This immersive photograph captures a vibrant sound installation by Brazilian artists OSGEMEOS, exhibited at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Featuring dozens of handcrafted, painted speaker boxes transformed into expressive faces, this piece fuses street culture, music, and identity into a joyful, surreal environment.

Mounted on a pale pink wall, the sculptural forms seem to sing, speak, and listen all at once. Each speaker box is unique — painted in OSGEMEOS’s signature cartoon style with bold expressions, sleepy eyes, pursed lips, and wild lashes. The boxes are adorned with speaker cones, knobs, glitter, cassette decks, graffiti tags, and found materials. The result is a room that feels like it’s alive, buzzing with sound and personality.

At the center of the installation stands a yellow rolling sound system — a kind of anthropomorphic DJ booth, complete with vintage gramophone horns, sculpted limbs, and faces of its own. It’s a nod to Brazilian street sound systems and hip-hop culture, filtered through the artists’ dreamlike visual language. Playful and political, the work references the artists’ childhood in São Paulo, where music, graffiti, and invention shaped their worldview.

This installation brings to life OSGEMEOS’s commitment to transforming everyday objects into portals of expression. By turning speakers into faces, they humanize machines and animate the walls with a chorus of cultural references. The piece invites viewers to imagine a world where even objects speak, emote, and participate in community.

Exhibited at the Hirshhorn — one of the Smithsonian’s leading institutions for contemporary art — this installation marks a celebration of global street art on the museum stage. It blurs the boundaries between sound, sculpture, and painting, and asks: What does it mean to be seen, heard, or ignored?

This photograph captures the installation’s visual energy and immersive intent, highlighting the wild color palette, clever detailing, and irrepressible humor that define OSGEMEOS’s art. Whether you come for the visual feast or the sonic experimentation, this piece is an unforgettable moment of connection between audience, artwork, and artist.

Exhibition Review - Gary Simmons:'Post No Bills' Simon Lee Gallery, London till 20th Feb 2016.

With Gary, I rub the hardness in history books into the tatter of all yesterdays.- Drenched Co.

Comment: "What connects the present to the past? For Gary, the answer lies in a ghosting of sorts - a presence that marks the now, one that is there but not always visible, fraying at the edges but tenaciously present, leaving a fragmented trail of deep set prejudices. In this show Gary wants you to experience this ephemeral ghosting of place, people and objects in and around the exhibits that seems to have traveled from various performance venues. He wants you to live these erstwhile performances and spaces through the clues he leaves for you. And here, the frayed edges of his posters and sculptures might even converse with you in tones of politics and race. I loved his chalkboard paintings best..."- FaSa

See www.simonleegallery.com/exhibitions/gary_simmons_2016_01-1

See also www.woundsthatbind.com/2016/01/exhibition-review-gary-sim...

See also www.soaked.space/2016/01/exhibition-review-gary-simmonspo...

Caption: Image above: Installation view Gary Simmons Simon Lee Gallery, London 2016 Photo: Peter Mallet

Image courtesy of the artist and Simon Lee Gallery, London.

We take great care not to harm the image in any way. And these views, they are ours only and not those of the gallery or artist.

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We take great care not to harm the image in any way. It has not been cropped, altered, montaged or overlaid with text ( only in the separate sections below and above it) or manipulated in any way. Images are always used with supplied captions. And the views expressed here are solely those of the authors in their private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the said artists or gallery. - Drenched Co.