CASTRO BARBOSA
IL QUIPROQUO

With a text by Caterina Avataneo

29.04.26 – 28.06.26 OPENING HOURS:
Wednesday – Saturday, 3 – 7pm

From April 29 to June 28, 2026, FRENCH PLACE is pleased to present IL QUIPROQUO, a solo exhibition by Anna De Castro Barbosa, accompanied by a critical text by Caterina Avataneo.
Developed during the artist’s residency at FRENCH PLACE, IL QUIPROQUO takes shape from Anna De Castro Barbosa’s ongoing research into perception, fragmentation, and the instability of forms. Drawing on the motifs of the folding screen and the fan, the exhibition explores processes of concealment and revelation, in which images, bodies, and narratives emerge only partially, continually slipping between recognition and ambiguity.
Born in 1995 in Montpellier, Anna De Castro Barbosa lives in Paris and works in Aubervilliers, where she is a resident at Poush. After studying art history, cultural mediation, and museology at the Sorbonne, she graduated in 2024 from the Beaux-Arts in Nantes and subsequently in Paris. That same year, she was awarded the Diptyque Grant, the Bredin Prat Grant, and the Prix Dauphine for Contemporary Art. Her work has been presented in France in 2025 (Spiaggia Libera, Strouk, Pal Project, Art-o-rama…) as well as internationally, with
solo exhibitions at Third Born Gallery in Mexico City and MEGA in Milan.
Her practice, spanning sculpture and installation, explores the body, desire, and otherness, focusing on the latent moment preceding contact, where attraction and unease intertwine. Her works function as thresholds, balancing seduction and repulsion while engaging the viewer in a heightened state of alertness. Using materials that both retain and resist touch, and drawing on diverted medical instruments, she creates ambivalent forms that question intimacy and distance as spaces of fragile, unresolved encounter.