Joao Paulo Siqueira Lopes is an art advisor, curator and entrepreneur. A former gallery director at Lisson Gallery in London, he co-founded Art Consulting Tool before launching Panorama, his Sao Paulo-based advisory with global reach. Across his career he has advised artists, curated exhibitions, published books and built art collections for clients around the world.
Joao Paulo met with Pedro Vasques-Milhinhos, an Associate in our Corporate department and member of our Creators + Collectors group, to discuss the rise of Brazilian collectors on the global stage, how they think about art, and why Brazilian and Latin American art is finally getting the recognition it deserves — and what no algorithm or social media scrolling can ever replace.
You served as Lisson Gallery’s Latin America Representative and Associate Director from 2014 to 2017, before co-founding Art Consulting Tool and launching Panorama - two businesses with global reach. How has that journey shaped your understanding of what collectors want from an art adviser?
Since I started working in the arts, I've been a very pluralist professional, often wearing various hats. I've advised artists, curated exhibitions, published books and built art collections – I've never confined myself strictly to one role. I've always been more sensitive and intuitive, more drawn to opportunities than to fixed roles. My creativity and sense of entrepreneurship have always led me to create the projects I wanted to create, and to build unexpected bridges between people and ideas within the art world.
That plurality - moving between the gallery, the studio, the page and the collection - is exactly what shapes how I advise collectors today. I'm not advising from just one fixed point of view. In advising my clients, I weave all those different vantage points into the conversation.
According to the 2025 Survey of Global Collecting, Brazil now accounts for 23% of new art collectors worldwide, second only to the US. From where you sit as an advisor, what is different about how Brazilian art collectors approach collecting—not just what they buy, but how they think about art's place in their lives, homes and portfolios?
I must confess I didn’t know that number before - I find it both intriguing and exciting. In my view, those figures further emphasize the incredible, relentless energy that Brazilians bring to all areas of life. Brazil is such a melting pot of cultures and Brazilians are naturally open-minded and open-hearted to exploring art from everywhere. That’s also how I see my own role, and how I try to contribute to my clients’ lives. It doesn’t matter where they come from. Once they truly start engaging with art and the art world, they have trouble stopping. They’re not only interested in being at the zeitgeist of the art world, but also in defining and structuring a great collection - one that combines both cultural and financial value as well as one that sits between emotion and reason.
Next-generation Brazilian art collectors are among the youngest and most active in the world. What does that appetite look like in your early conversations with them? What are they excited about, which artists are they gravitating towards, and what fresh perspectives are they bringing to art collecting?
First and foremost, this new generation of collectors in Brazil is excited to be part of a community that brings together political, cultural, and economic dialogue alongside its aesthetic dimension - they have a keen sense that art is not there merely to adorn their walls, but as an expression of this discourse. They want to understand the emotion and discourse behind the pieces, to visit artists in their studios, to go to art fairs, to visit foundations and museums around the world - and, as a result, to bring that understanding home through art. There’s no doubt that painting, as a medium, now attracts not only newcomers but also very established collectors. I feel that in an age where we are overstimulated by screens, painting is so full of material and emotion, carrying that human, handmade quality that enchants us all. We are also seeing that Photography is experiencing a comeback and is increasingly being integrated in collections, as is sculpture.
SP-Arte is attracting an increasingly strong contingent of international collectors and institutional representatives. Are you seeing that translate into sustained demand in the Brazilian art market, or is it still more a moment of curiosity? And where does the centre of gravity of Brazilian art sit today—in São Paulo, Rio or somewhere more distributed?
Over the last 22 years since it was founded, SP-Arte has played an increasingly influential role and has changed the landscape of art collecting in Brazil. The fair’s consistently high-quality curation and organisation has increasingly ignited the curiosity of international collectors - not a large group, but one that is high quality one and understands the Brazilian art market. ArtRio, in turn, has done an incredible job bringing in major museum trustees and international collectors to Brazil. Rio de Janeiro, as a city, has its own power and poetry entrenched in its DNA which serves as a strong basis to attract these groups, along with so many artist studios who have found their home there and are spread across the city. That being said, São Paulo has a wonderful gallery scene, and is home to top tier museums such as Pinacoteca and MASP, as well as the second most important biennial in the world, the Bienal de São Paulo. In that sense, each city plays its own unique role. Outside of these two major cities, Recife also has a very active art scene, and we mustn't forget Inhotim, in Minas Gerais - a groundbreaking open-air contemporary museum housing works by some of the most significant Brazilian artists of our time - including Hélio Oiticica, Tunga, Olafur Eliasson and Adriana Varejão, which is regarded as one of the most ambitious and immersive artists experiences not just in Brazil, but in the world.
Brazilian artists have become a recurring presence at major international touchpoints, from the Venice Biennale to Frieze, while institutions continue to expand their Latin American acquisitions. Is this a sustained structural shift in how the global art world views Brazilian art, or does it still depend too heavily on the appetite of a handful of influential curators and collectors abroad?
I think this phenomenon is, in a way, a settling of accounts with the past. The art world, and other fields of culture, are finally coming to the realization that there is no single starting point and no single ending point. For centuries, we have credited the Western world as the center of the art world, and I’ve always disagreed with that way of thinking. Brazilian and Latin American art has been influential for at least a century. Of course, the European avant-gardes remain key to understanding what came after - but when we talk about contemporary art, all geographies must be considered equally. The world is now too inter-connected, and countries without a long tradition of modern art can still produce wonderful contemporary artists. I believe many leading curators and museum directors haven’t just expressed a will to change this discourse in the art world - they’ve worked hard to champion it and have achieved tangible results. I can happily name a few: Humberto Moro (Dia Foundation), Adriano Pedrosa (MASP), Ines Katzenstein (MoMA) and Pablo Leon de la Barra (Guggenheim).
Social media, and Instagram in particular, has opened the Brazilian art market to a much wider and younger audience. As someone who works closely with collectors at every stage of their journey, how do you think about that shift? Where do platforms like Instagram genuinely deepen engagement with art, and where do they fall short in fostering the kind of long-term relationship with collecting that you champion?
Social media, and Instagram especially, has really opened up culture at large - not just the art world. So many museums, galleries and artists that once felt distant are now genuinely reachable to a much broader audience, and that’s an unquestionably positive shift. That said, the nature of the content is often immediate and shallow by design. A scroll is not a conversation, and it certainly isn’t an encounter.
I try to see Instagram as an ally, when it’s used the right way. At Panorama, my team and I are very deliberate about the content we put out on our social media - we want to offer something substantive, to be a trusted source rather than just another feed to scroll past.
At the end of the day, though, I believe the physical encounter with a work of art can’t be replicated online. That’s the experience I want for my clients - something unforgettable enriching and mesmerizing, the kind that turns a moment of interest into a long-term relationship with collecting.
Finally, you have negotiated hundreds of works across your career, from international artists to emerging Brazilian voices you have helped bring to wider attention. Is there one acquisition you advised on that best captures what great art collecting can mean?
I have indeed. When I start counting, it’s hard to keep track. It would be difficult to name just one, though there are certainly a few that stand out. What I love the most about those moments when I am negotiating a piece for a client to add to their collection, is the feeling of bringing a piece of art history into my collectors’ homes. In that sense, I couldn’t name one single acquisition but the works that stand out to me are works by Barbara Kruger, Lucian Freud, Paula Rego, Lygia Clark, Helio Oiticica, Frank Auerbach, Anselm Kiefer, Louise Bourgeois, Ismael Nery, On Kawara, and De Kooning, among others.
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Mishcon's Creators + Collectors team advises collectors, artists, galleries, institutions and family offices on the legal and commercial issues that arise when building, managing and preserving collections and other passion assets. Bringing together specialists from across the firm, we help clients realise their ambitions through strategic, practical and holistic advice tailored to the people behind the collection.