[4] In the early sixties, Caldas had his first amateur exhibition showing at the Student's Council of the Philosophy Course at Rio de Janeiro State University.
In the early seventies, Caldas also started creating drawings and box object such as The Seven Stars of Silence (1970), Centre of Primitive Reason (1970), and You are Blind (1972) which drew critical acclaim including from Gilberto Chateaubriand.
Also at this time, Caldas edited Malasartes, a short-lived magazine that became a landmark in the Brazilian artistic scene and taught "Art and Visual Perception" at the Villa-Lobos Institute.
In 1998, Caldas was named a Johnnie Walker Award recipient and presented a sculpture to be permanently displayed at the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia.
Notably, he has had exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, the Kanaal Foundation in Belgium, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Christopher Grimes Gallery in Santa Monica,[15] the Quintana Gallery in Miami, the Galeria Javier López of Madrid, the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève[1] among other international venues.