Thiago Cóstackz is a visual artist, documentarist, writer, lyricist and environmental activist. A dynamic artist, Thiago Cóstackz has been involved for the past seven years in more than 50 actions in Brazil and in countries such as Germany, Russia, Danmark, Iceland, The Netherlands, USA, England, Greenland and Italy, as well as in interventions in places like the Arctic Glacial Ocean, South Atlantic, Caatinga and Tropical Forests. His name has been associated with significant achievements and international stars such as Roger Waters (a former member of Pink Floyd), who chose him to perform an intervention by invoking environmental issues and Human Rights in the celebrated show The Wall to 70,000 people in Brazil, in 2012.

Accustomed to large audiences, he received more than 100 thousand people on the show “Myths & Icons” in just one month. His environmental commitment earned him a tribute from Ranking Benchmarking, granted at MASP in 2012, where he also held an exhibition. Cóstackz is also National Ambassador Sustainability of the German brand Puma Sports. He performed in a pioneering way in 2013 the 1st artistic-scientific expedition ever made through 10 threatened places of the “Planet”, covering more than 62,000 kilometers and installing works in connection with the environmental issues of these places. This expedition led to the documentary and the book Walking on Earth, the first book and movie of the artist, its general director and screenwriter.

Cóstackz performs the meeting of references which otherwise would seem impossible to bring together, making the tradition of visual arts dialogue vigorously with the irony of pop-art. With multiple languages that apply to various media, his work goes from body art to performances, from painting to urban interventions of enormous proportions and photography to cinema. Using high-tech – such as mapping 3D, balloon art or the traditional techniques – the fantastic realistic literature, science, cities, the cosmos, the mythologies and the social and environmental conflicts of our time are frequent influences in this cultural boiler where it seems to be born in the form of works of art, Dionysus, the youngest and oldest of the gods. Their aggressive colors are only challenged by the strong black outline, which marks and defines worlds, and limits the content of the configuration. Most of the material he uses is sustainable, rejecting paints or materials of strong environmental impact. He made exhibitions inspired by the works of Franz Kafka, Machado de Assis, Mikhail Bulgakov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking and Giorgos Seferis.

At the carnival in 2017, his environmental activism was honored in the parade of the Águia de Ouro Samba School, with a car closing the parade. Now, he joins Icelandic musician Hjörvar Hjörleifsson, forming the musical duo C2H – Cóstackz & Hjörvar, that combines music with powerful lyrics and artistic performances. Thiago Cóstackz is one of the hardest working and outstanding artists of his generation.

Text, Anttonio Amoedo
Writer and art researcher.