RIO DE JANEIRO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

MUSEU DE ARTE MODERNA DO RIO DE JANEIRO (MAM)

Address: Avenida Infante Dom Henrique, 85, Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Themes: Political-cultural Resistance and Memory
Translated from the Portuguese by Alexa Fedynsky

Considered one of the most important cultural institutions of Brazil, the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro (MAM/RJ) was the stage for significant events led by the artistic vanguard of the 1960s. During the military dictatorship, the museum housed exhibitions and events marked by experimentalism and transgressions of aesthetic, behavioral, and current moral norms.

The MAM/RJ was founded as a civil entity in 1948, and in 1952 was temporarily located at the Culture Palace (currently the Gustavo Capanema Palace), the headquarters of the Ministries of Education and Health at the time. In December of the same year, the City Council approved a donation of 40 thousand square meters to house the headquarters of the institution. In 1954, Affonso Eduardo Reidy, the architect of Rio de Janeiro’s city hall, introduced the project to construct the museum building. Through an innovative concept of “modern space,” the project intended to establish a new dynamic in the function of the museological institution. To this end, the architectural project encompassed a school, theater, cinema, and other spaces beyond the exhibition galleries, aiming to promote existences, experiences, and interactions between visitors and place, artistic production and the museological space. Thus, the goal of the MAM/RJ was structured around the idea of a “living museum,” with a conception of didactic performance, just like the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, founded in 1948. The landscaper Roberte Burle Marx subsequently developed the Museum gardens and the Flamengo Park. In July 1955, The Cinematheque of the Museum of Modern Art was founded, with sessions taking place in the Brazilian Press Association (ABI). In 1958, the School Bloc of the MAM/RJ was finished and began to operate as the headquarters of the museum.

In the 1960s, the MAM assumed an important function within the carioca artistic scene, becoming a space of “experimental practice.” Art, nature, and urban spaces combined as an instrument for social construction through dialogue between practicing artists and the public. The Exposition Bloc, today’s main building of the museum, was inaugurated in 1963.

The military coup of 1964 and repressive policy targeting arts and culture by successive military governments did not stop the MAM/RJ from establishing itself as a central pillar in the Brazilian artistic vanguard. This was achieved through shows such as “Opinion 65,” which aimed to bring the Brazilian public closer to recent research in visual arts. It created a dialogue between urban everyday life and the social and political problems of the era through innovative juxtaposition and contraposition of images. Organized by art dealer Ceres France and gallery manager Jean Boghici, “Opinion 65” brought together the commemorations of the Rio de Janeiro IV Centennial, which united 29 artists including 13 Europeans and 16 Brazilians. The name of the show was supposedly a gesture of solidarity with the show “Opinion,” which had begun only a few months before at the Arena Theater in Copacabana. Considered a success by the public and critics, the show was written by Armando Costa, Oduvaldo Viana Filho, and Paulo Pontes and directed by Augusto Boal and Nara Leão. The organizers’ idea of Opinion 65 was to provide a space where it would be possible to establish a counterpoint between national and foreign production in order to assess the current state of Brazilian art. The exposition housed various styles and tendencies. There, Hélio Oiticica presented “Os Parangolés” for the first time, a work integrating art, the body, colors, and movement. Oiticica found the name “parangolé” on a sign outside an improvised shelter made by street beggar, which read “Here is a parangolé.” Oiticica’s “Parangolés” consisted of colored capes worn by ballet dancers from the Mangueira hill. Their movements incorporated visual arts and dance in one work of art which could be experienced deeply by both the artist and the public watching. During the showing, the group of ballet dancers dressed as the colorful “Parangolés” exited the museum to the music of the First Mangueira Station Samba School and took to the gardens of the MAM/RJ, inviting the spectators to see and try breaking the boundaries imposed between art and body, work of art and space, artist and spectator. At the time, the art critics Mário Pedrosa, of the paper Correio da Manhã (RJ), Frederico Morais of Jornal do Commercio (MG) and Ferreira Gullart of Civilização Brasileira’s magazine considered the exposition a form of protest against the military coup of 1964 and the instituted dictatorial regime.

The impact of Opinion 65 led to the unfolding of other important events that also took place at the MAM/RJ, such as Opinion 66 the following year and the exhibition “New Brazilian Objectivity” in 1967. Here Hélio Oiticica exhibited the labyrinth “Tropicália,” which brought the architecture of favelas into the MAM/RJ. The work was made up of two penetrable spaces, the “PN2—Purity is a Myth,” which referred to the defense of a mixed-race culture and to the impossibility of art maintaining itself as pure, detached from ethical-political-social questions. The “PN3—Imagético”—denounced mass media outlets and their power to alienate. In the exhibit catalogue, Hélio Oiticica published the article “General Layout of New Objectivity,” which affirms the role of visual arts as a language of protest: “Currently in Brazil there is the need to take a position in relation to political, social, and ethical problems. This necessity becomes clearer every day and calls for an urgent stance, which will be the critical point of the focus of problems in the creative field: visual arts, literature…In Brazil…today, to have an active cultural position that matters, you have to oppose viscerally, oppose everything, which would be, in sum cultural, political, ethical, social conformity.” The article concludes with “FROM ADVERSITY WE LIVE!”

In 1968, the year in which the Fifth Institutional Act (AI-5) was decreed, the museum exhibited the show “Art in the Landfill,” organized by Frederico Morais. The exhibition included paintings and sculptures and during the weekends, experimental classes in the form of walks and strolls through the museum gardens. During this same year, the “Community” collective, precursor to street theater in Brazil, rehearsed at the MAM/RJ and presented the play “Construction,” about mythic beliefs held in the Northeast. The scenic use of space was considered totally innovative; the direct relation established between the cast and the audience brought into question the separation of spectator and scenic events. At first, the play was prohibited by the Censorship of Public Entertainment, but later was uncensored. The director, Amir Haddad, remembers that at the time the following was said:

that it was an experimental play, that it was new wave, that no one would want to see it…The left said this about us. It was not a play about militancy, like the others from the era. I always stayed on the margins of this militancy…And then the play was uncensored. And it was frightening, that it had been an enormous success. The play was very political (Ruiz, 2013, p. 13).

Also in 1968, the event Apocalipopótese, coordinated by Hélio Oiticica, created a series of artistic interventions every Sunday in July, with artist Antonio Manuel’s intervention-artwork “Hot Urns” as a highlight. This work consisted of sealed wooden boxes that the public needed to break, whether by using the hammer provided or employing any other necessarily violent means. The use of violence was stimulated by the samba players from Mangueira hill, who danced and played their music, suggesting that there could be money inside the boxes. Inside the boxes, the public found newspaper clippings, photos, and poems from the era about political repression. Therefore, the violence awakened within the public reflected the severe actions of the military regime and the naturalized violence of everyday life in Brazil.

In response, the government increased repressive actions on different sectors of society at the end of the 1960s, and the field of visual arts suffered more intense and repressive interference through censorship. At the IV Brasilia Salon in 1967, works by Cláudio Tozzi and José Aguilar were censured, and the following year at the III Ouro Preto Salon, the jury was not able to see some of the prints entered, as State agents had previously removed them. In 1968, the II National Bahia Biennial of Visual Arts was closed, ten works considered “subversive” and “erotic” were cleared away, and the organizers were arrested by State security agents. In 1969, the MAM/RJ experienced direct violence from the State when repressive agents stopped the Museum from debuting the Paris Pre-Biennial. This event would reunite artists representing Brazil at the VI Young Artists Paris Biennial.

Antonio Manuel, the visual artist whose works were apprehended during the II Bahia Biennial (a four-meter panel with diverse images of newspapers printed on a silk screen over a red background, dealing with street violence between police officers and students), was invited to participate at the Paris Pre-Biennial, which was never successfully inaugurated. In an interview with Globo in 2014 on the 50^th anniversary of the military coup in 1964, he remembered this fact with sadness:

Unfortunately, the exposition was not even inaugurated. When it was being set up, Gen. Montana went to the MAM with various armed soldiers. My works were black cloth which covered red panels with images of street violence. The spectator pulled a rope, the   panel lifted, and the images of violence were revealed. Five panels like this were selected, but unfortunately none of them could be shown, since the show was brutally invaded and shut down by the Army. The journalist Niomar Moniz Sodré, whom I did not know personally, called me to ask if I would meet her at the Correio da Manhã [03]. She said that upon hearing of the incident, she asked the workers at the MAM to hide the works. I was sitting on the sofa when she told me ‘Look, your works are behind you.’ The work was being searched for and Niomar had hid it in her office. Then, the art critic Mario Pedroso, a juror on the pre-selection committee, organized a large boycott of the São Paulo Biennial, to showcase that the country was in a state of exception…It was as if they had mutilated me. A work of art is a part of the soul and spirit of the artist, an extension of his or her thoughts, and it was as if they had brutally torn this away from me. There are no words to describe this violence (Antonio Manuel, 23 Mar. 2014).

At the time, the Itamaraty Department of Cultural Promotion had delegated the responsibility of selecting the artists who would represent Brazil at the biennial in printing, painting, sculpture, photography, and architecture to the MAM/RJ. Among the selected works was “Repression Once Again: Here’s the Outcome,” in which Antonio Manuel used newspaper articles and photos of stand offs between students and armed forces which resulted in the death of student Edson Luis in 1968. The photograph “Motorcyclist of the Brazilian Air Force (FAB)” by Evandro Teixeira was also selected as a Brazilian piece. It depicted the moment that a police officer fell off his motorcycle.

On May 30, major newspapers not only published the works that had been chosen by the judging commission from the MAM/RJ, but also announced the opening of the exposition with the works that had been competing to represent Brazil in Paris. However, the following day, the headline of the Correio da Manhã “Itamarati cancels exhibition” informed readers that the exhibition had been closed and taken down moments before its opening on the orders of the head of the Cultural Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ambassador Donatello Grieco. A few days later, the Jornal do Brasil published a message from the Minister of Foreign Affairs Magalhães Pinto guaranteeing that Brazil would not be absent from the VI Paris Biennial, but that “it would simply not participate in all of the exhibition’s artistic categories.” As for the works that had been selected by the commission organized by the MAM/RJ, Magalhães Pinto affirmed in the newspaper that “there was an abuse of trust, that upon receiving the task of choosing the works of art, the MAM was instructed to stray away from ideological and political aspects of the competing works.” In addition, the minister added that the MAM/RJ had promised to consult the Itamaraty before releasing the result of the competition and that, upon having been “advised” by the censor regarding the subversive nature of the selected works, the minister “felt obligated to adopt the measure he adopted.”

A manifesto entitled “Culture and Liberty” was published in the July 13 edition of the Correio da Manhã and, referring to the sanctions that had been imposed on visual arts throughout 1969, posed the following question to readers:

Justifying his act of canceling the above exposition, Mr. Magalhães Pinto declared to the press that he had done this because “he had been advised by the censor.” What censure? In Brazil, the only censor that legally exists is for performances. As the exposition is not a performance, we have the Minister of Foreign Affairs himself recognizing the existence of another kind of censorship, even more egregious because it is secret. Neither under the existing judicial ordinance AI-5, nor after the Government adopted the act instituting censorship to the arts. What is taking place, therefore, is fraudulent (Cultura e Liberdade, 13 jul. 1969).

With respect to the repressive action of the government, the artists organized a boycott of the São Paulo Biennial that year. Eighty percent of the Brazilian artists invited, including Carlos Vergara, Rubens Gerchman, Roberto Burle Marx, Sérgio Camargo, and Hélio Oiticica did not attend and counted on the adherence of international artists from the United States, Mexico, Netherlands, Sweden, Argentina, and France—allowed to participate in the event—profiting from the occasion to internationally denounce the arbitrary violence committed by soldiers in Brazil.

The works that have been taken down as a result of censorship during the Pre-Biennial were exhibited at the Bússola Salon, an event that took place at the MAM/RJ at the end of the year, from November 5-December 5, 1969. Some critics considered the event a milestone for Brazilian experimental production. Beyond the presence of polemic works and their experimental and transgressive nature, the repercussions and importance of the Salon Bússola included parallel events produced by the Museum, such as debate series. On November 27, 1969, during one of the debates promoted by the Salon, a bomb exploded on the third floor of the Museum but left no one injured. Those who carried out the attack were never discovered.

In 1970, at the XIX National Salon of Modern Art, an unusual performance made its mark on the museum space. Antonio Manuel, 23 years old at the time, participated in the selection process with his work entitled “Body is Art,” which consisted of the artist’s nude body exposed to the public and having the author listed as the artist’s own father. However, the work was rejected and was not presented at the National Salon. The artist was invited as a spectator to attend the opening of the exposition. After being recognized by the public as the artist who had presented his own body as a work of art, and upon seeing the attention among the spectators, Antonio Manuel went to the third floor of the Museum and took off his clothes. Vera Lúcia, a model who worked at the School of Fine Arts, joined the artist. He climbed onto the parapet completely nude, moving his arms as if he were waving a flag.

His transgression became a symbol of resistance to the current order and of the lack of criteria in the censorship of visual arts. But it also was a criticism of the institutionalization of art salons and expositions. After the incident, the police closed the museum and ended the exhibition , and Antonio Manuel was prohibited to enter the premises of the MAM/RJ. Mário Pedroso, an important Brazilian art critic, defined Antonio Manuel’s attitude as “an experimental exercise of liberty.” Commenting on the event, Antonio Manuel said:

In those days the body was on the frontlines. It was subjected to the violence of street protests and to torture mechanisms used by the military regime against political prisoners. Little by little I began to perceive the body as a central theme for my work. After all, it was my body that was on the streets, exposed to shootings, gunshots, and stone throws during student confrontations with the police. There, I imagined my body as a work of art (Antonio Manuel, 23 mar. 2014).

Still, in 1969, Cildo Meireles, Guilherme Vaz, Luiz Alphonsus, and Frederico Morais created the “Experimental Unit,” with the goal of validating experiences of all levels of culture, including scientists, considering touch, smell, taste, hearing, and vision as forms of language, thought, and communication. The artists’ process of playing active roles within the Museum, a space of experimentation, became concretely known as “Creation Sundays.” Organized by Frederico Morais, they took place between January and July 1971 in the outdoor area of the MAM/RJ. Every Sunday, a different material was provided to the public.

Throughout the 1970s, the MAM/RJ became one of the principal museums of Rio de Janeiro, and was a significant cultural space, highlighted by the activities of the Cinematheque. It became a reference for the Brazilian cinema industry when it displayed a film archive composed of independent films of diverse and various origins given to the museum by various consulates, including those of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Argentina, and others. The museum also organized an updated library with subscriptions to international magazines and a permanent collection of books. In addition, it invested in the production of its own small publications, such as “Guide to Art History and Criticism,” sold at a low price with the goal of providing didactic support to museum employees and visitors.

In 1978, a fire in the Body/Sound Gallery swept across almost the entire building and destroyed 90% of the collection. Around 200 works displayed in the retrospective exhibit of Uruguayan artist Torres García and from the joint exhibition “Sensitive Geometry” were burned. From the almost 1,000-piece collection acquired by the museum over the past twenty years, including works by important names in the history of 20^th century art such as Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, Giorgio Morandi, Jackson Pollack, Lucio Fontana, and Jean Dubuffet, some 50 survived. One week after the fire, a public demonstration in defense of reconstructing the MAM gathered 3,000 people in the empty area of the museum. This tragedy implicated not only the loss of important material works, but also the decline of activities promoting visual arts in Brazil.

After a long period of time, the Exposition Bloc was reopened in 1982. But little by little the museum left its position as vanguard in the visual arts scene, even though it still received important exhibitions, theatrical plays, and dances.