Brazilian Art under Dictatorship: Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles 9780822394938

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Brazilian Art under Dictatorship

Brazilian Art under Dictatorship ANTONIO MANUEL, ARTUR BARRIO, AND CILDO MEIRELES

Claudia Calirman

Duke University Press Durham and London 2012

© 2012 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-­free paper ♾ Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan Typeset in Chaparral Pro by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the PSC-CUNY Research Award Program, a joint effort between The Professional Staff Congress and The City University of New York, which provided funds toward the publication of this book. Frontispiece: Artur Barrio, Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 (Situation . . . ORHHH . . . or . . . 5,000 . . . B.B . . . IN . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969). Installation view at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, 1969 (detail). Courtesy of Galeria Millan, São Paulo. Registro-­Photo: César Carneiro.

If you don’t do politics, politics will do you. —French saying

Life is too short to be small. —Chacal

Contents

List of Illustrations ix Preface and Acknowledgments xiii Abbreviations and a Note on Translation xvii Introduction 1

1. “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo” 10 2.

ANTONIO MANUEL:



“Experimental Exercise of Freedom” 37

3.

ARTUR BARRIO:



A New Visual Aesthetics 79

4.

CILDO MEIRELES:



Clandestine Art 114

Conclusion: Opening the Wounds, Longing for Closure 147 Appendix 1. Dossier “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo” 155 Appendix 2. Chronology of Exhibitions 159 Notes 163 Bibliography 185 Index 199

Illustrations

Color Plates  (after page 78) 1. Andy Warhol, Red Race Riot (1963) 2. Antonio Manuel, Repressão outra vez—Eis o saldo (Repression Again—Here Is the Consequence) (1968) 3. Claudio Tozzi, Guevara, vivo ou morto (Guevara, Dead or Alive) (1967) 4. Nelson Leirner, O porco (The Pig) (1967) 5. Hélio Oiticica, Caetano Veloso veste Parangolé P4 capa 1 (Caetano Veloso Wears Parangole P4 Capa 1) (1968) 6. Antonio Manuel, Soy loco por ti (I Am Crazy for You) (1969) 7. Artur Barrio, Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 (Situation . . . ORHHH . . . or . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . IN . . . N.Y . . . Street . . . 1969) (1969) 8. Artur Barrio, P. . . . . . H. . . . . (1969) 9. Artur Barrio, Situação. . . . . . . .T/T1. . . . . . (Situation. . . . . . . .T/T1. . . . . .) (1970) 10. Artur Barrio, Situação. . . . . . . .T/T1. . . . . (Situation. . . . . . . .T/T1. . . . . .) (1970) 11. Hélio Oiticica, Banner “Seja marginal, seja herói” (Be an Outlaw, Be a Hero) (1968) 12. Carlos Zilio, Lute (marmita) (Fight [Lunchbox]) (1967)

13. Artur Barrio, Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 (Situation . . . ORHHH . . . or . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . IN . . . N.Y . . . Street . . . 1969) (1969) 14. Cildo Meireles, Inserções em circuitos ideológicos: Projeto Coca-­Cola (Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Coca-­Cola Project) (1970) 15. Cildo Meireles, Inserções em circuitos ideológicos: Projeto Cédula (Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Banknote Project) (1970) 16. Antonio Manuel, On the Hand (2006)

Figures 1. Cover of dossier “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo” (1969) 11 2. Max Bill, Unidade Tripartite (1948–49) 13 3. Evandro Teixeira, A queda do motociclista da FAB (The Fall of the FAB Motorcyclist) (1965) 22 4. Antonio Manuel, O corpo é a obra (The Body Is the Work) (1970) 39 5. Vito Acconci, Conversions III (Association, Assistance, Dependence) (1971) 43 6. Antonio Manuel, Corpobra (Bodywork) (1970) 47 7. Antonio Manuel, Corpobra (Bodywork) (1970) 47 8. Robert Morris, I-­Box (1962) 48 9. Hélio Oiticica, Tropicália, Penetráveis PN2, PN3 (Tropicália, Penetrables PN2 and PN3) (1967) 53 10. Hélio Oiticica, Tropicália, Penetráveis PN2, PN3 (Tropicália, Penetrables PN2 and PN3) (1967) 53 11. Lygia Pape, O ovo (The Egg) (1967) 55 12. Antonio Manuel, Urna quente (Hot Ballot Box) (1975) 56 13. Still from 16mm footage of Antonio Manuel’s Urnas quentes (Hot Ballot Boxes) (1968), performed at Aterro do Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, 1968. Directed by Raimundo Amado 56 14. Hélio Oiticica and Antonio Manuel, Parangolé P22 capa 18 “Nirvana” (Parangole P22 Cape 18 “Nirvana”) (1968) 58 15. Antonio Manuel, Soy loco por ti (I Am Crazy for You) (1969) 61 16. Antonio Manuel, Untitled (1966) 65 17. Antonio Manuel, A imagem da violência (The Image of Violence) (1968), from the series Flans 66 18. Antonio Manuel, As armas do diálogo (The Weapons of Dialogue) (1968), from the series Flans 66 19. Antonio Manuel, Wanted Rose Selavy (1975), from the series Flans 68 20. Antonio Manuel, A arma fálica (The Phallic Weapon) (1970) 69 21. Antonio Manuel, A arma fálica (The Phallic Weapon) (1970) 69

x I L L U S T R A T I O N S

22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

27. 28. 29.

30.

31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41.

Antonio Manuel, Clandestinas (Clandestines) (1973) 70 Tucumán Arde (Tucuman is Burning) (1968) 73 Antonio Manuel, O bode (The Goat) (1973) 74 Antonio Manuel, Exposição de Antonio Manuel—De 0 à 24 Horas (Exhibition of Antonio Manuel—From 0 to 24 Hours), published in O Jornal, 15 July 1973 76 Antonio Manuel, Exposição de Antonio Manuel—De 0 à 24 Horas (Exhibition of Antonio Manuel—From 0 to 24 Hours), published in O Jornal, 15 July 1973 76 Artur Barrio, CadernoLivro (1968–69) 81 Artur Barrio, CadernoLivro (1973) 81 Artur Barrio, Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 (Situation . . . ORHHH . . . or . . . 5,000 . . . T.E . . . IN . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969) (1969). Installation view at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro 86 Artur Barrio, Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 (Situation . . . ORHHH . . . or . . . 5,000 . . . T.E . . . IN . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969) (1969). Installation view at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro 87 Artur Barrio, Defl . . . Situação . . . +S+ . . . RUAS (Defl . . . Situation . . . +S+ . . . STREETS) (April 1970) 88 Artur Barrio, Defl . . . Situação . . . +S+ . . . RUAS (Defl . . . Situation . . . +S+ . . . STREETS) (April 1970) 88 Piero Manzoni, Merda d’artista. no. 31 (Artist’s Shit, no. 31) (1961). Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 89 A crowd gathers around Artur Barrio’s Situação. . . . . . . .T/T1. . . . . . . (Situation. . . . . . . . T/T1. . . . . .), at Municipal Park at Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais (April 1970) 90 Jean Fautrier, Tête d’otage no. 21 (Hostage Head no. 21) (1945). Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 91 Luiz Alphonsus Guimarães, Napalm (1970) 93 Hélio Oiticica, B33 Bólide caixa 18, Poema caixa 02—“Homenagem a Cara de Cavalo” (B33 Box Bolide 18, Box Poem 02—“Homage to Horse Face”) (1966) 95 Carlos Zilio, Para um jovem de brilhante futuro (For a Young Man of Brilliant Prospects) (1973) 105 Artur Barrio, Trouxa protótipo (Prototype Bundle) (1969) 107 Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty (1970). Long-­term installation at Rozel Point, Box Elder County, Utah 110 Cildo Meireles, Cruzeiro do Sul (Southern Cross) (1969–70) 116

I L L U S T R A T I O N S xi

42. Cildo Meireles, Espaços virtuais: Cantos (Virtual Spaces: Corners) (1967–68) 117 43. Cildo Meireles, Arte física: Caixas de Brasília / Clareira (Physical Art: Brasília Boxes / Clearing) (1969) 119 44. Cildo Meireles, Arte física: Cordões / 30 km de linha estendidos (Physical Art: Cords / 30 km of Extended Line) (1969) 120 45. Cildo Meireles, Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político (Tiradentes: Totem-­Monument to the Political Prisoner) (1970) 121 46. Cildo Meireles, Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político (Tiradentes: Totem-­Monument to the Political Prisoner) (1970) 124 47. Cildo Meireles, Introdução a uma nova crítica (Introduction to a New Criticism) (1970) 125 48. Cildo Meireles, Introdução a uma nova crítica (Introduction to a New Criticism) (1970) 125 49. Cildo Meireles, Inserções em circuitos antropológicos (Insertions into Anthropological Circuits) (1971) 131 50. Salão da Bússola, ficha de inscrição (Compass Salon, entry form) (1969) 134 51. Poster for exhibition Agnus Dei at Petite Galerie (Rio de Janeiro, 1970) Graphic project: Thereza Simões 136 52. Malasartes, no. 3 (April/May/June 1976) 138 53. Cildo Meireles, Inserções em circuitos ideológicos: Projeto Cédula (Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Banknote Project) (1975) 141 54. Cildo Meireles, Árvore do dinheiro (Money Tree) (1969) 143 55. Cildo Meireles, O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux (The Sermon on the Mount: Fiat Lux) (1973–79). Installation view at Centro Cultural Cândido Mendes (Rio de Janeiro, 1979) 144 56. Cildo Meireles, O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux (The Sermon on the Mount: Fiat Lux) (1973–79). Installation view at Centro Cultural Cândido Mendes; shown: five actors posing as bodyguards (Rio de Janeiro, 1979) 145

xii I L L U S T R A T I O N S

Preface and Acknowledgments

Growing up in Rio de Janeiro under the military regime, I experienced two parallel realities that left strong impressions on me: on the one hand, the arrest of my friends from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro during the street demonstrations against the dictatorship; on the other, our gatherings on the sands of Ipanema Beach, where we witnessed the era’s evolving counterculture. During my years as a journalist, my inquisitive nature led me to learn more about this period in Brazilian history. My involvement with the visual arts as an art historian, which did not come until much later, gave me the opportunity to bring together these two disparate realities: the reaction against the military regime and the artistic production of that time. At its core, this book is the result of my interest in both worlds and of my need to reconcile them. Many people helped me along the way, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to acknowledge them. First of all, I owe a debt of gratitude to Frederico Morais, who granted me long and patient interviews and shared personal materials from his private archives, confirming that there was a fascinating story to be told about the intersection of art and politics under the Brazilian dictatorship. Morais was a pivotal player during the period as a curator and art critic, and during our many interviews at his home in

the bohemian neighborhood of Santa Tereza his cooperation and generosity were invaluable. Central to this project were the indispensable oral testimonies given by the artists Artur Barrio, Antonio Manuel, and Cildo Meireles, whose works I discuss in depth in this book. I thank them for sharing their life stories during our many interviews as well as for making available visual and written materials from their private archives. Their assistance was essential, and this book would not have been possible without it. My doctoral dissertation advisor, Katherine Manthorne, has been a great source of support and encouragement, and I owe her many thanks. In addition to Professor Manthorne, the members of my dissertation committee at the Graduate Center, City University of New York—Rose-­Carol Washton Long, Harriet Senie, and Edward J. Sullivan—were very helpful in providing me with feedback. I would like to especially acknowledge Professor Sullivan, an invaluable mentor who has given me intellectual support at all times. He introduced me to Morais and facilitated this book in many other ways. From the inception of this project, the journalist Elio Gaspari was instrumental in supplying historical context for the political facts of the period. The sociologist Carlos Altamirano helped me shape and conceptualize the book during our long conversations at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. Many colleagues helped me by reading parts of the manuscript in its various stages and offering constructive criticism: Alexandre Alberro, Tatiana Flores, Ted Mooney, and Paulo Venancio Filho. Some friends inspired me with their own research; others provided ongoing enthusiasm and insight. These include Tony Bechara, Sérgio Bessa, Holly Block, Estrellita Brodsky, Fernando Coronil, Deborah Cullen, Noni Geiger, Anna Indych-­López, Elizabeth Jobim, Simone Klabin, Lynda Klich, and Gabriela Rangel. I would also like to acknowledge all the artists, art critics, curators, historians, and art historians who agreed to be interviewed for this project; in particular my thanks go to Dore Ashton, Waltércio Caldas, Fernando Cocchiarali, Antonio Dias, Paulo Sérgio Duarte, Anna Bella Geiger, Rubens Gerchman, Ferreira Gullar, Hans Haacke, Roberto Schwarz, Tunga, Carlos Vergara, John Womack, and Carlos Zilio. Their oral testimonies were crucial as I set about mapping the period. Christopher Dunn’s stimulating book on Tropicália made me believe it was possible to write on the Brazilian counterculture movement in an

xiv P R E F A C E

AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

academic context. His book guided me at many moments and helped to strengthen my arguments. My thanks go to the staff of the archives of the newspapers Jornal do Brasil and Correio da Manhã and of Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação do Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro; Centro de Documentação e Referência do Instituto Itaú Cultural, São Paulo; and the Harvard Fine Arts Library and the Widener Library at Harvard University. I am deeply appreciative of Nani Rubin for her research into O Globo’s archives; of Ariane Figueiredo, from Projeto Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro; and of Jenny Tobias at the library of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. My deepest and most sincere gratitude goes to my copyeditor, Amy Gordon, who guided me throughout this project, helped me define and clarify ideas, offered me support, and kept me going all the way through this process. Her input is immeasurable; her editing, impeccable. I have been blessed with a publisher, Ken Wissoker at Duke University Press, who trusted me during the early stages of this manuscript and guided me until its end; he has shown me the true value of patience and perseverance, and there is no doubt that he made this book into a much more ambitious and better project than I had initially envisioned. Also at Duke University Press, Jade Brooks, the editorial associate, and Mark A. Mastromarino, the assistant managing editor, provided valuable editorial support. I was fortunate to have received a Jorge Paulo Lemann Visiting Scholar Fellowship at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University in 2008–9, an opportunity at a crucial moment to think about, research, and give form to this project. The generosity of the staff at the center, along with the intellectual stimulation provided by my exchanges with other fellows, was critical for the development of this book. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the numerous individuals who lent pictures and helped me to secure image rights; the rich illustrations in the following pages are a result of their important contributions. In particular I would like to acknowledge Marcelo Mattos Araújo, Artur Barrio, Miguel Rio Branco, Graciela Carnevale, Tadeu Chiarelli, Pedro Oswaldo Cruz, Bernardo Dasmaceno, Ariane Figueiredo, Natasha Barzaghi Geenen, Luiz Alphonsus Guimarães, Nelson Leirner, Rui Moreira Leite, Antonio Manuel, Marli Matsumoto, Cildo Meireles, André Millan, Wilton Montenegro, Cristina B. Motta, Drazen Pantic, Paula Pape, Iara Pimenta, César Oiticica, Júlia Rebouças, Daniel Roesler, Cláudio Tozzi, Carlos Zilio, and Carmen Zilio. Addi-

P R E F A C E A N D A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S xv

tionally, Edgar Almaguer helped me organize the images and obtain copyright permissions. Special support also came from John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, particularly from Provost Jane P. Bowers, whose generous grant helped me to acquire images and copyrights. A grant by psc-­cuny for the reproduction of color images also provided indispensable financial help. Many thanks are also due the chair of the Department of Art and Music, Lisa Farrington. Claire Montgomery, the director of Location One, was also a supporter throughout this process. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Arnaldo and Loris Calirman, for a lifetime of unwavering encouragement and for instilling curiosity in me, and my sisters, Andrea and Danielle Calirman, for their reassurance and sense of humor. I would never have been able to complete this project without the understanding and support of my daughter, Ana Carolina Geiger. Without her unconditional love, this book would not exist. I dedicate this book to Joe Friedman, who patiently kept waiting for so long. Joe: I do!!!

xvi P R E F A C E

AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Abbreviations and a Note on Translation

Abbreviations ai-­5 ccc cpc dops mam/rj mam/sp une

Ato Institucional #5 (Institutional Act #5) Comando de Caça aos Comunistas (Command for Hunting Communists) Centro Popular de Cultura Departamento de Ordem Política e Social Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo União Nacional dos Estudantes

A Note on Translation All the text and quotations originally in Portuguese have been translated into English by the author, unless otherwise indicated.

Introduction

Fearful of authoritarianism and persecution by the military regime yet disillusioned with the dogmatic tone of the orthodox left, visual artists living and working in Brazil under the military dictatorship during the late 1960s and early 1970s forged new ways of producing and displaying their work. At the time, the country’s intellectual milieu was itself at a crossroads, entangled in debate over the role art should play in a society marked by social and political divisions. Prior to the military coup d’état, in 1964, the decade had started with artists favoring programs oriented toward national-­ popular themes—such as, the Centros Populares de Cultura, a project focused on fostering culture in slums, factories, and universities—and promoting a populist revolutionary art. By the late 1960s and early 1970s a shift had taken place, with many artists and intellectuals now seeking a means of cultural production that was somehow ethically and politically significant but not necessarily nationalistic or ideologically oriented. They were criticized from all sides: the left accused them of being elitists lacking a social commitment to grass-­roots cultural production, while the right labeled them rebels sowing the seeds of communism throughout the country. Suspicious of the predominant discourse on both the left and the right, this new group of young, rebellious

artists turned to their bodies, their land, and their thoughts, both literally and metaphorically, to produce an innovative art that solidified and advanced Brazil’s position in the international artistic arena. Moreover, as incidents of the censorship of visual art accumulated, innovation became a necessity, with artists developing more indirect modes of expression to circumvent censorship, often appropriating the strategies of urban guerrilla groups (which were being crushed by the military regime at the time) and performing quick actions or momentary interventions outside museums and art institutions. Far from paralyzing the creative production of the country, as many believed would happen, a period rife with suspicion and censorship stimulated newly anarchic practices, at times aggressive and at other times disguised in subtler modes of artistic intervention. The military regime came to power on 31 March 1964 after a coup d’état against the left-­wing president João Goulart. The military’s stated purposes were to reform Brazilian capitalism and to modernize the country while freeing it from corruption and the threat of communism.1 Some years after the dictatorship was established, artists began to distance themselves from militant discourses and to generate new artistic languages. Many visual artists found the rigid, politically engaged model proposed by the traditional left no longer feasible; likewise, the promise of freedom advocated by the guardians of an autonomous art held little appeal. How to reconcile the political agenda with artistic innovation in a country under censorship? Could artists be at once politically active on a local level and engaged in international artistic developments? Could they find an alternative to conventional models of social activism, which almost always sacrificed aesthetic quality for ideological agenda? These became crucial questions for Brazilian visual artists as they moved beyond the first years of the repressive regime and began to navigate the newly hazardous social and cultural terrain of a changed nation. The period covered by this book, 1968 to 1975, the most repressive years of the military regime, was critical for the advent of new forms of artistic production addressing the political situation of the time as well as opening up the visual arts in Brazil to new international trends. Given their ephemeral and impermanent qualities, these new forms were perfectly suited to Brazilian artists who, in the absence of any explicit criteria regarding the government’s repression of the visual arts, were living in a state of self-­ imposed censorship. Self-­censorship came to play a major role as artists began to decipher and define the boundaries between the permissible and 2 I N T R O D U C T I O N

the forbidden. Fearing persecution, which was often exercised arbitrarily and without warning, they took pains to avoid leaving traces of authorship in their works. More anarchic than dogmatic, they developed a metaphorical language to address the realities they faced on a daily basis. This book is about the intersection of politics and the visual arts at a very specific moment and place. It examines the social context of the time, showing how Brazilian visual artists, at a disturbing political moment, tried to intervene in the prevailing order through their actions and art making. These artists not only opposed the political situation but also tried to reconfigure the role of viewers, question the art market, discard commodity-­ based objects, and challenge the power and legitimacy of art institutions. Visual artists working under the Brazilian dictatorship were not part of a cohesive movement; they did not have an a priori agenda, nor did they collectively write a group manifesto. They did not necessarily participate in the same exhibitions together under any specific label, though sometimes they showed their artwork in the same seminal exhibitions, and—though each in his way sought new discourses and practices to resist authoritarianism and censorship—they never formally articulated a collective opposition to the military regime. What they shared was their determination to address the political situation, to question the role of art institutions, and to participate in the current international practices of the visual arts, thereby shaking stagnant preexisting structures. These artists were interested in neither propagandistic modes of expression nor the art of protest. They abandoned traditional forms such as painting and sculpture in favor of ephemeral actions and interventions. They adopted a number of strategies to reconcile the competing demands of Brazilian national politics and the international art scene, including the use of degradable and decomposing materials, their own bodies, the media, the readymade, and language. The body of artistic work produced during the two decades of military dictatorship in Brazil is vast and diverse. Virtually no individual active in the cultural and artistic sphere of the period was unaffected by the dilemmas imposed by the regime, and each developed his or her own practice in response. This book is not intended to be a survey of either the artistic production of the era or of all the artists engaged in the struggle against censorship and authoritarianism. It does not claim to represent all trends in the visual arts that took place during the period covered here; other forms of politically engaged art were in place at the time, many embracing a much stronger nationalistic and populist tone than the works I N T R O D U C T I O N 3

analyzed here. There are other books that focus on politically militant art,2 as well as volumes that survey the cultural production of the period in terms of theater, music, literature, and cinema.3 While artists from many cities in Brazil were actively engaged in all forms of protest against the dictatorship,4 this book focuses only on the practices of three major artists—Antonio Manuel (b. 1947), Artur Barrio (b. 1945), and Cildo Meireles (b. 1948)—who lived and worked in Rio de Janeiro during the years covered here in an attempt to define their particularly innovative mode of response to censorship and repression under the Brazilian dictatorship. These artists successfully managed to develop their own modified versions of international trends, such as body art, media-­based art, and conceptual practices to address a very specific and local situation, creating new hybrid forms that embraced both a political tone and a strong drive toward artistic innovation and visual excellence. Rather than confront the system overtly, they invented ways to get around it, discovering novel methods of questioning authority, both that of the regime and that of the prevailing art institutions of the time. Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles will serve as case studies to demonstrate this new vision of artists who rejected the politics of the right but nevertheless were not interested in the cultural policy of the orthodox left. Working independently in their disparate individual practices they created an innovative visual language that became emblematic of the period. These three artists are far from being the only figures to represent this historical moment in Brazilian art, but their works have the strength to seize the points of convergence, contradictions, and dilemmas faced by artists under the military regime. Taken together, the three case studies give a comprehensive view of the new artistic vocabularies being adopted at the time as the most interesting and suitable way of both negotiating the local political scene and participating in the international artistic discourse.

The ai-­5 Effect In the years immediately following the coup, the military regime at first did not forbid the circulation of cultural output from the left. On the contrary, as attested by the seminal essay “Culture and Politics in Brazil, 1964–1969” (1970) by the Brazilian literary critic Roberto Schwarz, “In spite of the dictatorship from the right, there was a relative cultural hegemony of the left in the country.”5 The autonomy of the left in the artistic and cultural fields lasted until the end of 1968, when Ato Institucional #5 (Institutional Act #5) 4 I N T R O D U C T I O N

was established by the military government. The ai-­5, as it became known, was undoubtedly the most severe in a succession of increasingly repressive measures issued during the first years of the regime. The dictate, originally intended to be in effect for one year, would define the interchange between Brazilian civilians and their government for a decade, until its long-­awaited, eagerly anticipated demise on 31 December 1978. Suspending political and civil rights and sanctioning torture as a means of intimidating political opponents,6 the ai-­5 marked a drastic change in the country’s political and cultural atmosphere. Its immediate results were the widespread arrests of students, intellectuals, politicians, artists, and journalists, among other members of society, and censorship of the media and the arts. For some time the national mood had been tense: earlier that year, on 28 March 1968, the military police had shot a seventeen-­year-­old student, Edson Luis, the first death to result from the ongoing confrontations between students and the military force. The country was appalled and incensed by the shooting. Banners displayed during his funeral vividly expressed the country’s outrage: “The old people in power, the young ones in the coffin.”7 In the months after, growing numbers of students, representative sectors of the Church, artists, workers, and liberal professionals began mobilizing against the military regime. In June 1968 the converging forces reached a turning point with the Passeata dos 100,000 (March of the 100,000) in downtown Rio de Janeiro.8 The march took place without incident, but soon after the demonstration agents of the military stormed and burned the headquarters of the União Nacional dos Estudantes (National Union of Students) in Rio de Janeiro.9 Street demonstrations were soon listed among the actions prohibited by the regime. Brazil after the ai-­5 was a changed nation, marked by disillusionment with traditional politics, rejection of the military regime, and disbelief in all forms of authoritarianism. The country had entered the most repressive and violent phase of its military rule, the so-­called anos de chumbo (leaden years). In many ways surpassing the fallout from the coup in 1964, this tumultuous era saw the forced exile of left-­wing professors, journalists, and artists, the censorship of arts and the media, and the extinction of a once-­ forceful guerrilla movement. The regime enjoyed considerable support nationally: the conservative sector of the Church and many Brazilian landowners and industrialists, seeking security and wary of the spread of communism, social reforms, I N T R O D U C T I O N 5

and the increasing popular movements, were in favor of the military government at home.10 Throughout the early to mid-­1960s rampant waves of strikes crippled vital segments of the economy, such as railroads, ports, and the steel industry, at times threatening to shut down the country’s commerce altogether. To some sectors of the embattled populace, the armed forces were seen as guarantors of order and protection against turmoil. The U.S. Department of State, fearing the influence of Cuba and the Soviet Union, had embraced a strong anticommunist agenda in its Latin American foreign policy, paying much attention to Brazil.11 After the coup the United States lent its support to the military regime, giving it a veneer of legitimacy on the international stage. The climate of social unrest affected countries in Latin America and beyond. In Bolivia, the tragic death of Che Guevara on 9 October 1967 had transformed the Argentine guerrilla leader into the hero of an entire generation. The United States was entering a period of unprecedented social transformation as well, with increasing discontent over the Vietnam War giving rise to a countercultural movement, and the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. creating a turning point in the fight for civil rights in 1968. In France, May 1968 saw a prolonged series of student uprisings—the Sorbonne was occupied, and the Latin Quarter became a battlefield between the police and students, the students carrying signs that read, “It Is Forbidden to Forbid,” “Youth in Power,” and “Be Realistic, Ask for the Impossible”—becoming a watershed moment in the country’s shift toward a new liberal moral ideal. Elsewhere in the international arena, the Soviets had invaded Czechoslovakia, and hundreds of students and leftist demonstrators in Mexico City were crushed by military forces. In countries throughout the world there was an urge to go beyond traditional forms of social and political struggle. For this reason the situation in Brazil, which might have commanded international attention in a less chaotic world, was left largely to the Brazilian people, to forge their own way forward both politically and culturally.

A Visual Tale of an Era By analyzing the activities of three artists at a critical juncture—critical in terms of both their careers and the historical arc of Brazil as a nation— this book will provide a context for understanding the impact of the ai-­5

6 I N T R O D U C T I O N

and other forms of control exercised over the visual arts, recounting the censored exhibitions, artistic interventions, actions, and manifestos that arose in reaction. Each chapter will profile a specific artist’s mode of visual response to the dictatorship, with testimonies from artists, curators, and art critics providing a framework for understanding this complex historical moment. It is a particular view of the period as seen through the lens of three idiosyncratic artists, avoiding transforming this narrative into an all-­ encompassing account of the artistic responses to the military dictatorship. To create a probing portrait of this moment in time, the book employs a contextual approach: analysis of oral histories; unpublished documents and letters exchanged within the international art community; documents, newspapers, and magazines from the time; pivotal critical texts; and artists’ and curators’ manifestos, all give a sense of the energetic exchanges among artists in Brazil as well as in the international realm. The first chapter gives a broad political and historical account of the period, outlining the repressive actions and censorship of the visual arts by the military regime, through the cancellation of art exhibitions, the confiscation of works considered to be subversive, and the persecution of artists and intellectuals. This account is given in extensive detail, as is that of the international backlash to Brazil’s political situation, culminating in a major boycott of the X Bienal de São Paulo (X São Paulo Biennial) in 1969. Also important are the debates among the major supporters and adversaries of the X São Paulo Biennial within Brazil, the United States, and Europe. To begin a critical assessment, on both the national and international levels, of the consequences of censorship of the visual arts in Brazil, the renowned Brazilian art critic and curator Frederico Morais made available crucial documents such as letters, dossiers, and statements from artists and intellectuals who participated in the boycott of the X São Paulo Bi­ennial. Among these figures were Pol Bury, Waldemar Cordeiro, Hans Haacke, Gyorgy Kepes, Mário Pedrosa, Pierre Restany, and Vassilakis Takis. Chapter 2 examines how, in the face of the political situation, Brazilian artists employed new forms of artistic expression as a response to the military regime. Forging innovative visual languages, they succeeded in challenging the dictatorship while at the same time staying beneath its radar. The chapter charts the emergence of body art and media-­based art, taking as a paradigm the work of Antonio Manuel, who used his own naked body as a form of protest against the authoritarianism and arbitrariness that char-

I N T R O D U C T I O N 7

acterized both the military regime and the art institutions of the time, and who appropriated the media to expose the state of censorship in the country. This chapter offers an overview of the alternative local exhibitions that took place in Rio de Janeiro, exhibitions which revealed new trends in Brazilian art imbued with both a libertarian drive and a political tone. In the absence of the participation of prestigious national and international critics and artists, major institutional exhibitions, the X São Paulo Biennial chief among them, were rendered irrelevant and were largely disregarded by the artistic community; this created a vacuum which was filled by local exhibitions, unexpectedly launching new artists and new trends in the visual arts. Chapter 3 explores the ways in which Artur Barrio created site-­specific artworks in public spaces, merging political content with nonpermanent artistic practices. His visceral trouxas ensanguentadas (bloody bundles)— parcels of animal bones and meat resembling dismembered human body parts, which were anonymously placed on riverbanks and in public spaces— are discussed as a guerrilla-­based strategy for opposing the military regime. This chapter also addresses Barrio’s use of inexpensive perishable materials as a means to forge a new visual aesthetics for underdeveloped countries, a parallel to Hélio Oiticica’s concept of an avant-­garde art in an underdeveloped country, which Oiticica outlined in his essay of 1967 “Esquema geral da nova objetividade” (General Scheme of the New Objectivity).12 Barrio’s ephemeral works were meant to be experienced outside the institutional framework of museums and galleries and to promote the ultimate destruction of the art object through its self-­decomposition. Chapter 4 considers the innovations of Cildo Meireles, recounting measures the artist took to incorporate a strong critique of the military regime into his conceptually based art practices. Michel Foucault’s theories on how mechanisms of control and surveillance are socially constructed are instrumental in dissecting the strategies developed by Meireles to defy the dictatorship. This chapter draws parallels with major international art movements of the period and traces how Meireles’s practice differs from the trajectory of conceptual art as it developed simultaneously in the United States and Europe. It also examines Meireles’s participation in the groundbreaking exhibition Information, held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1970. The three artists considered in this book forged new vocabularies to produce work that was a transformative force, not only from political repression but also from the stagnant conservatism pervasive in Brazilian culture. 8 I N T R O D U C T I O N

There is no easy way to identify how these works of art were received, as the media were censored during the military dictatorship. There is no register of how many people might have seen the exhibitions discussed here, or might have bought some of the works in question. This book does not attempt, therefore, to speculate upon the successes or failures of these artistic endeavors; rather, it attempts to outline the creation of new artistic paradigms that harnessed international practices to address a local political situation. This book examines the exhibitions in which these new manifestations took place, considering the central role of art institutions, in particular the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro—not only the exhibitions that took place, but, equally important, the ones that were canceled because of censorship. In this way, it traces the shift from institutional spaces to street actions and the emergence of site-­specific artworks that arose at a time when permanent works of art with any rebellious connotation became highly visible targets of the repressive regime. The heated debates and controversial issues that defined the period; the major players among its advocates and detractors; the disputes and tensions that led to artistic breakthroughs: all are in the foreground of this book. By gathering these diverse materials together and combining them with a critical account of three artists’ activities during the period, I hope to create a narrative of creative advancement in the face of regressive politics that is, in its simplest form, the archetype of artistic ingenuity: bold invention born, in spite of impossible odds, out of a desire for expression.

I N T R O D U C T I O N 9

1 “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo”

On Monday, 16 June 1969, a group of artists and intellectuals gathered at the Paris City Museum of Modern Art to discuss the storm surrounding the X São Paulo Biennial, now only months away. Scheduled to open in September in Ibirapuera Park, the biennial was expected to include representations from over sixty countries. The first group of artists selected to represent France had withdrawn in protest against the stringent dictates of Brazil’s military regime; now, it seemed, a second, provisional delegation might be in jeopardy as well. The meeting began with a number of Brazilian artists giving personal testimonies to the political situation in their country: the media and the arts were under censorship, and works of art containing any controversial aspects, sexual imagery, or political content were banned from the Brazilian public’s view.1 The assembled crowd listened as a dossier entitled “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo” was read aloud: it recounted the latest events involving cultural repression in Brazil under the military regime; broadly denounced the repression of politicians, intellectuals, and artists, which had already resulted in the suspension of the civil and political rights of numerous individuals; and decried the imprisonment and persecution of Brazilian cultural figures, including the musicians Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Geraldo Vandré, the filmmaker Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, and the

1. Cover of dossier “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo” (1969).

directors of the two major newspapers based in Rio de Janeiro, Correio da Manhã and Jornal do Brasil (see dossier “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo” in appendix 1)2 (figure 1). After heated debate, the crowd in Paris enthusiastically agreed to a boycott in solidarity with the Brazilian artists who were living and working under censorship; France would not participate in the X São Paulo Bi­ennial. The event would go on but with a fraction of the art it might have showcased—many countries, including the United States, Holland, Sweden, Greece, Belgium, Italy, Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, the Soviet Union, the Dominican Republic, and Spain, would soon limit or cancel their participation, and some 80 percent of the artists originally invited declined to attend—without significant representation of the many international art tendencies that made the late 1960s such an exciting era. The international “ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 11

biennials of Brazil, and particularly that of São Paulo, its first, were the lifeblood of new developments in the visual arts, and in the absence of enthusiastic participation from abroad, the artistic community would remain isolated from the most current international trends and ideas. It was a hard pill to swallow for a country struggling under the grip of the repressive regime, but nevertheless the boycott received significant support from the local and the international artistic communities.

The São Paulo Biennials By the late 1960s the São Paulo Biennial had for over a decade been the primary venue in Brazil for artistic innovation and exposure to international trends; indeed, the emergence of new visual languages in Brazil is inextricably intertwined with the history of the various important São Paulo biennials. By 1951 the Italian-­born industrialist Ciccillo Matarazzo (b. Francisco Matarazzo Sobrinho; 1892–1977) had set his sights on an ambitious exhibition of art from around the globe to be held in São Paulo. Part of a growing movement to bring Brazil into the cosmopolitan realm inhabited by so many other industrialized countries, the Bienal do Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (later the Bienal Internacional de São Paulo) was conceived with a twofold goal: to integrate Brazil into the mainstream visual arts circuit and to establish São Paulo as the most important international art center in Latin America. The event, modeled on the Venice Biennial (founded in 1895), would host national representations as well as international exhibitions held under the direction of rotating chief curators. The I São Paulo Biennial, held in 1951, became a turning point in the evolving debate between figuration and abstraction, shifting the balance toward abstraction with the bestowal of its major international sculpture prize to a stainless steel construction by the Swiss artist Max Bill, formerly a student at the Bauhaus and soon to become the cofounder and director of the Ulm School of Design in Germany, one of the most important efforts in Europe to recover the legacy of the Bauhaus after it was closed by the Nazis in 1933.3 Based on the continuous surface of the Möbius strip, Bill’s Tripartite Unity (1948–49) (figure 2) was an elegant representation of the artist’s theoretical ideas, which dismissed artists’ subjectivity and intuition in favor of geometric abstraction based on rationality, mathematics, and systematic constructions. The artist’s presence at the first São Paulo Biennial was a springboard for major developments in Brazilian art; throughout the 1950s 12 C H A P T E R

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2. Max Bill, Unidade Tripartite, 1948–49. Stainless steel. Courtesy of Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo (Coleção de Arte do Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo). © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ars), New York / ProLitteris, Zürich.

Brazilian artists, eager to break away from regionalism and local themes and to experiment with a more universal language in the visual arts, began to embrace the objective philosophies of Bill and other international proponents of geometric abstract art and started to adopt and individuate global trends in nonfigurative art. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s the São Paulo biennials continued to introduce Brazilians to new works of art and developing trends on the international scene, and the event’s influence was reflected in the rise of new vanguard movements in the visual arts in Brazil. The first São Paulo Biennial led to the founding of groups dedicated to geometric abstraction: in São Paulo, Grupo Ruptura, founded by Waldemar Cordeiro in 1952; and in Rio de Janeiro, Grupo Frente, led by Ivan Serpa and founded in 1953.4 Issues and practices introduced by Grupo Ruptura, in turn, mobilized most of the artistic debates in Brazil in the 1950s, leading to the creation in 1956 “ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 13

of the celebrated São Paulo Concrete art movement favoring a nonfigurative art based on geometric abstraction, which became synonymous with rationality.5 The works coming out of this movement were scientifically and mathematically informed, making use of mechanical movements and following rigorous structures. By the end of the 1950s the rigid forms of the São Paulo Concrete group would be challenged by the Neoconcrete artists from Rio de Janeiro, who created a more tactile, sensorial art which incorporated the spectator. Hélio Oiticica (1937–80) and Lygia Clark (1920–88), the Neoconcrete movement’s main exponents, later became the most internationally well known and acclaimed contemporary Brazilian artists, though each left Brazil in the late 1960s for personal and professional (rather than political) reasons. Oiticica departed for England by ship on 3 December 1968, coincidently just ten days before the establishment of Institutional Act #5 (ai-­5 ), to prepare for an exhibition that opened on 24 February 1969 at Whitechapel Gallery in London. He went back to Rio de Janeiro in January 1970 and then departed to New York in June 1970 to participate in the exhibition Information at the Museum of Modern Art. A month later he returned to Rio and by the end of the year he moved to New York after being awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, only returning to Rio in January 1978, two years before his death on 22 March 1980. Oiticica was not in Brazil for the most repressive period of the dictatorship; nevertheless, he had a lasting influence on the generation that stayed in Brazil. Clark went to Paris in 1968 and remained there intermittently until 1976, when she returned to Rio. In Paris she taught at the Sorbonne, experimenting with sensorial practices and becoming interested in the relationship between art and therapy. Although the two artists shared the language of constructivist and geometric trends, the Rio de Janeiro Neoconcrete group emphasized subjectivity, experimentation, and intuition. In its opening paragraph the “Manifesto Neoconcreto” (Neoconcrete Manifesto), written by the poet and art critic Ferreira Gullar in 1959, stated that the Neoconcrete artists aimed to position themselves in opposition to the Concrete art movement, which had become dangerously entrenched in excessive rationalism.6 Gullar called for an art that would move away from the mechanical and scientific concerns prevailing in geometric abstraction in Brazil, particularly by relying on the participation of the viewer to activate the space. In 1959 Gullar also wrote the influential “Teoria do não-­ objeto” (Theory of the Non-­Object), which drew on theories of Gestalt and phenomenology to argue for the primacy of perceptual and sensorial experi14 C H A P T E R

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ences over the physical presence of the object of art. According to Gullar, “Without the spectator the work of art only potentially exists, waiting for a human gesture to actualize it.”7 Gullar’s stance on the discussions and debates central to the production of the local and international avant-­garde, however, did not last long; he became disillusioned with the apolitical tone of the Neoconcrete movement and suggested that all of the group’s production should be destroyed during a final exhibition.8 For him, the making of any kind of abstract art, be it geometric abstraction, abstract expressionism, or informal abstraction, was a form of alienation that deprived the public of discerning the real questions raised by artists interested in forging a national identity to Brazil. His writings from the 1960s are indicative of the cultural debate that occupied Brazilians at the time: Should art reflect the specific social and political realities of the place and time in which it was created? Or should Brazil attempt to pursue the same level of modernity as the European avant-­gardes? The debate positioned elitist vanguard art against popular revolutionary art. Yet since important figurative artists at that point were adopting the language of Pop art, they became as interested in international trends as abstract ­artists.9 Pop art had come to the country via another groundbreaking biennial: the IX São Paulo Biennial in 1967, known as the Pop Biennial, which featured work by such artists as Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana, Richard Lindner, James Rosenquist, Edward Ruscha, and Tom Wesselmann.10 Brazilian artists were fascinated by the new visual language of Pop art, but they also had reservations about it since it was seen as a celebration of mass media and consumerism and as a movement driven to advance its acceptance and insertion into the art market.11 Particularly affecting at the IX São Paulo Biennial were three works by Warhol, all from his Death and Disaster series (1962–67), in which the artist depicted automobile and airplane crashes, disasters, suicides, electric chairs, atomic bomb explosions, and civil riots. The images in these works came from Warhol’s archive of current news clippings and photojournalistic images.12 Orange Disaster #5 (1963) used silkscreen and acrylic to depict, fifteen times, the iconic image of an empty electric chair in the execution chamber of the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York. Saturday Disaster (1964) showed two stacked black-­and-­white screen-­printed images of a fatal car crash. Jackie (1964), completed shortly after Presi“ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 15

dent John F. Kennedy was assassinated, comprised sixteen close-­ups of the widow’s face, done in silkscreen.13 In this striking series Warhol moved away from affluent consumer culture and entered the political sphere, showing the dark side of consumerism through impacting and disturbing images of tragedy and death.14 Even if, as it has been argued, the works’ repetition annuls their sense of urgency, their vibrant colors restore the anxiety implicit in the paintings. This most morbid and uncharacteristic of Warhol’s series—particularly a work from the group that was not shown at the IX São Paulo Biennial, the silkscreened canvas Red Race Riot (1963) (see plate 1), showing police dogs being used to attack civil rights demonstrators during riots in Birmingham, Alabama— has similarities in sensibility with Antonio Manuel’s Repressão outra vez— Eis o saldo (Repression Again—Here is the Consequence) (1968) (see plate 2), a work Manuel showed two years later at the Pre-­Paris Biennial in 1969. Manuel’s own striking work caused a stir when it triggered the closing of the exhibition that was going to represent Brazil at the VI Youth Paris Biennial that year at the Paris City Museum of Modern Art.15 Repressão outra vez—Eis o saldo comprises five monumental panels, each covered by a large black cloth with a white string on top of them. At first glance they appeared to be huge geometric, abstract black canvases painted with a long vertical white stripe that became a triangular shape at the bottom. When the viewer got closer to the work, however, it became clear that the black surface was cloth, and the white, supposedly painted lines were actually rope that could be manipulated by the public. When the rope was pulled, the cloth lifted to reveal five oversized canvases, each featuring a red painted background overlaid with silkscreen images (culled from the front pages of the São Paulo newspaper Última Hora) of violent clashes between police and students. One of the canvases featured the newspaper’s headline “Morreu um Estudante” (A Student Died); farther down on the same panel were the words, “Eis o Saldo: Garoto Morto” (Here’s the Consequence: A Kid Is Dead). The work had a lasting impact for its content as well as for its bold visual language. Like Warhol’s Death and Disaster series, Manuel’s panels achieved impact and directness through their use of repetition, seriality, and saturated color in the background and black silkscreen ink on top, exaggerating the visual shock while at the same time keeping the layout of newspaper pages. Both artists exhibited great facility for using the media’s currency to heighten the dramatic effect of their art. In the 1960s access to the international contemporary art scene was very 16 C H A P T E R

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limited—economic realities made travel abroad difficult for most Brazilian artists, unless they were awarded a traveling grant from one of the national salons—and magazines such as ArtForum, Art in America, Opius, and Domus were among the only resources available, though difficult to be accessed. When the repressive policies of the military regime began to threaten art exhibitions, at first in smaller regional venues but eventually leading up to the international boycott of the X São Paulo Biennial in 1969, it ended up jeopardizing the access of the local artistic community to one of its main sources of information and exchange. Nevertheless, many of the new artistic tendencies were already in place, and Brazilian artists were aware of them through international publications and reports from friends who were living abroad.

Censorship of the Media and Visual Arts: Laying the Groundwork for the Boycott of the Biennial On 13 December 1968, a year before the fateful meeting in Paris that led to the French boycott of the X São Paulo Biennial in 1969, the Brazilian military dictatorship cast a watchful eye on the country’s media and cultural landscapes with the passage of ai-5. On the day the act was promulgated agents of the military regime arrived at newsrooms throughout the country, asserting control over content to be published and censoring unfavorable press. In São Paulo, Jornal da Tarde had part of its edition taken out of circulation before it was released, and O Estado de São Paulo was forbidden to circulate altogether. Forces descended upon the newsroom of the leftist newspaper Correio da Manhã (Rio de Janeiro) and demanded to know what the next day’s headlines would be, eventually arresting Osvaldo Peralva, the newspaper’s editor.16 When censors arrived at Jornal do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro’s most important newspaper at the time, Editor in Chief Alberto Dines was determined to circumvent the censors and denounce military control of the press. The next day, a hot December morning, readers saw an unusual headline on the front page of the Jornal do Brasil: “Dark clouds. Temperature suffocates. The air is not breathable. Strong winds invade the country.”17 The new rules imposed on the media could not be disclosed by the Brazilian press, but international newspapers were eager to make them public. On 14 January 1969 Le Monde (Paris) published an extensive exposé of the new regulations imposed upon Brazilian newspapers, magazines, radio, and television stations. It publicized details of the “ten commandments” sent by Gen. Silvio Correa de Andrade, the chief of the federal police of São Paulo, “ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 17

to the editor in chief of Folha de São Paulo; among other mandates, the document demanded respect for the revolution, banned all news concerning the activities of priests as well as the students’ and workers’ movements, prohibited criticism of the Institutional Acts promulgated by the authorities and the armed forces, and forbade the disclosure of the names of people deprived of their civil rights, even passing references such as baptism announcements and university commencements.18 While control of the media was imposed in a direct and comprehensible manner, censorship of the visual arts was never clearly defined, and its enforcement was frequently inconsistent. In their daily reality, therefore, visual artists were relatively free to create their work without being directly persecuted or sent into exile. Many factors contributed to this relative liberty for the visual arts: lack of visibility, the ephemeral quality of the art, and the government’s view of visual artists as inconsequential and irrelevant all contributed to a laissez-­faire attitude on the part of the dictatorship. According to the journalist Elio Gaspari, the regime was not particularly concerned with the visual arts because they were seen as being less noticeable in the public sphere.19 In a way this helped to protect visual artists from the more dire and tragic reprisals the regime imposed on perceived enemies who had a more overt and visible political agenda. Though not directly persecuted, visual artists at the time lived in a state of self-­censorship because there was no explicit definition of what was considered subversive or offensive by the military regime. In the first years after the dictatorship was established in 1964, art exhibitions with obvious references to leftist icons, such as Che Guevara, or to clashes between police and students were immediately banned by the military regime. Later, the boundaries of what was permitted or not became murkier as censorship of the visual arts was continuously exercised without defined criteria. Morais argues that the closing of art exhibitions, the prohibition of various artworks, and the persecution of artists, critics, and art professors all demonstrate that the visual arts were indeed deeply affected by censorship in the years following the ai-5. One of the most prominent figures working in the arts in Brazil during the period of the military regime (important curators like Mário Pedrosa and Ferreira Gullar were forced to leave the country and go into exile),20 Morais served as the art critic for the newspapers Diário de Notícias (1966–73) and O Globo (1975–87) and wrote more than thirty books, including Depoimento de uma geração, 1969–1970 (Testimony of a Generation, 1969–1970) (1986) and Cronologia das Artes Plásticas 18 C H A P T E R

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no Rio de Janeiro: 1816–1994 (Chronology of the Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro: 1816–1994) (1995). He was also the director of visual arts and coordinator of courses at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (mam/rj) from 1967 to 1973, and in this role he not only organized most of the exhibitions discussed in this book but also was a member of the juries of many influential salons throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. Morais believes that statistics on censorship in the visual arts, were they to exist, would show that many works of art were banned from shows, or, even worse, whole exhibitions were forbidden to open to the public after they had been installed. He writes, “As opposed to what happened in literature, music, and theater, when an art exhibition was closed, hundreds of works of art were censored at once, meaning that, at one stab, all other statistics in the arts were defeated.”21 Since there is as yet no compilation of all the exhibitions and works of art that were censored during the military regime, it is difficult to judge the extent to which the visual arts were suppressed by the repressive rule. But accounts of individual incidents, such as a happening referred to as Bandeiras na Praça (Flags in the Square), paint a picture of the uneasy relationship between the arts and the military regime that existed even before the establishment of ai-5. In 1967 at a busy intersection in São Paulo (between avenues Paulista and Europa), the artists Nelson Leirner and Flávio Motta hung colored banners depicting some of the most venerated symbols in Brazil, including soccer teams and popular religious icons, transforming an emblem loaded with national and patriotic meaning into an icon of popular culture. Seeing the demonstration as a provocation of the military regime, local government officials forced Leirner and Motta to take down the flags, citing their lack of a proper permit; the artists were also fined for their ­actions.22 A more direct conflict between the military regime and artists took place later that year at the IV Modern Art Salon of Brasília, held at the National Theater in Brasília in December 1967. Police agents went to the exhibition and threatened to remove a controversial painting by Cláudio Tozzi that depicted Che Guevara in what was seen as a rebellious manner—Guevara, vivo ou morto (Guevara, Dead or Alive) (1967) (see plate 3). In the upper half of the wooden panel a photograph of Guevara smoking a cigar is flanked by two images of people engaged in acts of protest. In the lower half the same photograph is positioned between two images of little boys looking frightened.23 After military officers threatened to close the exhibition, Morais, its “ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 19

coordinator, decided in consultation with the salon jury to cancel the show rather than risk the censoring or removal of any works of art. The controversy at the Brasília Salon, however, was not limited to the conflict between the government and the artists; tensions escalated between the artist participants and the jury as well. Leirner questioned the art system and the arbitrary rules of the jury, demanding to know their criteria for accepting his submission, O porco (The Pig) (1967) (see plate 4), a work composed of a life-­size stuffed pig in a crate. Leirner wrote an article in Jornal da Tarde on 21 December 1967, illustrated with a photo of his O porco next to the question, “Which criterion?” Posing a question that more commonly follows the exclusion of a work or artist, Leirner’s article was intended as an overt provocation of the jury.24 In his reply to Leirner, Morais wrote, “Why did you wait for the work to be admitted before taking the issue to the newspapers? What is more, if your pig had not been accepted, you would have asked the same question in reverse. Here’s what I would reply: Your pig would have been rejected for the same reasons that now made me admit it.”25 On 11 February 1968 Mário Pedrosa responded to Leirner in his column in Correio da Manhã. The article, entitled “Do porco empalhado, ou os critérios da crítica” (On the Stuffed Pig, or the Criteria for Criticism), contextualized Leirner’s attitude, placing it in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades and Warhol’s appropriations of manufactured products.26 Some fifty years earlier, in 1917, Duchamp had famously challenged the arbitrary nature of exhibition juries with his submission of a white porcelain urinal titled Fountain and signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt to the first exhibition organized by the Society of Independent Artists in New York.27 Leirner’s submission of O porco five decades after so much had already been said on the subject could have been considered a joke in poor taste; instead, his attitude resonated in the press, resulting in thoughtful and thorough responses by Pedrosa and Morais, both art critics held in high esteem. In the context of the time, the incident reignited a debate about the arbitrariness of taste and artistic criteria, which served as a metaphor for the absence of defined rules of censorship by the regime. In a way, it can be said that both art criticism and censorship of the arts were exercised randomly. The IV Modern Art Salon of Brasília became something of a landmark event in Brazilian art: it was the first exhibition to be overtly censored by the military regime, a year before the promulgation of ai-5. It also was among the first to draw attention to an artistic community outside the limits of Rio 20 C H A P T E R

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de Janeiro and São Paulo, considered the hegemonic centers of art in Brazil; such notice did much to establish Brasília as another pole for the arts. This shift toward a decentralized artistic community would become vitally important, allowing emerging artists and smaller venues increased visibility on the national stage. But perhaps most important, the event became central to a larger discourse about the subjective nature of art criticism as it was exercised by juries, scholars, and arbiters of taste. In December 1968, one year before the historic X São Paulo Biennial, a modest exhibition rose to visibility on a national level when it became one of the first victims of the newly minted ai-5. The II National Biennial of Bahia took place at Lapa Convent in Salvador, Bahia, in the northeast of Brazil. On the biennial’s opening night, the governor of Bahia, Luiz Vianna Filho, had given a memorable speech, declaring, “All young art has to be revolutionary. . . . Freedom characterizes art.”28 Twenty-­four hours later the exhibition was ordered closed by the military regime under allegations of erotic and overtly political content. Federal police seized the venue and confiscated ten works of art. The exhibition organizers were jailed. Among the objectionable works in the II National Biennial of Bahia was a monumental red silkscreen panel by Antonio Manuel reproducing newspaper images and headlines about the clashes between police and students. The work vanished in the raid. Later, Manuel learned through the French art critic Pierre Restany that it had been burned by the army.29 In an interview with Lúcia Carneiro and Ileana Pradilla, Manuel recalled, I don’t remember another occasion which I had feared as much as the II National Biennial of Bahia. Some time before, I had made a serigraphy of Che Guevara to help political activists that needed money. Then I saw at Jornal da Bahia a headline saying “Arms apprehended in a terrorist cell,” and beside the story there was a photograph of my serigraphy. I was advised to return immediately to Rio de Janeiro. I took a bus, and put my name, phone, and address inside a matchbox and a note explaining my situation. Fortunately, nothing happened to me.30 His statement attests to the strong sense of self-­censorship and fear of disciplinary actions that affected artists in the years following the ai-5. When sanctions could vary from mild to drastic punishment without any warning, no one felt safe from the threat of persecution. In the spring of 1969, amid growing unease in the artistic community, the censors struck again in what became the most serious episode leading “ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 21

3. Evandro Teixeira, A queda do motociclista da FAB (The Fall of the FAB Motorcyclist) (1965). Photograph.

up to the boycott of the X São Paulo Biennial. The Pre-­Paris Biennial, scheduled to open on 29 May 1969 at the mam/rj, was intended as a preview of sorts for the VI Youth Paris Biennial at the Paris City Museum of Modern Art (October to November 1969). From the 160 works of art submitted, 12 had been chosen to represent Brazil in the categories of painting, engraving, photography, sculpture, and architecture. All the artworks submitted to the jury were to be on view at mam/rj until the end of June, when the selected works would be sent to Paris.31 Among the works to be on display at the exposition, several were considered provocative. Evandro Teixeira, a photojournalist from Jornal do Brasil, had submitted a photograph from 1965 of a Brazilian Air Force (FAB) motorcyclist falling to the ground during a street riot, an image that made the police look foolish (figure 3). Manuel’s series Repressão outra vez—Eis o saldo (1968) was another instigative submission, as it called attention to conflicts between police and students, inviting viewers to expose images from the news media by lifting up the dark curtains that obscured them. As the art critic Paulo Venancio Filho poetically wrote of this work, “The pull of string and a black curtain unveils the tragic news, the beautiful funereal standard of rebelliousness.”32 22 C H A P T E R

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But Brazilian audiences would see neither these contentious works nor any of the other submissions; the Pre-­Paris Biennial was shut down by the police before it opened to the public.33 At 11:00 a.m. on 29 May Gen. César Montagna de Souza, the commander of the First Military Region of Rio de Janeiro, arrived at mam/rj to view the artworks, which were installed and awaiting the biennial’s opening that evening. A short while later Maurício Roberto, the director of mam/rj, received a phone call from Ambassador Donatello Grieco, head of the cultural department of the Ministry of Foreign Relations, the office that had originally commissioned mam/rj to select the artists to represent Brazil at the VI Youth Paris Biennial. Grieco ordered the suspension of the exhibition; an official diplomat, sent personally to the museum, reiterated the decree. In a note to the press, José de Magalhães Pinto, minister of foreign relations, clarified the decision: “There was an abuse of trust, because the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro was instructed to avoid choosing any work of art with a political or ideological connotation.” Magalhães Pinto also alleged that the museum was supposed to consult the minister of foreign relations before disclosing the result to the public and had failed to do so.34 At the time, the executive director of mam/rj was the rebellious Niomar Moniz Sodré Bittencourt, a woman who had found herself at odds with the military regime before. As the owner of the newspaper Correio da Manhã, Moniz Sodré had led a fearless campaign against the excesses of the military government; as punishment, the newspaper was systematically censored, had its circulation suspended several times, and suffered from a strict economic blockade. Now, she found herself under attack again: We were under censorship. Mário Pedrosa had selected the works that were going to the VI Youth Paris Biennial. The exhibition was already installed and the invitations distributed for the opening at 6:00 pm. I was at the headquarters of the newspaper Correio da Manhã when I got a phone call saying that the military had entered the Museum and closed the door that gave access to the exhibit. They alleged that it was a subversive exhibition. Afraid that there could be some other way to access the exhibition, they took down all the works of art and put them in the Museum’s storage.35 Manuel recalls that days later Moniz Sodré, whom he did not know personally, called and asked him to meet with her: “She had asked the staff of the Museum to hide as many works as possible. I was sitting on her sofa when she “ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 23

said, ‘Look, your paintings are behind you.’”36 Moniz Sodré had purchased two of the panels of Repressão outra vez—Eis o saldo and was safeguarding them in her apartment. This was Manuel’s first sale, though the works were eventually destroyed in a fire in her apartment.37 She told Manuel he was being pursued by the political police, the Departamento de Ordem Política e Social, and advised him to leave the country. As he had no place to go, Moniz Sodré invited him to stay at her home for a few days. Manuel was scared but unwilling to stop producing art because of censorship; he had a strong, rebellious nature, perhaps owing to his youth: “I needed to express it, and I did it through art. I had a huge energy and was willing to take risks. I had the romantic idea that my work would change things.”38 The Pre-­Paris Biennial episode contributed to a general aura of suspicion from the military regime surrounding mam/rj. Director Maurício Roberto remembered, “The troops effectively invaded the exhibition’s space. After that moment, the Museum started having a subversive connotation and from then on a military patrol was always parked in front of it.”39 The banning of the Pre-­Paris Biennial proved not only that Brazilian artists suffered under local censorship, but also that the entire international artistic community was affected, a resentment that culminated in the major national and international boycott of the X São Paulo Biennial a year later.

“How Can We Submit Ourselves to These Lamentable Conditions?” The X São Paulo Biennial and the International Boycott The X São Paulo Biennial followed the Pop Biennial of 1967, the seminal international exhibition that had exposed the country to so many important movements just two years earlier. The international boycott, therefore, represented far more than a canceled exhibition: it was a stunning blow to the exhibition’s influence as the catalyst for the latest developments in the visual arts in Latin America. The boycott of the São Paulo biennials was not lifted until a decade later, in 1979, when the Brazilian government granted amnesty to political prisoners. Discrete incidents of dissent created the first stirrings of a widespread boycott, starting in the summer prior to the X São Paulo Biennial. Eduard de Wilde, the director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, withdrew his delegation on 10 June 1969, declaring that he and his artists could not accept the current political circumstances of Brazil.40 All the efforts of the 24 C H A P T E R

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Brazilian embassy to try to reverse the situation through negotiations with the Dutch government were in vain. As awareness of the political situation in Brazil spread, it seemed other countries might soon follow suit. Early on, the cancellation of a parallel exhibition, Art and Technology— which was being organized by Pierre Restany and was to have included works by César, Gyula Kosice, Piotr Kowalski, Julio Le Parc, Marta Minujin, Bernard Quentin, Martial Raysse, and Vassilakis Takis among others—was a harbinger of more dissent. In a letter written to a Brazilian friend Restany indicated he could not work in a country lacking a free press: “There is a true feeling of solidarity among French intellectuals towards their Brazilian colleagues, representing a moral victory to the Brazilian intelligentsia.”41 When Restany resigned, around thirty invitations had already been sent to artists to participate in the show. On 6 June the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera (Milan) published a report entitled “Lo Scandalo di San Paolo—La Biennale rischia per la situazione politica del Brasile” (The Scandal of São Paulo—The Biennial Is at Risk because of the Political Situation in Brazil),42 in which it was reported that each of the Italian artists selected for Art and Technology would join Restany in refusing to participate. The majority of the artists supported his decision as well and opted to withdraw. According to Restany, the Brazilian embassy in Paris was receiving anxious telegrams daily from Ciccillo Matarazzo about the gravity of the situation, but they were powerless in France to change the course of events. Widespread momentum behind the boycott started to build at the historical meeting of 16 June at the Paris City Museum of Modern Art, a meeting precipitated by growing antipathy among artists and intellectuals regarding France’s troubled participation in the biennial. The nine artists originally chosen by the art critic Gerald Gassiot-­Talabot had already refused to participate, and the selection of a second, provisional delegation had provoked heated controversy. On 23 December 1968 the Nouvel Observateur (Paris) published a story entitled “Petite histoire d’une selection” (Short Story of a Selection) detailing the first stirrings of dissent regarding the biennial. The article reported that Gassiot-­Talabot had received a letter announcing the withdrawal of his nine artists and had himself resigned in response.43 In their joint statement, the nine artists condemned the repressive regime and drew a parallel between the political situation in Brazil and the events of May 1968 in France: “The political situation in France after the May events, especially the ones concerning freedom of expression and the rights of foreigners living in France, makes it impossible to represent the current French “ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 25

government in an international biennial, which itself is based on an outmoded set of national representations, with the distribution of prizes in a climate of competition and encouragement of nationalism and mercantilism.”44 The art critic Yvon Taillandier was invited to be the new French commissary and was immediately attacked by the French press.45 The Nouvel Observateur accused him of taking the “still-­warm seat” of Gassiot-­Talabot and overriding the will of the dissenting artists. The article, which suggested that Taillandier had already covertly selected another group, concluded with a question steeped in reproach: “Would there be in the School of Paris seven artists to play the strikebreakers?”46 As a meeting convened to decide the fate of a second delegation, reception among the gathered crowd was mixed. One group favored French participation at the X São Paulo Biennial, arguing that the choice should be based upon individual artists’ decisions. A second faction claimed that the artists selected were representatives of the School of Paris and that the decision to participate or withdraw should be made collectively on that agency’s behalf. This group also offered that French refusal to participate would affect a large section of the public expected to attend the biennial and would make a strong statement of international solidarity in the face of the Brazilian military dictatorship. The group stated the issue in terms of upholding national principles: “French art and culture have always been an example of freedom and intellectual power. How can we submit ourselves to these lamentable conditions?”47 Reading aloud from the dossier, “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo,” adherents of this second position went on to exhort French artists to refuse to participate in the X São Paulo Biennial: “French artists who participate in this biennial do a disservice that cannot be repaired. They will miss the chance to combat the inhuman conditions established in Brazil, especially after December 1968. They will contribute to the prosperity of the blind ideas of fascism in a country marked by underdevelopment, in a country that needs free and intelligent spirits to escape a total disaster. After some time the emotions will be totally destroyed and we will fear a terrible future for Brazil. So, why does France not refuse to participate?”48 In the end, the decision to refuse participation reached an overwhelming consensus: of the crowd assembled that day, 321 individuals affixed their names to the resolution, and only 3 dissented. Support for an international boycott seemed to have reached its tipping point at the Paris meeting, with delegations from the United States, Hol-

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land, Sweden, Greece, Belgium, Italy, Mexico, and Spain soon issuing similar decrees. In Mexico, David Alfaro Siqueiros, the last and most politically active of the three great Mexican muralists, announced his refusal to participate on 19 June. Then seventy-­three years of age, Siqueiros had been invited to present his mural March of Humanity on Latin America. The artist said that after he learned that artists from France, Belgium, Holland, and Sweden had initiated a protest against the biennial, he had decided to withdraw his work. He asked painters from all over the world to join the boycott in protest of the Brazilian military regime.49 In Sweden, the director of the Stockholm Museum of Modern Art, Pontus Hultén, the commissary for the X São Paulo Biennial, also declined the participation of his country. However, as reported by the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (Stockholm), the Swedish works of art had already been sent to Brazil and were presently expected at the port of Santos in São Paulo. After a diplomatic intervention, the crates did not leave the ship when it arrived at Santos and instead were immediately returned, circumventing a potentially embarrassing situation for the Brazilian government and the biennial’s sponsors. According to Svenska Dagbladet, the Swedish government had allowed the artist Roj Friberg to send works depicting the U.S. president, Lyndon Johnson, and the Brazilian president, Gen. Artur da Costa e Silva, in a highly critical way. The content of Friberg’s works had tellingly been concealed by their vague titles: Drawing 1, Drawing 2, and Drawing 3.50

The U.S. Withdrawal In the United States, withdrawal from the X São Paulo Biennial was an involved process occurring over a period of several weeks, and it took a different shape from the one in Paris. The Hungarian-­born professor György Kepes, the director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit), was organizing a cutting-­edge exhibition that, like Restany’s offering, was based on the theme of art and technology.51 Early speculation held that it would be the pièce de résistance of that year’s São Paulo Biennial. The first indication of the exhibition’s uncertain future came in the form of a letter from Hans Haacke, who had been invited to participate in the exhibition. Writing to Kepes on 22 April 1969, Haacke declared that under the circumstances he could not be part of a show that was being sponsored by the United States abroad. He wrote,

“ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 27

The foreign policy of the U.S. government is a potential obstacle to all exhibitions that occur under American auspices. . . . Unfortunately, we do not live in a time where an art exhibit can be seen and presented simply for itself. The American government is engaged in an immoral war in Vietnam and supports vigorously the fascist regimes in Brazil and in other parts of the world. At this time, all exhibitions under the auspices of the American government are done to promote the image and the politics of this very government. It is a public relations operation no matter what the intentions of the organizers and participants are, and thanks to the tolerance of repressive governments, the energy of the artists is channeled to serve a policy that they rightfully despise. If they don’t want to become involuntary accomplices they do not have another choice than to refuse to show their work in the national representations abroad.52 After “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo” circulated in New York, Haacke’s position began to resonate with a growing number of artists and intellectuals in North America. Many of the artists selected by Kepes were represented by the Howard Wise Gallery in New York City, which specialized in works of art related to technology.53 Therefore, it is unsurprising that these artists decided en masse to boycott the biennial. Harold Tovish and Jack Burnham, colleagues of Kepes’s at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, also denounced the U.S. government’s support of the Brazilian dictatorship and contested the merits of taking part in the event. Burnham alleged that the statement he had written for the biennial’s catalogue had been rejected because of the blunt terms in which he had referred to the Brazilian situation. He said, “The Center for Advanced Visual Studies at mit and its associates are fully aware of the complicity between the United States military and economic policy and the present intolerable dictatorship in Brazil. . . . The people of Brazil are in the grip of a military dictatorship which has the full support of the administration in Washington. Under these conditions, what possible honor is there for an artist to participate in the São Paulo Biennial?”54 Eventually, nine of the twenty-­three artists selected for Kepes’s show—Stephen Antonakos, Jack Burnham, John Goodyear, Hans Haacke, Tom Lloyd, Charles Ross, Robert Smithson, Vassilakis Takis, and Harold Tovish—would join the boycott. While Haacke accused the United States of being engaged in a war with Vietnam and of supporting dictatorships all over the world, the Greek-­born Takis capitalized on the situation to denounce the lack of democracy in Greece, recalling a situation similar to 28 C H A P T E R

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that of the X São Paulo Biennial that had transpired in 1964. In a letter to Restany, Takis recounted how, when the Greek government asked him to do a Greek pavilion at the Venice Biennial of 1964, he had taken a stand, answering that he would do it only if the government of Karamanlis deposed the king and installed democracy in the country.55 On 6 July 1969 the New York Times published an extensive article by the art critic Grace Glueck disclosing the latest developments in the international boycott against the São Paulo Biennial. Titled “No Rush for Reservations,” the article asserted that even in face of the international boycott there was still a possibility that Kepes’s exhibition would represent the United States at the biennial. Glueck wrote, “György Kepes—Hungarian-­ born and a fighter for many liberal causes—let it be known that despite his deep respect and acceptance of the artists’ positions, he believed in keeping the lines of communication open . . . because in the long run [the] chances of communicating deeply held ideas without compromise can have a far greater positive impact on Brazilian life than can be accomplished by a boycott.”56 Glueck reported that Kepes went on to quote an old Chinese saying: “It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”57 This was not the first time that some of the artists involved in the international boycott had made headlines in the New York Times for their political stand. Both Haacke and Takis were founding members of the Art Workers’ Coalition in New York, an organization founded in 1969 to protest the Vietnam War and to advocate for artists’ rights. Haacke had joined Takis’s earlier protest on 3 January 1969 to dispute the unauthorized display of one of his sculptures in the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA), in the exhibition The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age.58 Takis stormed into MoMA and unplugged his kinetic piece Tele-­sculpture (1960), alleging that, although MoMA owned the sculpture, he had not agreed to show it in the exhibition. He issued a flyer announcing his action as the first in a series of acts against the stagnant policies of art museums all over the world.59 Haacke observed, “The art world in the 1960s was quite alert in the way artists reacted to world events by deciding not to participate in major art exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennial in 1968 and the São Paulo Biennial in 1969.” Perhaps more surprising, therefore, is that so many chose to stay in the show, disregarding their fellow artists’ objections. Among the fourteen remaining artists was the sculptor Charles Frazier, who took a bold position in a letter written to Kepes: “If some of the artists and delegations had not withdrawn, they would have the opportunity for their collective voice to be “ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 29

heard all over the world, which would allow for a different kind of protest against the Brazilian government.”60 Kepes was disappointed with the withdrawal of nearly half the artists he had selected, as he imagined this exhibition as a unique opportunity to showcase technological art and artists. But after a drawn-­out effort to maintain the U.S. representation, he gave up, deciding that his exhibition, in light of the departure of so many of the artists involved, would no longer have a strong impact. In an article in the New York Times titled “São Paulo Show Loses U.S. Entry,” Sidney Dillon Ripley, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, which sponsored the U.S. delegation in the São Paulo biennials, was quoted as saying he “deeply lament[ed] that the people of Brazil, of Latin America, and other parts of the world [would] be deprived of an opportunity to see the novel and exciting exhibition that Professor Kepes and his colleagues had been preparing.”61 The United States ended up being represented by Chryssa Vardea-­ Mavromichaeli, a Greek-­born American sculptor, who showed only one work, Gates to Times Square (1964–66), a neon assemblage using lights and letters. Her work was placed in a space next to an exhibition of French tapestries. According to the art historian Aracy Amaral, “The art critic Harold Rosenberg found [Chryssa’s participation] shameful.”62

Brazil and the X São Paulo Biennial In Brazil a number of local artists and critics announced their refusal to participate. On 10 June 1969 Oiticica addressed a letter to the French delegation stating that France should not participate in the event. Following the historic Paris meeting on 16 June, Walmir Ayala reported in Jornal do Brasil on 1 July 1969 that the first artists to withdraw from the Brazilian delegation were Lygia Clark (via a telegram that did not state her reasons) and Amélia Toledo (who said she did not agree with the biennial’s criteria). There were to be three special rooms by the artists Maria Bonomi, Sérgio Camargo, and Maria Martins, but all were canceled. The sculptor Camargo, based in Paris, did not accept his invitation; the printmaker Bonomi sent a letter to the president of the biennial declining her invitation; and Martins alleged she did not have enough works to exhibit. The mam/rj also decided not to cooperate with the biennial; when this resolution was communicated to all embassies, it had a domino effect, provoking countless defections throughout Brazil.63 30 C H A P T E R

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While a sense of solidarity was pervasive in the artistic community, a number of individuals felt that strategic participation in the biennial would do more to call attention to the problem of censorship than the relatively passive act of leaving the space empty. Some credit is due to this position since in the end the opening of the X São Paulo Biennial took place almost as if nothing had happened: much of the general public was unaware of the extent of the boycott or even of its existence. Intended as a resolution to raise awareness of repressive circumstances and to mobilize broader outreach, the boycott instead became more of a circumscribed discussion among art-­ world insiders. Yet it is undeniable that it did much to mobilize the artistic community, creating an intense international polemic on ethics in a field dominated by aesthetics. The international press, including the Nouvel Observateur, Le Monde, Corriere della Sera, and the New York Times, had better coverage of the boycott than the Brazilian media. The source that kept Brazilians best informed on the latest developments related to the biennial was Pedrosa’s daily column in the Correio da Manhã. A Marxist militant, Pedrosa had joined the Communist Party in 1925, only to be expelled four years later for his Trotskyite position; in the year after the boycott, he would be prosecuted for speaking abroad about the government’s use of torture, leaving the country in exile for Chile in 1970, where he remained until the overthrow and death of President Salvador Allende in 1973. He moved to Mexico and then to France, returning to Brazil in 1977, when his arrest warrant was revoked. Pedrosa was the main liaison of the boycott abroad. He revealed that, after the French withdrawal from the event, the French art critic Jacques Lassaigne, the president of the International Association of Art Critics (aica) and of the Paris Biennial, was barred from serving on the jury of the X São Paulo Biennial and declared persona non grata by the Brazilian government.64 The minor participation of international art critics in the symposium organized by the biennial was likely in response to the degradation of Lassaigne.65 On 2 July 1969 the Brazilian Association of Art Critics (abca)—the Brazilian section of the International Association of Art Critics,66 presided over by Pedrosa—released a document appealing for a clear delineation of specific criteria for the censorship of visual arts, so as not to be taken by surprise. Censorship of the visual arts, after all, was not included in the Brazilian constitution, and its exercise by the military dictatorship had been inconsistent and ostensibly arbitrary. The document resolved that until the current form of unlawful and undefined censorship was abolished by gov“ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 31

ernmental decision, abca would recommend to its members and associates that they refuse to participate in official salons, national or international; and would ask any members currently involved in official functions to withdraw.67 The association stated its determination to engage in the fight against censorship as a matter of necessity, standing as it did for the freedom of creation and in defense of the free exercise of art criticism: “In our country, cinema and theater already live under censorship. We don’t want to see this repeated in relation to salons and biennials. In the episode of the selection of artists for the VI Youth Paris Biennial organized by mam/rj, everything indicated that there is also censorship in the field of the visual arts.” The group’s statement reached a wider audience when it was published by Pedrosa (writing under the pseudonym Luís Rodolpho when dealing with controversial issues in the press) in the Correio da Manhã for 10 July 1969, in an article entitled “Os deveres do crítico de arte na sociedade” (The Obligations of the Art Critic toward Society).68 Matarazzo, the president of the São Paulo Biennial Foundation (1951–75), tried his best to counteract the growing repudiation of the event, emphasizing its importance as a unique opportunity for Latin American artists to gain exposure to the latest artistic developments in Europe and North America and comparing it to the prestigious Venice Biennial. He argued that the São Paulo biennials were critical to maintaining Brazil’s place on the international arts circuit; as opposed to artists in Europe, where neighboring countries engaged freely in artistic exchange, Latin American artists relied on the biennial to stay apprised of new trends and ideas. In a more pointed defense, the São Paulo Biennial Foundation distributed an official document to the international press in which it refuted the accusations made in “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo” and assigned blame to the exhibition organizers for requesting that the international commissaries avoid selecting erotic or political art. The foundation tried to dissociate itself from the Brazilian government, labeling itself “an entity without religious or political beliefs, exclusively dedicated to the promotion of the arts and science.” In reality, this was a problematic claim; try as it might to appear wholly apart from the military dictatorship, the foundation relied on the financial support of the Brazilian government. Despite all the efforts to safeguard it, the X São Paulo Biennial would henceforth be remembered as the Boycott Biennial. In the end the X São Paulo Biennial featured the participation of over fifty countries with a total of approximately 510 visual artists. The British dele32 C H A P T E R

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gation decided to go to Brazil and witness the political situation firsthand rather than joining the international boycott based on hearsay.69 Argentina, which was represented at the biennial by lesser-­known artists officially sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Relations, accused France and the United States of sabotaging this major Latin American event in order to maintain their cultural hegemony. The real absence from Argentina’s representation was the art critic Jorge Romero Brest, who was fundamental in promoting vanguard art in Latin America during his tenure at the Institute Torcuato Di Tella (1963–69), in Buenos Aires.70 Romero Brest had helped to create the São Paulo biennials, participating in its juries and in the selection of its main prizes, and his deliberate nonattendance (as well as Pedrosa’s) was keenly felt in the panel on international art criticism. The discussion, which took as its focus the reformulation of future exhibitions of art, went on as planned, but very few art critics took part in it.71 At the opening of the X São Paulo Biennial on 27 September 1969 there was no public demonstration and no grand protest. Despite the controversy that had played out on three continents over as many months, the general audience was scarcely aware of the international boycott; the local press, controlled in large part by Matarazzo, had not covered the boycott in any depth.72 In the end, the exhibition was opened to the public almost as if nothing had happened. The Rio de Janeiro press was far more eager to report the misfortunes of the most important cultural event held in São Paulo. Though it has lessened in recent years, a well-­documented rivalry has long existed between Paulistas, people born in São Paulo, and Cariocas, people from Rio de Janeiro; São Paulo is the country’s center of industry and efficiency, while Rio is better known for its bohemian lifestyle. The critics of Jornal do Brasil and Correio da Manhã, at the time the two most influential newspapers in Rio de Janeiro, had opposing viewpoints concerning the international boycott. Pedrosa used his column in Correio da Manhã to strongly advocate for the cause. On the other side was Ayala, the art critic for Jornal do Brasil and a member of the official jury that selected the Brazilian representation at the biennial. In his column he criticized the abca document petitioning for a clear censorship policy from the government and accused the international artistic community of letting itself be manipulated by Brazilian artists and intellectuals living abroad, suggesting they may have been acting on biased accounts and misinformation.73 Despite all the controversy around the withdrawals from the event, the “ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 33

most damaging consequence of the boycott was to make the biennial an unsubstantial artistic exhibition. In its wake there was a need to create alternative venues to exhibit works exploring nontraditional mediums as well as to show works of art that addressed the dilemmas created by the repressive measures imposed by the military regime. While the X São Paulo Biennial was a failed event in some respects— one in a growing list of casualties of Brazil’s repressive regime—it was not without its bright moments. Mira Schendel’s installation Ondas paradas de probabilidade—Antigo Testamento, Livro dos Reis I, 19 (Still Waves of Probability—Old Testament, Book of Kings I, 19) (1969) was among the most impressive works at the biennial. Nylon threads hung from the ceiling to the floor, creating an installation that looked like a translucent, clouded curtain. The work was accompanied by a biblical text: And a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire still a small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, b­ ehold, there came a voice unto him, and said, “What doest thou here, Elijah?”74 The effect was quietly mournful and undeniably powerful, a metaphor for the sense of abandonment felt during the dictatorship. Schendel’s presence at the biennial was an act of protest different from that of her peers who had withdrawn from the show, one that questioned the efficacy and force of artistic removal as a political strategy. After the international boycott in 1969, the São Paulo Biennial, once the main catalyst for the newest trends in visual arts in Brazil, from the advent of Grupo Ruptura and the subsequent Concrete art movement to the introduction of Pop art into the country’s visual vernacular, was fundamentally changed. Facing a transformed country, lacking clear direction, and isolated from international artistic influences, visual artists were left adrift, forced to forge their own path through a changed cultural landscape, navigating the shadowy boundaries between the permissible and the forbidden along the way. The years to come were characterized by vazio cultural (cultural emptiness), a term coined by the journalist Zuenir Ventura in the magazine Visão 34 C H A P T E R

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(July 1971) to characterize the desolation of the cultural landscape.75 Ventura described a devastating time, one marked by “the disappearance of political themes and controversy in the cultural sphere, the evasion of the best brains, the exodus of artists, the purge in the universities, the plunge of sales of newspapers, books, and magazines, the second-­rate quality of television programs, the emergence of false aesthetic values, and the hegemony of mass culture.”76 Yet despite the prevalent notion that the dictatorship, and specifically the ai-­5 and its concomitant censorship, had created a vacuum of artistic endeavors, there was in fact a strong and vital artistic production during the dictatorship. The Brazilian artistic community, in its need to overcome the limitations imposed by the regime, emerged from the period with a renewed sense of resourcefulness, a reinvigoration born of the drive to resist the repressive moments of political turmoil. In face of the authoritarian, culturally stagnant power of the military regime, visual artists did not suppress their desire to speak up, to participate, and to continue the movement toward modernity and internationalism. Their search for novel artistic production took on a new shape, shifting from international exhibitions and grand gestures to local exhibitions and impromptu artistic happenings. Exhibitions such as Salão da Bússola (Compass Salon) at the mam/rj (1969), Do Corpo à Terra (From the Body to the Earth) at the Municipal Park of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais (1970), O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux (The Sermon on the Mount: Fiat Lux) at Cândido Mendes University Gallery in Rio de Janeiro (conceived in 1973, but only executed in 1979), among others, occupied the void and ultimately fulfilled the failed mission of the X São Paulo Biennial: to introduce new artistic tendencies to the country. Because of the lack of participation and interest in the X São Paulo Biennial, many artists opted to send their works instead to these local exhibitions, transforming them into a landmark for contemporary Brazilian art. It was a time marked by uncertainty and upheaval, by shifting boundaries and unspoken fear, but also one ripe for new trends in the visual arts that would shake archaic structures and forge fresh modes of artistic expression. This new cultural landscape was fertile soil for the three young and at the time obscure artists Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles, whose actions and interventions became paradigmatic of a new age of blurring mediums and defying boundaries. Eschewing self-­restraint, Manuel, Barrio, and Meireles displayed artistic ingenuity and perseverance in the face of repression. The artists pioneered new modes of self-­expression “ N O N À L A B I E N N A L E D E S Ã O P A U L O ” 35

and embraced artistic trends whose ephemeral, impermanent qualities were well suited to evading government censorship. Manuel’s modified version of body art and his elaborate media-­based artworks, Barrio’s insistence on perishable materials and his search for a new aesthetics for the third world, and Meireles’s investigation into conceptual art practices stood for the most memorable moments of a period that was among the most challenging in Brazilian cultural history.

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2 ANTONIO MANUEL

“Experimental Exercise of Freedom”

“Recusado, recusado, recusado!” (Refused, refused, refused!) It was April 1970, the opening night of the XIX National Salon of Modern Art at mam/ rj,1 and people were staring and pointing at Antonio Manuel, the young artist whose work had been refused entry into the exhibition. Earlier in the year Manuel had caused a stir with his unusual submission to the salon: the artwork, titled O corpo é a obra (The Body Is the Work) (1970), was the artist’s own body. With characteristic irreverence he had listed the work’s official measurements as his height and weight. Manuel recalls, “On the day of the exhibition I took a stool and stayed in line waiting for my turn to exhibit my work of art. . . . I offered to be exposed to the public at the museum, for the entire duration of the exhibition.”2 The first problem to arise was one of procedure: according to the salon’s rules, an artist was not allowed to be present during the jury’s deliberation. Manuel countered that he, as a work of art, had the right to stay in the museum along with all the other works that had been submitted until the jury made its decision. The second stumbling block was one of ownership: Who would be considered the author of Manuel’s submission? When confronted by the jury about this issue, Manuel said, “I am the work of art; my body wants to compete for the final prize. So if I win, the prize should be given to the author of the work, who in this case

is my father.” In the end, it came down to feasibility: the jury claimed the museum did not have suitable conditions to maintain him until the opening day of the exhibition, let alone to feed and support him until it was over.3 O corpo é a obra was unanimously rejected and would not appear in that year’s national salon. Manuel’s attendance at the opening, therefore, was solely as a guest, but it was not long before other visitors began to recognize him, recalling that he was the artist that had been rejected as a work of art by the jury. Manuel’s response to the attention he attracted was an impromptu act, but one that would become a memorable symbol of artistic resistance to the military regime: he took off his clothing and climbed the staircase of the museum (figure 4). He describes the incident as follows: “First there was a horrible silence. When I took off my underwear, some people started clapping. A woman next to me also took off her clothes. . . . A security guard appeared and we had to run away toward the garden.”4 The woman who joined Manuel in his protest was Vera Lúcia, who worked as a life model at the National School of Fine Arts. She was in the audience and decided to take off her clothes and ascend the staircase with Manuel. When they reached the third floor of mam/rj, Manuel stepped out onto the parapet, holding on to a pole that was beside the staircase. Extending his other arm into the air, the artist seemed to be brandishing an invisible flag or a banner—a living embodiment of his fellow artist Hélio Oiticica’s celebrated motto “Da Adversidade Vivemos!” (From Adversity We Live!).5 In presenting himself as a living sculpture in an antiheroic pose, Manuel became the emblematic carrier of Oiticica’s timely words. Intended to be provocative, Manuel’s action was unexpected and irreverent, an act of transgression in response to his rejection by the salon. Had it not provoked such a significant outburst, it could have been considered merely a childish reaction. His spontaneous act, however, became not only a symbol of defiance against the arbitrary rules of art salons and exhibitions, but also representative of the lack of consistent criteria for censorship of the arts by the military regime. Brazil was now under the most severe phase of the military dictatorship. There was a climate of fear, and even when artists were not directly persecuted they suffered under self-­imposed censorship, since the reaction from the regime could vary from indifference to outrage without a clear rubric for what was considered subversive.6 After Manuel exposed himself the museum was immediately blocked off by the police, and the next day the exhibition was closed to the public. 38 C H A P T E R

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4. Antonio Manuel, O corpo é a obra (The Body Is the Work) (1970). Photograph of his intervention at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro. Courtesy of the artist.

The artist fled and was thereafter forbidden to enter the premises of mam/ rj. In the days and weeks that followed, he watched as his action incited a heated and controversial debate in the press, bringing into question issues of aesthetic value, freedom of expression vis-­à-­vis censorship of the arts, and institutional policy. What initially began as a discussion of a single incident expanded into a conversation about subjectivity and censorship in general, the arbitrary nature of the salon’s rules becoming a metaphor for the randomness of the military regime, which censored works of art and closed exhibitions without any clear criteria in place. A similar discussion had arisen three years earlier when Nelson Leirner had submitted his O porco (The Pig) (1967), a life-­size stuffed pig inside a crate, to the IV Modern Art Salon of Brasília. Leirner’s challenge to the jury’s criteria provoked at the time the response of such renowned art critics as Mário Pedrosa and Frederico Morais, but it did not have wide repercussions outside the art world. However, times had changed, and more serious events involving censorship of the arts had taken place. While Leirner’s work was undeniably provocative, it still fell into the defined category of sculpture; to present one’s body as a work of art—first as an official submission and then as an artistic action and public demonstration at the exhibition opening— was a much bolder move. Manuel’s incident made the headlines, becoming immediately controversial and instigating divisive debate in the media, with strong opinions arising from both conservative and progressive sides. The art critic Jacob Klintowitz published a derogative article in the newspaper Tribuna da I­ mprensa (Rio de Janeiro) entitled “O nu no ‘malfadado’ ” (The Ill-­Fated Nude). He wrote, “The ill-­fated National Salon of Modern Art was the stage of a ridiculous episode involving the naked artist Antonio Manuel. Who is this painter? Above all he is a young artist that has never produced any valuable work.”7 Klintowitz went on to say, “Nobody really understood what Manuel was protesting against. If he was against the Salon, it was only after he was rejected; because in submitting his work to the jury, Manuel had accepted the Salon’s rules.” The critic concluded, “This is all about sexual e­ xhibitionism.”8 Sexual exhibitionism did indeed play a part in Manuel’s spontaneous act, but it would be reductive to attribute the performance to that alone. Manuel’s act was also an attack on institutional values as well as a confrontation with the retroactive, conservative, and repressive forces in Brazilian society. His use of the male body as a tool of transgression and liberation became a gesture to confront conservatism and authoritarianism. It also 40 C H A P T E R

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challenged predominant associations with the male nude, such as pornography, eroticism, and homosexuality, and reasserted the heroic ideal of the masculine figure within a phallocentric society. Even his statement that his father was the author of his work was a subtle reinforcement of patriarchal hierarchy. Yet overall it was an ambiguous act: at the same time it celebrated the heroic male artist figure, reinserting itself into the mainstream canon, at its very core it was an act of transgressing societal norms. The conservative art critic Antônio Bento was no less condemning in his review in the newspaper Última Hora (Rio de Janeiro), emphasizing Manuel’s lack of aesthetic credentials for submitting his body as a work of art to the salon. He wrote, “The jury had to reflect on whether or not to accept Manuel as a work of art. They had to decide that this was not the same as having the statue of Apollo de Belvedere or the Maja Desnuda. Because of the lack of aesthetic value he could only be judged for his subversive attitude.”9 Manuel’s mortal flesh, lacking the ideal beauty of Francisco Goya’s celebrated Maja Desnuda or the perfect anatomy of a Greek god, was, according to Bento, of no artistic value. Absent an established canon with which to compare Manuel’s performative art, the critic judged his body on the basis of conventional aesthetic values, and moreover on the grounds of acceptable behavior for male artists in the public sphere, emphasizing the widespread prejudice against the male artist displaying his naked body. Male artists, ever the guardians of the modernist canon, have traditionally been expected to assume a veiled persona in public. Ironically, what the critics failed to recognize in Manuel’s act was its ultimate affirmation of his masculinity as a white male artist asserting his role in the mainstream canon of Brazilian art. The heated discussion about the social and cultural construction of gender identities, especially within the feminist discourses of the early 1970s, was not part of Manuel’s agenda. One of the central artists of the ai-­5 generation, Manuel is known for his irreverence and bold criticism of censorship and repression. Born in 1947 in Avelãs de Caminha, in Portugal, he arrived in Rio de Janeiro when he was five years old. He audited classes at the National School of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro and took free courses at the mam/rj with Ivan Serpa, the founder of the constructivist Grupo Frente and a mentor of many artists, including Oiticica. As Manuel developed his own artistic style and began to build his body of work, he became part of Serpa’s circle of students, frequenting his home and studio. In the beginning, drawing was his main medium and Serpa his primary teacher; a year after he first encountered the senior artA N T O N I O M A N U E L 41

ist, Manuel received several drawing prizes at Salão Paranaense de Belas Artes (Curitiba), the Bahia Biennial (Salvador), and the XV National Salon of Modern Art (Rio de Janeiro). Building on his early success with drawings, he began to experiment with less traditional mediums, including his body, and eventually adopted the manipulation of newspaper pages as his major practice. When he was catapulted into the spotlight in 1970 with his controversial submission to the XIX National Salon of Modern Art, Manuel was following in the footsteps of Marcel Duchamp. Like Duchamp’s Fountain, presented in 1917 at the Independents Exhibition in New York, O corpo é a obra was intended to question the role of art institutions, with their often arbitrary regulations, juries, and exclusions. But Manuel was also at the forefront of a new movement in the international contemporary art scene, a movement that eschewed traditional mediums such as painting and sculpture and used the artist’s body as a site for expression and exploration.

Performance and Body Art The emergence of body art in the early 1970s—the term was articulated in 1970 by the critic Willoughby Sharp—was tied to the notion of live performance based on the presence of the artist, often recorded in photographic or film documentation.10 Both male and female artists had begun to use their bodies as a medium in an attempt to affirm and deflate stereotypes of gender constructions, while also underlining an opposition to the established practice of creating commodified art objects to be absorbed by the market. Around the time Manuel was designating his body as a work of art, the international art scene was moving toward a widespread repudiation of traditional artistic modes, and body art and performance art were at the center of this discussion. In the United States, Vito Acconci’s public display of his naked body in the early 1970s became emblematic of a transgression of a taboo. Like Manuel’s, Acconci’s performances can be measured against their political background, since they were executed in the context of the civil rights movement and vehement protest against the draft and the Vietnam War. In Conversions I, II, III (1971), a seventy-­two-­minute Super 8 black-­and-­white film in three parts, Acconci attempted to debase his male figure, using a candle to burn off his chest hair, pulling one of his nipples as if to simulate a woman’s breast, and hiding his penis between his legs while attempting to walk, run, jump, and 42 C H A P T E R

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5. Vito Acconci, Conversions III (Association, Assistance, Dependence) (1971). Still from Super 8 black-­and-­white film, 6 minutes. Courtesy of Acconci Studio. © 2011 Vito Acconci / Artists Rights Society (ars), New York. Second participant: Kathy Dillon. Camera: Doug Waterman.

stretch. Finally, he stood as a woman kneeled behind him, effacing his penis from the public’s view by inserting it into her mouth (figure 5). He said, “I hate maleness and I hate male domination, but because it is so culturally embedded I can readily fall into it”—his performances, therefore, were allegedly an attempt to deflate his own masculinity.11 In Body Art / Performing the Subject (1998), the art historian Amelia Jones speaks of the artist’s subversion of the notion of an idealized male physique: “Acconci’s flaccid, hysterical body/self histrionically wallows in its own flawed corporeality and fails in the most dramatic way to attain the seemingly self-­evident authenticity of the modernist figure of genius.”12 From a feminist point of view, however, Acconci’s effort to collapse the boundaries between defined gender roles fell into contradiction; by inserting his penis into the woman’s mouth, he instead reaffirmed male-­dominant roles. In contrast to many of the practices related to body art in the United States and in Europe that stressed notions of endurance, mutilation, and pain, in Brazil, especially in Rio de Janeiro, the artist’s body was used as part A N T O N I O M A N U E L 43

of a celebratory tradition rather than in a self-­afflicting way. The Brazilian interpretation of body art stressed the Dionysian associations of the body through its incorporation of Carnaval festivities, its liberating behavior, and its frank acknowledgment of the body’s physicality. The twenty-­three-­year-­old Manuel was likely seen as an object of desire by both male and female audiences at the opening of the XIX National Salon of Modern Art. Being a Carioca, Manuel came from a city whose culture revolved around a celebratory and intense cult of the body which is to this day strongly concerned with aesthetic youth and physical health. The questioning of his sexuality in a dominant male society was therefore not a concern of Manuel’s, and neither were Brazilian artists at the time challenging, as was the case elsewhere, issues related to the dominance of the white male artist in the art world. Feminism was not embraced by Brazilian artists, either male or female, with the same intensity as it was by its North American counterparts in the early 1970s. Although there were many leading female artists in Brazil at the time, including Lygia Clark, Anna Bella Geiger, Anna Maria Maiolino, Lygia Pape, Mira Schendel, and Regina Silveira, among others, the concept of women’s art and the use of the body to explore gender identity were not yet central to the discourse in the Brazilian arena. There were more pressing issues discussed at the time, such as the insertion of Brazilian art into the international scene and the accompanying fear that the dictatorship, with all its atavisms, would be a setback that might block progress in that direction. Manuel’s intervention at the opening of the XIX National Salon of Modern Art was a turning point for him. As soon as he was forced to flee mam/ rj, he sought shelter with Mário Pedrosa, one of his closest friends, who supported and praised his action as an affirmation of his “experimental exercise of freedom.” Their conversation that evening was taped by a cassette recorder brought by the photographer Hugo Denizart, who was among a group of artists who left the museum with Manuel.13 According to Pedrosa, “[Manuel’s] attitude transcended the aesthetic discussion. It was life itself. It was no longer a finished work of art that was being discussed, but a creative action.”14 The expression “experimental exercise of freedom” was coined by Pedrosa in reference to Manuel’s naked intervention at mam/rj. He later used it to describe artistic practices that resisted the art market—actions that could not be appropriated as commodities by consumer society, but instead consisted of collective actions and gestures based on experience and creativity. 44 C H A P T E R

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Pedrosa was referring to artists who conceived of art not as a finished object but as a process, an open proposition or situation to be lived and experienced. Despite Pedrosa’s support, condemnation of Manuel’s act was widespread, each of the groups involved in the XIX National Salon of Modern Art refusing to take responsibility for it. The board of directors of the mam/ rj alleged that the institution had only offered its space for the salon and therefore was not responsible for the outcome of the exhibition. The board of mam/rj did not even meet to deliberate on the case, as was previously announced in the press, because they did not consider the problem to be pertinent to them. The National Commission of Fine Arts, the official channel deemed responsible for judging the case, initially decided that Manuel should not be punished because he had not been accepted into the salon and therefore was considered part of the public rather than a participant. In the end, however, the same commission recommended that the minister of education mildly sanction Manuel by forbidding him to participate in any official salon for the next two years.15 Their statement read as follows: “The National Commission of Fine Arts met on May 19, 1970, and unanimously decided to repudiate the behavior of Antonio Manuel and to recommend to the Minister of Education, General Jarbas Passarinho, that the candidate should not be allowed to participate in the next two National Salons of Modern Art.”16 Taking into account the political climate of Brazil in 1970, Manuel’s act at mam/rj was an example of how a body might be used as a provocative tool to challenge, or at least to irritate, the military order. As he himself said, “In those days the body was on the front line. It was subjected to violence in street riots and to the mechanisms of torture used by the military regime against political prisoners. Little by little, I started perceiving the body as subject matter central to my work. After all, it was my body that was in the streets, exposed to gunfire, shots, and stones during the students’ clashes with the police. So I imagined using my body as the work of art.”17 At the time, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (written in 1955) and One-­Dimensional Man (published in 1964), by the Frankfurt School philosopher Herbert Marcuse, were bestsellers in Brazil.18 In his critique of capitalist society Marcuse discussed the role of the body against what he calls “the political machine, the corporate machine, the cultural and educational machine.”19 He wrote, “The body against the machine: men, women, and children fighting, with the most primitive tools, the most brutal and destructive machine of all times A N T O N I O M A N U E L 45

and keeping it in check—does guerrilla warfare define the revolution of our time?”20 This argument still resonates today in light of current events, as the human body is frequently used in the most aggressive acts of terrorism involving suicide bombers. As studies of the use of torture on political prisoners attest, the human body becomes the primary subject of oppression in repressive political regimes. In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975), Michel Foucault asserts that the threat of torture and pain is one of the main tools used to enforce compliance with disciplinary regimes, rendering the subject of the threat obedient and docile.21 Addressing the mechanisms of power exercised on the body, Foucault says that “the body is directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs.”22 By challenging the conventions of public display of the male body, Manuel boldly exercised individual freedom of expression at a time marked by censorship and political constraint. Looking back at Manuel’s intervention, one can argue that it could have happened anywhere else in the world without any further consequences or political connotation. People were taking off their clothes elsewhere too—after all, the countercultural movement was in full swing, and the liberation of the body was at the top of the list. Its emblematic power came from its confrontation to the repressive circumstances in which the country was subsumed at the time.

Corpobra (Bodywork) (1970): The Body as Medium The only surviving documentation of Manuel’s action at the XIX National Salon of Modern Art at mam/rj is a number of photographs taken by the press at the time. However, two months after O corpo é a obra was rejected by the salon, Manuel transformed his ephemeral action into a permanent object of art with the installation Corpobra (Bodywork) (1970) (figure 6). He built a life-­size rectangular wooden box with straw at the bottom and Plexiglas in the front, approximating a handmade crate used to store and transport works of art; inside the box he placed a black-­and-­white photograph of his naked body on the staircase of the museum. A piece of black cardboard placed over his genitals (like those used to censor nude photographs) bore the inscription “Corpobra.” Behind the box was a rope mechanism that, when pulled, revealed another photograph of Manuel’s fully naked body 46 C H A P T E R

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6–7. Antonio Manuel, Corpobra (Bodywork) (1970). Wood, straw, photograph, acrylic, rope. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Vicente de Mello.

8. Robert Morris, I-­Box (1962). Mixed media. Courtesy of Leo Castelli Gallery. © 2011 Robert Morris / Artists Rights Society (ars), New York.

(figure 7). By placing the black rectangle with the title of the work over his genitalia, Manuel once again called attention to his male sexuality. Corpobra recalls an installation by Robert Morris that draws on a similar hide-­and-­seek play. Morris’s I-­Box (1962) (figure 8) is a painted plywood cabinet with a door in the shape of the letter I, which has a double meaning, referring both to the artist himself (“I”) and to the “eye” of the viewer. Like Manuel’s work, Morris’s piece requires public participation—in the case of I-­Box the viewer opens the door of the cabinet—to uncover a photograph of the artist’s naked body. In his linguistic analysis of Morris’s installation W. J. T. Mitchell interprets the “I” as a “shifter,” an “indexical sign whose reference can only be determined in a context of a specific speech situation.” According to Mitchell, “When the door of I-­Box is closed, its reference is open, unfixed; when the door is open, its reference closes in on and frames the image of the artist.”

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He poses the question, What kind of mind-­language-­perception games can be played with this object?23 The same question can be asked about Manuel’s work, which also makes use of a linguistic game of sorts. The original title of the piece that was submitted and rejected by the jury of the salon at mam/rj was O corpo é a obra (The Body Is the Work). In its second and permanent version, Manuel changes the title to the contraction Corpobra, which combines the Portuguese words corpo (body) and obra (work). The word corpobra does not exist as such, and more than having any specific meaning it acts as a visual poem. By placing a cardboard with an inscription over his genitals, Manuel played the game of veiling and unveiling, disclosing and concealing, exposing and hiding his penis. He changed the initial intention of the unrealized work O corpo é a obra—an ephemeral intervention intended to raise lasting questions about the rules of the salon and the concept of the body as medium, yet doomed to last only as long as the exhibition of which it was to be part—and transformed it into a permanent object of art. While his first purpose was to have his body accepted by art critics and curators as a legitimate work of art, the subsequent scandal had the unanticipated, yet similarly groundbreaking effect of establishing the body as a rebellious force and a political tool in repressive society, a force that ultimately became commodified by the creation of an art object (Corpobra) to both celebrate and make tangible his spontaneous episode of transgression. In translating his ephemeral action into another medium, a permanent installation incorporating sculpture and photography, Manuel touched upon complex issues that had by then become controversial and remain so today. Since its inception in the 1970s body and performance art has been preserved and sold mainly through photographic or video documentation. As a new medium based on the artist’s body, it brought with it its own set of complications related to issues of temporality, conservation, and ownership. Forty years after Manuel’s submission of his body as a work of art to the salon, body and performance art continues to incite polemics regarding museum practices, as was attested by the exhibition Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present at MoMA (14 March–31 May 2010). The concept of reperformance was at the core of Abramović’s retrospective. It became highly controversial and was vehemently attacked by art critics and artists themselves. Abramović hired young artists to reperform five of her historical pieces from the 1970s throughout the duration of the exhibition.24 The reperformances

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raised a number of questions: When a time-­based, ephemeral work of art is reenacted, does it lose its original purpose? Does it become more related to the field of theater, with actors standing in as surrogates for performers, an original event, once staged and reenacted, becoming something like a scripted play? When a work is restaged outside of its original context, does it necessarily enter into dialogue with its new social and political landscape? Moreover, how can the medium be preserved in a museum setting? And how can museums “safeguard” the artist’s living body during off hours, when the exhibition or performance is closed to the public? In Manuel’s case, the jury of the XIX National Salon of Modern Art claimed that the museum had no logistical or financial structure in place to house the artist on its premises or to feed and support him during the exhibition. Some three decades later, in November 2002, Abramović was able to realize a proposition similar to Manuel’s, though more intricate in its endeavor. For a work called The House with an Ocean View, the artist lived in the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York for twelve days, subsisting in three connected, open units—a bedroom, a living room, and a bathroom—built against the gallery’s back wall, six feet off the ground. For the duration of her piece, Abramović performed her daily activities in full view of the public. In 1970 Manuel did not elaborate a proposal for how he could physically remain in the museum during the time the salon ran. That potentially stimulating discussion was obviated since the project was aborted at the moment of its submission. That Abramović’s performance was sanctioned and even promoted by a major gallery evidences the dramatic shift in attitudes toward performance art over the past four decades as it became recognized as a meaningful part of the discourse in contemporary art. Besides the matter of feasibility in performance art, which was until then an unprecedented practical dilemma that had to be faced by art institutions, the issue of ownership is also problematic. As younger artists become more interested in remaking historical works, how can copyright issues be established and normalized? Do young artists need to pay or ask the permission of the originator of a performance art to reenact his or her work?25 How can a fleeting performance be sold? Can an artist establish legal ownership of a momentary work of art? Manuel stated that if he got the final prize, it should be given, as noted, to the author of the work, whom he identified as his father. This statement was probably meant to be a provocation, but in reality it brought up complex issues of authorship that have only recently

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started to be addressed in the field of performance art. The British German Tino Sehgal is believed to be the first artist to have sold the copyrights to a performance, for his work Kiss (2004), purchased by MoMA. Kiss is a living sculpture that requires two performers to stay close together for hours, fluidly moving in a continuous embrace as they recreate the poses of lovers from iconic paintings and sculptures. Because Sehgal forbids any material documentation of his work, the sale of the licensing of the work to MoMA was conducted orally, the work and its price being verbally described in the presence of a lawyer and a notary public, in essence leaving no record of the commoditization of his work.26 As performance art increasingly becomes incorporated into the mainstream, artists and museums will have to establish copyright laws for the problematic business of collecting these impermanent works. In Manuel’s case, instead of restaging his action or monetizing its documentation, he opted for creating a lasting installation (Corpobra), which transformed his ephemeral intervention into a permanent object of art.

Oiticica’s Legacy Manuel was not the first Brazilian artist to invite the participation of the viewer in his work (in his case, as noted, through the manipulation of a rope); engagement of the spectator was already firmly embedded in the vocabulary of Brazilian art through the earlier experiments of the Neoconcrete group of artists, including Oiticica, Clark, and Pape, and Manuel drew from these figures’ experiences as he devised his own art of engagement. Oiticica was at the center of the countercultural movement in Rio de Janeiro, and his ideas for creating an art outside of art institutions, an art for nontraditional audiences, were appealing to younger artists, many of whom gathered around him. Oiticica took his role as a mentor very seriously, especially when it came to Manuel; the two artists remained friends until Oiticica’s death in 1980. Manuel met Oiticica in 1967, and, according to Manuel, there was an immediate attraction between them.27 Despite a ten-­year difference in age, they formed a strong friendship. Before Oiticica left Rio de Janeiro for London in December 1968 and subsequently, in the 1970s, for New York, the two became artistic collaborators as well.28 The artists’ joint work began with Oiticica’s seminal installation Tropicália, Penetráveis PN2, PN3 (Tropicália, Penetrables PN2, PN3) (1967) (figures 9, 10), first shown in the exhibition

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Nova Objetividade Brasileira (New Brazilian Objectivity) at mam/rj from 6 to 30 April 1967. Tropicália, Penetráveis PN2, PN3 recreated the space inside a Rio de Janeiro favela, using some of the same materials employed by inhabitants of these makeshift dwellings. The installation consisted of two booths made out of wood and covered with colorful printed fabrics, like the ones typically used to divide living spaces inside the favelas. As participants walked barefoot through these spaces, they encountered paths of sand and pebbles, plastic bags filled with dirt and powdered pigments, tropical plants, and live parrots moving inside a large cage. In the main cabin the viewer encountered a dark passageway leading to a television set, which emanated a string of noises mimicking the sounds of daily life. The second booth was an open structure that displayed the inscription “Pureza é um mito” (Purity is a myth) at the top of one of its walls.29 Manuel’s involvement in Tropicália, Penetráveis PN2, PN3 came out of his very first meeting with Oiticica, in the cafeteria of mam/rj. He was drawing with crayon on the pages of the popular newspaper A Luta Democrática (Rio de Janeiro), which that day contained the sensationalist headline “Killed the Dog and Drank Its Blood.” The headline was accompanied by two photographs: one of a disheveled woman, and the other of a model in an erotic pose and wearing a bikini. Placed side by side and printed in the same proportions, the photographs created the impression that it might have been the model who had killed the dog, so Manuel began drawing vampire teeth on the model. After seeing Manuel’s modified newspaper, Oiticica asked him to create something in that same vein for his upcoming installation. Manuel’s eventual contribution to Tropicália, Penetráveis PN2, PN3— a counter covered with newspapers featuring tabloid pages modified with crayon—seamlessly melded one of his signature practices with Oiticica’s participatory environment. (Unfortunately there are no extant records of Manuel’s portion of the installation.) Oiticica’s installation is also notable for a reason other than its renowned integration of environment and experience: it’s title Tropicália was used to name an exceptionally innovative musical movement launched in 1968 by the composers and singers Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. After hearing one of Veloso’s untitled compositions in late 1967, the filmmaker Luís Carlos Barreto was impressed by the affinities between Veloso’s song and Oiticica’s penetrables.30 Initially reluctant, Veloso eventually was convinced to name

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9. Hélio Oiticica, Tropicália, Penetráveis PN2, PN3 (Tropicália, Penetrables PN2 and PN3) (1967). Wood, paint, cotton fabric, plastic, sand, pebbles, tulle. Installation view at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, 1967. Courtesy of Projeto Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro. 10. Hélio Oiticica, Tropicália, Penetráveis PN2, PN3 (Tropicália, Penetrables PN2 and PN3) (1967). Wood, paint, cotton fabric, plastic, sand, pebbles, tulle. Installation view at Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro, 1990. Courtesy of Projeto Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro. Photo: Andreas Valentin.

his song “Tropicália,” and it consequently became the anthem for the movement that shares its name.31 The next year Manuel again contributed to a project conceived by Oiticica and Rogério Duarte,32 a multilayered happening called Apocalipopótese (in Portuguese, a combination of the words “apocalypse” and “hypothesis”). Coordinated by Oiticica and featuring the participation of a number of creative figures, this weekly series of outdoor artistic interventions took place in July 1968 in Aterro do Flamengo, an area designed by the landscapist Roberto Burle Marx and located in the same part of the city as mam/rj.33 It was born of Oiticica’s desire to break down the boundaries between the public and the work of art. Every Sunday numerous artists would stage simultaneous performances and actions, each having little to do with another but all united by their interactive, spectator-­oriented quality.34 The composer John Cage appeared incognito at Apocalipopótese and was later identified through photographs.35 Cage was interested in the notions of chance and indeterminacy and considered the world itself a work of art, seeing the aesthetic potential in the commonplace. His course on experimental music composition at the New School for Social Research in New York (1958–59) had a decisive influence on Allan Kaprow, who coined the term “Happenings” in 1959 to suggest something spontaneous, an event that just “happened to happen.”36 Kaprow wrote about blurring the boundaries between art and everyday life, and his influential ideas opened up new avenues for artists. Rejecting traditional mediums in the visual arts, he included found objects and junk materials into his live actions, which often also incorporated sounds, lights, and movements. In Brazil artists immediately embraced Happenings as an art form outside the space of museums and galleries. Apocalipopótese was firmly rooted in these concepts. The event’s flier, which served as the sole advertisement for the show, proclaimed, “Art is of the people and for the people. Art must be taken to the streets . . . it should preferably be done as a collective act. Not only can anyone make art, but indeed good art.”37 Streets and public spaces were occupied by artists attempting to do just that. At Apocalipopótese, Pape showed O ovo (The Egg) (1967) (figure 11), a work comprising giant wooden cubic structures (not ovoid-­shaped, as one might think) covered with colored plastic. From inside these breakable boxes, members of a samba school burst out dancing and playing music in an analogy to a birth.38 Rogério Duarte hired a dog trainer for the event who brought animals to the park and trained them before the public. Ac54 C H A P T E R

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11. Lygia Pape, O ovo (The Egg) (1967). Tempera on wood, polypropylene. Courtesy of Projeto Lygia Pape, Rio de Janeiro. Photo: Maurício Cirne.

cording to Morais, “The Apocalipopótese event had a premonitory character in relation to the events that would take place after the promulgation of the ai-­5”39—for example, the day after Duarte’s performance with the trained dogs, the newspapers published an account of the use of police dogs to intimidate demonstrators in the protest marches. For this event, at Oiticica’s request, Manuel created his series Urnas quentes (Hot Ballot Boxes) (1968) (figure 12), an interactive work that, although it was among the artist’s first experiences with public art, powerfully revealed his ability to criticize the prevailing forces of repression and engage the audience, all while avoiding any direct or simplistic form of protest. This event consisted of inviting the audience to break open twenty sealed boxes containing images and texts cut out of contemporary newspapers or taken from photographic archives (figure 13). The materials mostly related to street demonstrations against the regime, but some of the boxes also contained poems. All of the boxes were different, and each required a rather brutal act: A N T O N I O M A N U E L 55

12. Antonio Manuel, Urna quente (Hot Ballot Box) (1975). Wood, sealing wax, tape. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Vicente de Melo.

13. Still from 16mm footage of Antonio Manuel’s Urnas quentes (Hot Ballot Boxes) (1968), performed at Aterro do Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, 1968. Directed by Raimundo Amado. Image courtesy of Antonio Manuel.

the public had to crack them open with a hammer in order to view the contents. Because of the violence inherent in these pieces they functioned as a metaphor for the harsh, hostile actions of the regime. Samba dancers from Mangueira Hill, one of the oldest shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro, danced and played drums among the viewers while encouraging them to destroy the boxes, indicating that they might find money inside them. Manuel was taken aback by the violence with which the audience opened the boxes. The fact that he called them Hot Ballot Boxes references the urgency of the moment, as these were elements of contestation, objects to be acted upon by the public in bursts of rage and anger. The boxes’ descriptor also served as an ironic reminder of the suppression of elections in Brazil during the dictatorship. Guy Brett has observed that the word “urn” in English is more related to notions of ashes and death than to ballot boxes, which accidentally reinforces the reference to the political situation in that Manuel was probably not aware of this English shift in semantics.40 One of Manuel’s Urnas quentes, a box containing an image of a skinny boy from Biafra, Africa, was of particular interest to Oiticica, and after seeing it he invited Manuel to collaborate with him in the creation of Parangolé P22 capa 18 “Nirvana” (1968) (Parangole P22 Cape 18 “Nirvana”) (figure 14). Oiti­ cica laid the groundwork and gave the work its title, and Manuel inserted the image of the Biafran boy.41 Parangolés were multicolored, multilayered capes to be worn by the public. Oiticica wanted his Parangolés to be experienced as “situations to be lived”;42 the Parangolé was considered complete only when the participant’s body and bodily movements were incorporated into it. According to the artist, the title of the series, taken from a common slang greeting, “Qual eh o parangolé?” (What’s up, bro?), referred to an “animated situation and sudden confusion and/or agitation between people.”43 The capes were made of materials used by the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro’s slums, such as polyethylene, gauze, burlap, straw, silk, muslin, nylon, and netting. With these works, Oiticica fluidly danced from the labyrinthine slums of Rio to the city’s asphalt, navigating between high and low, shifting from the closed salons of the mam/rj and its elite society to the social reality of the shantytowns, from experiments with the international avant-­garde to Brazilian popular culture. Oiticica connected to the “other” in Brazil: the underprivileged, predominantly black, socially excluded people of favelas, homosexuals, and drug users. A year after the two artists collaborated on Parangolé P22 capa 18 A N T O N I O M A N U E L 57

14. Hélio Oiticica and Antonio Manuel, Parangolé P22 capa 18 “Nirvana” (Parangole P22 Cape 18 “Nirvana”) (1968). Cotton fabric, plastic, nylon mesh, silkscreen. Courtesy of Projeto Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro.

“Nirvana,” Oiticica recalled Manuel’s potent Urnas quentes as he pondered works that might effectively represent the Brazilian situation to the international artistic community. In a letter dated 17 June 1969 Oiticica, now living in London, asked Manuel to send some of his boxes to the VI Youth Paris Biennial, specifying that he should keep them sealed so they would avoid the risk of being censored. He wrote, How can you represent Brazil abroad, if you are being censored in Brazil? I don’t understand it; are you sure they won’t censor anything? If they do, we will be here to scream; but no concessions should be made; maybe it would be a good policy to send some of the Urnas sealed without explaining their purpose, and when they arrive here I will give an explanation for them . . . think about it and let me know. The best thing now is not to confront them openly, but to keep “playing the game” in order to be able to communicate. Otherwise they censor everything, and nothing is communicated.44 Oiticica’s letter suggests he was not yet aware that Manuel’s series Repressão outra vez—Eis o saldo (1968) had triggered the closing of the preliminary Pre-­Paris Biennial on 29 May, and the entire Brazilian delegation to the VI Youth Paris Biennial had been already canceled as a result. Manuel recalls that when he was invited along with Oiticica and Meireles to participate in one of the parallel exhibitions at the Venice Biennial in 1976, he planned to send a few Urnas quentes, but no airline would agree to transport the sealed boxes. Oiticica was in Paris at the time, and offered to remake the work abroad and submit it to the Venice Biennial on Manuel’s behalf, but Manuel declined, because this would have violated the entire concept of the work. Manuel changed his original plan and instead decided to present some photographs in the exhibition in Venice.45

The Tropicália Movement On 11 December 1968, the day before the promulgation of the ai-­5, Caetano Veloso was featured in the national magazine O Cruzeiro wearing Oiticica’s Parangolé P4 capa 1 (see plate 5).46 The magazine featured an article entitled “Marginália: arte e cultura na idade da pedrada” (Marginality: Art and Culture in the Stone-­Throwing Age), which compiled slogans embraced by this generation: “ ‘What is new today might be dead tomorrow.’ ‘Down with prejudice.’ ‘Art and culture as a totality.’ ‘A new aesthetic.’ ‘A new moral.’ A N T O N I O M A N U E L 59

‘Communicate through polemics.’ ‘We are no longer in the Stone Age. We’re in the stone-­throwing age.’ ‘Down with elite culture.’ ‘Art is suspended etiquette.’ ‘No more swallowing of finished works.’ ‘Participate. . . .’ ”47 The slogans, the figure of Veloso wearing Oiticica’s Parangolé, the very title of the article, evoking marginality—it all came out of the sensibility of the countercultural movement that was Tropicália. The contrast between the chaotic, anarchic paraphernalia embraced by the tropicalists and the idea of order and progress heralded by the military regime could not have been more marked. The country was madly divided. Arising at a time of such cultural upheaval, Tropicália grew into more than just a musical movement: it became a sensibility that encompassed a new spirit of cultural production of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The movement employed an interdisciplinary approach to the arts, branching out into the visual arts, music, theater, literature, and cinema, and it attempted to merge the modern and the archaic, national elements and international trends, grass-­roots and vanguard art. Tropicalists incorporated foreign sounds of electric guitars and rock and roll into Brazilian popular music. The quest was no longer one of choosing between an art with popular and nationalistic tones on the one hand or an art in tune with the latest developments of the international avant-­gardes on the other. The aim was to reconcile these apparently incompatible camps. The Tropicalist song Soy loco por ti, América (I Am Crazy for You, America), by the composers Gilberto Gil and José Carlos Capinan, struck a chord with Manuel, and he drew inspiration from it for his installation Soy loco por ti (I Am Crazy for You) (1969) (figure 15). The song called for a movement of solidarity in Latin America against North American imperialism, and, similarly, Manuel considered his work to be “a kind of Pan-­American cry for the union of Latin American countries.”48 Soy loco por ti was an installation made of wood, cloth, plastic, grass, and rope. It consisted of a grass mattress approximately the size of a king-­size bed covered by plastic and placed on the floor under a huge black cloth, which had the appearance of a tent. On the background wall and placed at a right angle to the bed was a wooden panel with a map of Latin America in red paint. By operating a rope mechanism (by now a common element of many of Manuel’s works) the public could raise the cloth and lie down on the grass bed under the painted map. In many ways it evoked his previous work Repressão outra vez—Eis o saldo (1968), the work that had triggered the closing of the Pre-­Paris Biennial. At first glance Soy loco por ti appeared to be simply a rigid geometric structure 60 C H A P T E R

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15. Antonio Manuel, Soy loco por ti (I Am Crazy for You) (1969). Wood, cloth, plastic, grass, rope. Courtesy of the artist.

made out of two rectangular shapes, the bed and the wooden panel with the map of Latin America. This pristine geometric structure was upset by the work’s experiential and sensorial elements, a common theme of what Manuel and others, like Oiticica, had begun to call arte ambiental. People could not only lie on the bed, but also pull the rope to reveal the shape of Latin America. The formal structure of the installation coexisted with its more malleable interactive qualities. Like many works Manuel created and exhibited during the first years of the Brazilian dictatorship, Soy loco por ti attracted attention for its provocative nature. It was first shown publicly at Salão da Bússola (Compass Salon), a modest exhibition scheduled to take place at mam/rj in November 1969, parallel to the X São Paulo Biennial. Initially this salon did not intend to be different from the other local exhibitions, but in the end it fulfilled the failed mission of the X São Paulo Biennial: to introduce new artistic tendencies to the country. Because of the lack of participation and interest in the X São A N T O N I O M A N U E L 61

Paulo Biennial, many artists opted to send their works instead to Salão da Bússola, and it became a landmark for Brazilian art, introducing local artists’ own modified version of such trends as body art, performance art, media-­ based art, earth-­based works made of perishable and degrading materials, and conceptual practices. The exhibition also became the stage for another heated controversy between artists and the forces of repression, a controversy that once again found Manuel at its center. Recalling that his earlier work had actually triggered the closing of an entire exhibition when it was shown at the Pre-­Paris Biennial at mam/rj, the organizers of Salão da Bússola were understandably apprehensive about Soy loco por ti, worrying that a similarly negative reaction from the military regime might mean the end of their salon. The publicity agency Aroldo Araújo took precautions before the work was unveiled, inviting a priest and a general to assess whether it should be pulled from the exhibition to avoid conflict. Both arbiters considered the work to be subversive; they viewed the black cloth covering the installation as a reference to the anarchist flag and the red panel with the map of Latin America as a reference to the Communist flag. As absurd as this assessment was, it might have prevented Manuel from participating in Salão da Bússola, but the priest and the general eventually relented: after additional consideration they agreed there was no need to remove Manuel’s installation. Their illogical objections and irresolute verdict attest to the arbitrariness of censorship in the visual arts at the time.49 In the end, Manuel’s installation was allowed to be in the exhibition, as were two other works similar to Soy loco por ti: Selva (Jungle), a vibrant red panel covered by a transparent plastic sheet containing banana leaves, palm trees, and other tropical plants, which could be unveiled by the public by lifting the plastic covering it; and Exaltação (Exaltation), a white panel with painted inscriptions in homage to Manuel’s friends, including Raymundo Colares, Rogério Duarte, Hélio Oiticica, and the poet Torquato Neto, among others.50 However, in an ironic turn of events Manuel’s entry was not the most explosive incident of the exhibition. On 27 November 1969, during a debate at the mam/rj promoted by Salão da Bússola, a bomb went off on the third floor of the museum. No one among the two hundred people participating in the debate in the auditorium was hurt—indeed, nobody even heard it because at the moment the bomb exploded the humorist Ziraldo was telling a joke amid raucous laughter from the audience.51 Only forty minutes later, when the debate was over, did the public realize what had happened. Though 62 C H A P T E R

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never proven, it was widely accepted that the bomb was set off by the military.52 Perhaps even more surreal, considering its controversial entry into the exhibition, Soy loco por ti ended up receiving an acquisition prize at the salon and was subsequently purchased by a bank in Rio Grande do Sul, a state in the south of Brazil. When the new owners arrived to pick up the work, it had rotted: the bed of grass had decayed during the two months Salão da Bússola was on view and was now emitting a bad odor. Manuel was nonplussed, deeming it “South America itself exhaling its own smell of decomposition.”53 The bank paid for the installation but decided not to keep it since it did not know how to restore and preserve it. Works of art created with perishable materials were a new phenomenon in the visual arts in Brazil, and there was no knowledge available regarding the best way to preserve them. Later, Manuel would remake the installation Soy loco por ti using straw instead of grass for the bed (see plate 6). This modified version of the historical piece— without its smell and decomposing elements—allowed it to enter the conventional art market. In fact, Manuel’s fortuitous sale notwithstanding, the market for emerging art in the 1960s and early 1970s in Brazil was practically nonexistent. Even when works of art were inserted in institutional spaces like museums and salons, they had little or no monetary exchange value. There was no market at all for contemporary art, and in fact there were only a few galleries in Rio de Janeiro that would show it. The main one was Relevo Gallery, owned by the art dealer Jean Boghici, a major supporter of the Nova Figuração movement of the mid-­1960s, a modified version of Pop art. Petite Galerie and Goeldi Gallery were also more open to young artists than the more established ones. Bonino Gallery had connections with Argentina and had important exhibitions of artists from the Otra Figuración movement. Still, sales in Brazil were largely restricted to figurative modernist painters such as Tarsila do Amaral, Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, and Cândido Portinari. Moreover, the audience of the exhibitions held in museums and galleries was mainly limited to members of the art world, an insubstantial number of viewers. While this environment made supporting oneself through creative production a near-­impossible undertaking, it did have an advantageous consequence: since there was no pressure on the artist to produce for the market, visual artists enjoyed rare experimental freedom and were open to new ideas and modes of expression, in contradiction to the repressive climate of the time. A N T O N I O M A N U E L 63

Since there was no market for young Brazilian artists, the salons took on a role of heightened importance, given that it was exactly these institutions that provided prizes enabling artists to travel abroad and to buy materials to produce new works. Salão da Bússola became an integral, highly visible venue for its enterprising role in promoting a number of works outside of traditional mediums, such as Soy loco por ti.54

Media Art: The Media as Medium Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s artists were harnessing new technologies and exploring nontraditional practices, with a particular interest in mass media and new modes of communication. Manuel’s appropriation of mass media was evident in most of his artworks and performances requiring the presence of the body. Inside the boxes from Urnas quentes the audience could find prints and images from current newspapers; in Repressão outra vez—Eis o saldo (see chapter 1), images of the violence between the police and demonstrators jump out of the panels; and Corpobra was created from a press photograph of Manuel in the nude at mam/rj. Manuel’s use of the media as a political tool was a way to challenge the established order and to create a refreshing artistic production. Since 1966 the artist had been drawing silhouettes with black ink and crayon over printed newspaper headlines and images. In some of his untitled drawings (figure 16), he drew cutout doll figures that resemble automatons, looking perplexed at a group of bureaucrats as they stand in front of the Brazilian flag. The flag’s slogan, “Ordem e Progresso” (Order and Progress), is wryly punctuated with a question mark. With this work Manuel was asking, What kind of progress is being promoted? His modified drawings reflected the threat to civil liberties generated by media that were under censorship. Appropriating mass media venues like the pages of newspapers to modify the content of its messages was a strategy Manuel would later take to an extreme.55 After working with the direct manipulation of the printed pages of newspapers Manuel became interested in the actual mechanisms of production and publication. At the time, newspapers in Brazil were printed with plasticized matrices in high and low relief (stereotype molds). These molds of the lead plates were used in rotational printers, a process that became obsolete with the advent of computerized methods of printing. After the newspaper was printed, the original stereotype molds were discarded. At the end of the 64 C H A P T E R

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16. Antonio Manuel, Untitled (1966). Crayon on newspaper. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Denise Cathilina.

day, Manuel would save the original molds that interested him and experiment by applying paint to them. By isolating, enlarging, and adding some elements to the stereotype molds, he created new works that emphasized the brutality of the forces of repression. He would efface some of the actual headlines and illustrations and exaggerate others in order to stress urban violence. He would, for instance, highlight the headlines of the student demonstrations in the streets of Rio de Janeiro (in which he often participated), and efface stories not related to the riots. This series called Flans (1968) addressed the student riots and brought a sense of urgency and immediacy to the disturbing images of these current events. In A imagem da violência (The Image of Violence) (1968) (figure 17), horses, batons, and tanks are part of the police apparatus to disperse the demonstrators. In As armas do diálogo (The Weapons of Dialogue) (1968) (figure 18), both civilians and policemen carry weapons, attesting to the impossibility of a truce. Printed in black and white and employing a layout based on the rectangular and square grid of newspapers’ pages—with their horizontal and vertical lines, visual pictograms, and written text—the A N T O N I O M A N U E L 65

17. Antonio Manuel, A imagem da violência (The Image of Violence) (1968), from the series Flans. Ink or acrylic on stereotype mold. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Wilton Montenegro. 18. Antonio Manuel, As armas do diálogo (The Weapons of Dialogue) (1968), from the series Flans. Ink or acrylic on stereotype mold. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Wilton Montenegro.

Flans carry a strong composition borrowing the language of Concrete art, the early constructivist movement in Brazil. However, here the purity, autonomy, and disembodiment that characterize geometric abstract paintings from the 1950s are replaced by corporeal masses, repressive apparatuses, barricades, and street fights. The impacting urban violence of daily life is plainly manifest in these works, explosively thrown in the public’s face, ironically, in a carefully orchestrated formal composition coming out of the constructivist legacy of earlier Brazilian art. Later, from 1973 to 1975, Manuel would create another series of Flans in homage to his major influences: Duchamp, Kasimir Malevich, and Piet Mondrian. He took inspiration from Malevich’s suprematist paintings, from Duchamp’s readymades, and from Mondrian’s geometric grids. On these pieces he wrote witty phrases, such as “Wanted Rose Selavy” (1975) next to the image of a urinal (figure 19), alluding to Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) as well as to his pseudonym Rrose Sélavy or Rose Sélavy—itself a word trick, intended to sound like the French “Eros, c’est la vie” (Eros, that’s life)—and “Mondrian was a Virgin,” a reference to the purity sought by Mondrian in his abstract geometric grids. In January 1970, incorporating mass media formats as an important feature of his oeuvre, Manuel experimented with the creation of a fotonovela he entitled A arma fálica (The Phallic Weapon) (figure 20) (fotonovelas were illustrated novels laid out like comic books but illustrated with photographs instead of drawings). The text was written by Manuel, with some dialogue supplied by Lygia Pape and photographs by Kiko, Lygia Clark’s nephew. Oiti­ cica, who had briefly returned to Brazil from London, starred as the main character. At the time, fotonovelas were very popular, especially with female audiences. Their plots usually revolved around romantic melodramas. A arma fálica was set in Oiticica’s home in the neighborhood of Jardim Botânico in Rio de Janeiro and at the docks of Praça Mauá (figure 21), where Manuel had bid Oiticica farewell when he departed for London by ship in December 1968. Poking fun at the sensationalist stories from the fotonovelas, the plot was a mixture of surrealism and gangsterism: Guru (Oiticica) had spent many years in London. He left his wife Nenén (her nickname) behind because she suffered from an endless yeast infection. When Guru comes back home he finds Nenén in bed with her former husband, Paulo, an outcast from Mangueira Hill. Nenén’s mother had been raped at Mangue (a lower-­class zone of prostitution in Rio), and her story was reported in the newspapers as a crime of passion. Upon finding Paulo sleeping in his bed, A N T O N I O M A N U E L 67

19. Antonio Manuel, Wanted Rose Selavy (1975), from the series Flans. Ink or acrylic on stereotype mold. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Wilton Montenegro.

Guru kills him with a phallic weapon. Manuel had only twenty-­four frames in which to complete the fotonovela. It was supposed to have appeared in an independent newspaper at the time (Pasquim) but was not published until some twenty-­five years after it was created.56 Its mass-­market appeal and associations with unsophisticated subject material made the fotonovela the perfect conduit for conveying life at the margins of society, which in one way or another was part of the artist’s own reality. As part of his sanction for taking off his clothes at the national salon, the artist was forbidden, as I mentioned earlier, to exhibit at mam/rj for two years, and there was no market or art circuit that would ensure his work would be widely disseminated. Yet Manuel remained committed to communicating a reality that was being forcibly suppressed from the media, and so he found himself in the position of reassessing his own practice. He decided 68 C H A P T E R

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20–21. Antonio Manuel, A arma fálica (The Phallic Weapon) (1970). Fotonovela. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Marcos Lins Andrade (Kiko).

to take matters into his own hands and to interfere directly in the creation and dissemination of the news. Manuel’s most daring intervention in the media came around 1973, when he had the chance to gain access to the printing room of the most sensationalist and popular newspaper of Rio de Janeiro, O DIA. Through his personal connection and friendship with the newspaper owner’s younger son, the journalist Ivan Chagas Freitas, he was granted permission—unbeknownst to the owner of the paper, Antônio de Pádua Chagas Freitas, but permission nonetheless—to use the newspaper as a public art project of sorts.57 Manuel wrote his fake headlines at home and then went to the newsroom and typed them, as if he were part of the staff.58 He was allowed to create his own images and headings, thus producing his own modified periodical pages. Employees supportive of his mission helped him to manipulate the plates A N T O N I O M A N U E L 69

22. Antonio Manuel, Clandestinas (Clandestines) (1973). Newspaper. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Wilton Montenegro.

in the newsroom before they went to press. Manuel called these printed interventions Clandestinas (Clandestines) (1973) (figure 22). The Clandestinas were not overtly political in content; rather, they assumed a humorous and anarchic tone. In some of them he showed his friends, such as Lygia Pape, Hélio Oiticica, and Torquato Neto, in outrageous situations that emulated some of the more hair-­raising stories printed in O DIA. In one of the Clandestinas Manuel labeled a photograph of Pape posing with vampire teeth with the phrase “Chupava Sangue Dando Gargalhadas.” (Sucked Blood with Bursts of Laughter). In another he wrote “Pintor Ensina a Deus a Pintar” (Painter Teaches God How to Paint). This was in homage to Ivan Serpa, his former mentor, who had recently died; during his Mass a priest had declared that Serpa was “in heaven teaching God how to paint.” In another work from this series Manuel inserted a photograph of himself naked and surrounded by the public (an image from a photograph taken at his action at mam/rj), adding the headline “Confusão no mam: Pintor Mostra Pos-­Arte” (Confusion at mam: Painter Shows Post-­Art). Manuel was careful to maintain the design, layout, and official logo of O DIA. Except for his interventions on the tabloid’s pages, he left the rest of the original page intact with its legitimate, yet, in some cases, equally sensational, headlines, such as “Millionaire Rob70 C H A P T E R

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ber Hides the Treasure,” “Samba Dancer Found Sixty-­Five Million and Kept It,” “Rifle Bullet Killed a Minor,” and so on. He wanted his modified pages to look exactly like the original ones, with only the subtle additions of his own disturbing elements. During his month in covert “residence” at the newspaper, he produced a series of ten modified pages with a circulation of approximately two to three hundred copies each. He would then distribute them to regular newsstands in Rio de Janeiro’s main neighborhoods. Manuel pretended that he was officially delivering authentic copies of O DIA, and people bought the papers without knowing their origin.59 It was an act of transgression more than anything else. Manuel wanted to confront the media and hold up a mirror to its flaws and manipulations, its fake constructions, and dissemination of false “truths.” It carried essentially the same intentions as O corpo é a obra, which confronted and mocked the museum’s taste-­making jury and conservative policies as categorical rules. In One-­Dimensional Man Marcuse argues that the system of production and consumption via mass media and advertising that developed in advanced industrial societies resulted in a one-­dimensional universe of ideas and behavior, in which the skills for critical thought and oppositional behavior were no longer in place. Against this prevailing climate, Marcuse promoted the “great refusal” as a means for creating a nonrepressive society. Following in the same vein as Marcuse’s utopian belief in positive transformative changes in society, Manuel created a short-­circuit in the press, suggesting that there were still possible ways to resist ideological control by the mass media. In a country where the media was under censorship, it was appealing to artists to intervene and interfere with the apparent truth that was being communicated. What would happen if suddenly there were a disruptive noise in the flow of the news? Why not short a circuit in the machine of communication? Despite the daily violence printed in the news, it was widely understood that much more was happening to political prisoners than was being disclosed by the press. The removal from the public’s eye of events that were taking place related to the violation of civil rights was a major concern. What part of what was being reported was actually true? The possibility of infiltrating the media to create his own constructed news was an alluring temptation to Manuel. By creating his humorous, anarchic headlines and placing them in the newsstands he was able to interfere not only in the production of the newspaper but moreover in its distribuA N T O N I O M A N U E L 71

tion, manipulating the system to introduce his media art to a mass audience. Manuel used the newspaper not only as a tool of communication but also as a political weapon of sorts, challenging the established order as he developed a new, media-­based artistic production, one that was increasingly at the center of his art.60 In his irreverent manipulations in the print media Manuel was part of a larger wave of thinking; the potential power to appropriate the press dominated the collective imagination of many artists during this period. Manuel’s understanding of media art was related to the artistic trend in Argentina called arte de los medios (1966) in reference to medios de communicación (communication media). “Arte de los Medios” became the title of a manifesto signed by the Argentinean artists Eduardo Costa, Raúl Escarí, and Roberto Jacoby, which asserts that in a consumerist society an event exists in the public’s mind only if it is registered by the media.61 The manifesto called attention to the power of the media to construct events and news stories that were not necessarily true. The three Argentinean artists put their ideas into clever action with a famous happening that never really took place. Costa, Escarí, and Jacoby asked well-­known artists and intellectuals to participate in the nonevent, creating fake photographs and giving false testimonies of the imaginary incident called Happening para un jabalí defunto (Happening for a Dead Boar) (October 1966). With the collusion of a circle of friendly journalists and art critics, they then released news and documentation of the exciting event, which had supposedly just taken place at the home of an art dealer, to the press in Buenos Aires. Many of the communication venues that received the information thought it was legitimate and published it as if it were a major art event.62 After extensive coverage by the media, this nonevent or antihappening effectively did take place, only with the newspapers’ pages as its true and only venue. This exposed the fact that it was possible (indeed rather easy) to create, suppress, or plant news in the media. The Argentinean exhibition Tucumán Arde (Tucuman is Burning) (figure 23) in Buenos Aires and in Rosário in 1968 became an important reference for the ongoing overlap of media art and politics in Latin America. Tucumán Arde was a collective artistic response by a group of Argentinean vanguard artists to denounce the poor labor conditions in Tucumán, an impoverished province in the northeast of Argentina and one of the largest areas of sugar cultivation in the country.63 The government of the dictator Juan Carlos Onganía had promised prosperity for the region, campaigning 72 C H A P T E R

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23. Tucumán Arde (Tucuman is Burning) (1968). Photograph. Courtesy of Archivo Graciela Carnevale, Rosario, Argentina.

with slogans such as “Tucumán, The Garden of the Republic.” By the end of 1968 a group of artists was compiling extensive research on the problems affecting the workers. The result was an exhibition at the headquarters of the Argentinean workers union in Rosário in November 1968 which featured broad visual documentation of the exploitive conditions confronting the people of Tucumán. The exhibition denounced the empty promises of Onganía’s regime with the title “Tucumán Arde: The Garden of Miseries.”64 The “Tucumán Arde Manifesto” exhorted artists to participate in the political and social context that surrounded them.65 Through the mediated exhibition, artists were able to bring attention to the real conditions of the rural workers, which were being suppressed and censored in the media; as the media covered the exhibition, its content—the plight of the workers—­ received attention as well. Such engagement with popular causes recalls the activities proposed by the Centers of Popular Culture in Brazil in the early 1960s. After the coup d’état in 1964 this kind of action was no longer possible in the country. Though he may not have been aware of the specific actions taken by Argentinean artists appropriating the media or of Costa’s, Escarí’s, and Jacoby’s manifesto “Arte de los Medios,” Manuel nevertheless had similar A N T O N I O M A N U E L 73

24. Antonio Manuel, O bode (The Goat) (1973). Live goat. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Cristina Pape.

ideas about the role of the media in contemporary art. He even convinced the press to circulate works of his that were censored by the military regime. He was reportedly scheduled to have an exhibition at mam/rj sometime in 1973. All but one of the works Manuel had submitted for this exhibition at the Sala Experimental (Experimental Room) of the museum had been censored by the institution—that mam/rj was now itself withholding potentially contentious art in anticipation of objections from the military regime attests to the pervasive culture of fear spread by the dictatorship. It had by then actually become common to assess exhibitions in advance to avert any conceivable firestorms. Surprisingly, the only work approved by mam/rj for the planned show was O bode (The Goat) (1973) (figure 24), a live goat meant to sit in the center of a red circle painted on the floor of the museum like a mandala, contrasting the goat’s black fur with the red floor. (The color scheme recalled that of Soy loco por ti, in which, as noted above, a black cloth contrasted with the red map underneath it, infuriating a general and a priest.) During the dictatorship some artists used animals (sometimes even sacrificing them) as a metaphor for the horrors carried out by the regime. 74 C H A P T E R

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The goat also created an opportunity for a double-­entendre in the work’s title. In Portuguese, bode can signify both “goat” and “bad vibes”—as slang it implies an unpleasant feeling or a bad situation. It also referenced corporeal performance and art, as it sounds similar to the word “body” in English. Manuel used the black goat as a metaphor for cleansing the air of the repressive acts of the military regime. According to the artist, “The goat worked almost as a magnetic field, in the sense of absorbing the bad energy of the repressive environment . . . the word bode was also an allusion to Body art. The poetic aspect of the animal is related to my childhood. The idea of freedom that this animal gave me, loose on the streets, was powerful.”66 Later, O bode was also censored, and therefore the entire exhibition at mam/rj was canceled. The museum’s somewhat bizarre excuse for finally also banning O bode was that it was not typical of Manuel’s work. This event made the headlines of the current newspapers. One of the headlines, “Deu Bode no MAM,” played with the double meaning of the Portuguese title, conveying both “there was a live goat at the museum” and “something went wrong at the museum.” As when O corpo é a obra was rejected by the jury at mam/rj in 1970, Manuel once again refused to passively accept being stifled. In order to challenge this decision, he asked the editor of the newspaper O Jornal (Rio de Janeiro), Washington Novaes, to publish all the works that had been censored at the museum in the newspaper’s pages (figure 25). Novaes gave him the entire six-­page Sunday Arts and Leisure supplement of O Jornal on 15 July 1973. The Sunday edition, which had a national circulation of sixty thousand, published images of the works under the title Exposição de Antonio Manuel—De 0 à 24 Horas (Exhibition of Antonio Manuel—From 0 to 24 Hours) (figure 26). It was an ephemeral exhibition, “on view” for twenty-­ four hours, the same as a daily newspaper in the newsstands. Again, Manuel used the immediacy of the medium, its broad distribution, and its power of communication to convey his ideas in a rapid, intuitive manner. Once more he bypassed the museum’s bureaucracy, with its rules, juries, and compromises, and instead used the newspaper to create a new form of exhibition, one free of mediation by art institutions, untethered to a specific location, disposable and readily discardable. Manuel deftly appropriated a vehicle of the mass media under surveillance to show his own censored exhibition. It was a brilliantly executed strategy, like a coup inside a coup. In the 1970s Manuel’s interest in media-­based art led him to create short films. For Loucura & Cultura (Madness and Culture) (1973), a ten-­minute, A N T O N I O M A N U E L 75

25–26. Antonio Manuel, Exposição de Antonio Manuel—De 0 à 24 Horas (Exhibition of Antonio Manuel—From 0 to 24 Hours), published in O Jornal, 15 July 1973. Newspaper. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Wilton Montenegro.

35mm black-­and-­white movie, he took fixed exposures, similar to police mug shots, of his friends, including Rogério Duarte, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape, Luiz Carlos Saldanha, and Caetano Veloso. The background soundtrack is taken from a recording of a debate titled “Amostragem da Cultura Loucura-­ Brasileira” (Sampling of Brazilian Culture-­Madness), which took place at mam/rj on June 10, 1968,67 along with excerpts of La Marseillaise, the national anthem of France. The French anthem stands in for the Brazilian national anthem, as it was forbidden to use it for nonpatriotic purposes. Duarte, Pape, and Veloso, who participated in the debate at mam/rj, are captured individually in front, profile, and back views. Filmmaker Saldanha, who was jailed in Rome when the work was filmed,68 is represented by a blank shot. Oiticica, living abroad in New York at the time, is pictured as a still photograph, in profile. The rigid iconic images point to the arbitrariness of the political situation at the time. In 1975 Manuel filmed Semi-­ótica (Semiotics),69 a seven-­minute, 35mm film, also in black and white. It shows a precarious-­looking house on Morro do Borel (Borel Hill), one of the many favelas of Rio. A Brazilian national flag is painted across the facade by the owner of the house. The window of the house acts like a black hole painted inside the flag. The camera focuses in the space of the hole and then segues to still images and mug shots of outlaws killed or jailed by the death squads, with a caption of the person’s name (mostly their nickname), age, and a semicolor associated with them, taken from the colors of the Brazilian flag (green, yellow, blue, and white) plus black. These semicolors (semigreen, semiyellow, semiblue, semiwhite, and semiblack) are ambiguous in their intention: at the same time they depict the colors of the flag, they address issues of race and class. In attaching a name, age, and a semicolor to these marginalized people, Manuel touches upon matters of racial miscegenation and the false myth of social mobility in Brazil as it was promoted by the military regime. The film is a poignant portrait of the many contradictions inherent in the country. The dictatorship counted on the support of many segments of the population, including the lower classes, who witnessed an economic boom, the so-­called “milagre econômico” (economic miracle), with growth in domestic consumer goods. Moreover, Brazil’s World Cup victory in 1970 temporarily lifted public morale, encouraging such ostensibly discordant expressions of nationalism as the display of the flag on a shoddy house in an impoverished neighborhood. Behind the scenes, crimes were being committed

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by the death squads, not only against political opponents of the regime, but also against impoverished sectors of the population. As the military regime continued to tighten its grip, artists became constant seekers of innovation, inventing at every turn new ways to perform what Pedrosa called, as noted, their “experimental exercise of freedom.” The art scene was evolving rapidly, and artistic boundaries were being pushed to incorporate nontraditional media. Manuel’s use of body art and media-­based practices became more than just the workings of a young artist experimenting with new forms of expression; his was a strategy that aimed to subvert and criticize the forces of repression as well as to flaunt the rules imposed by art institutions. Whether he was submitting his body as a work of art to a salon, manipulating the way meaning is constructed by the media, puzzling the public with surreal headlines, or appropriating a mass media venue to exhibit his censored works of art, Manuel insisted on affirming his individual freedom at a time when rigidity and order were the values imposed by the military regime.

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3 ARTUR BARRIO

A New Visual Aesthetics

To many artists working under Brazil’s military dictatorship the development of the visual arts based on traditional means followed a trajectory that, in light of the political situation, was no longer compelling. Facing a charge to react in imaginative, aggressive, and unconventional ways, some artists became inclined to create ephemeral art, art that would leave only vestiges and signs. These artistic practices would conceal authorship, so that the resulting works could not be directly associated with a specific name. As the artist Ricardo Basbaum put it, the challenge was to create “possible strategies for the occupation of spaces so as to make difficult the capture of the authorial agent, always in movement.”1 Artur Barrio was a paradigm of an artist dealing with these very issues during the most repressive years of the military regime. For the accidental viewer unfamiliar with the artist’s practice, it would be nearly impossible to identify his output as works of art. Because Barrio was not then an artist whose name would be recognized by a large audience outside the art world, many of his actions likely went unnoticed by the population and the forces of repression. Artur Alípio Barrio de Souza Lopes, best known as Artur Barrio, was born in Porto, Portugal, in 1945. At age ten he immigrated to Rio de Janeiro,

where he still lives and works. Politically, Barrio defines himself as an anarchist. He attended the National School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, receiving formal training in drawing and painting. Early in his career, in 1966, he commenced his series CadernosLivros (see figures 27 and 28), comprised of notes, drawings, collages, and sketches. These artist’s books, loosely translated as “notebooks/books,” blunt and unedited, are expressive of the unmediated flux of his ideas, projects, and sensations and also document the process involved in each of his artworks.2 Barrio became part of the generation of artists who came of age in the heyday of the Fluxus movement. Building on Duchamp’s challenge of the notions of taste and good art and absorbing Cage’s ideas on chance, Fluxus artists wanted to create a “living art” or “anti-­art” that would bypass the gallery and museum system and reach a broader audience.3 They distanced themselves from the art market, favoring nontraditional modes of expression, such as inexpensive artists’ books, mail art, and unlimited editions of small objects. With its emphasis on temporality, Fluxus was particularly suitable for Brazilian artists dealing with censorship, and many artists, Barrio included, adopted some of its central practices. Like that of the Fluxus artists, Barrio’s work carried a sense of volatility and mobility, as if it were in a continuous state of process, a permanent flux. (The term “fluxus” is based on the Latin word flux, meaning constant flow or change.) His pieces are frequently referred to as situations or actions instead of tangible objects of art. Evoking surrealist traditions of automatic writing, his CadernosLivros embody a free, chaotic, calligraphic, and flowing spirit and hint at many of the themes—dreams, desire, free association, eroticism, and the uncanny— that would recur throughout his career. Barrio’s references are drawn as much from art history movements as from film and literature; he admires Georges Bataille, Luis Buñuel, and Glauber Rocha. His manifestos are written in the same manner as the surrealist and futurist manifestos.

“Manifesto” and the Creation of a New Visual Aesthetics In his untitled “Manifesto” (Rio de Janeiro, 1969) Barrio advocated for the use of decaying, degradable, and inexpensive materials as the basis for a new aesthetics.4 Making the argument that traditional materials were elite instruments of power that constrained artists from underdeveloped countries, Barrio wrote, “I think the expensive materials are being imposed by an 80 C H A P T E R

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27. Artur Barrio, CadernoLivro (1968–69). Collection of Gilberto Chateaubriand. Courtesy of the artist. 28. Artur Barrio, CadernoLivro (1973). Collection of Gilberto Chateaubriand. Courtesy of the artist.

aesthetic thought of an elite that thinks from the top to the bottom. I cast in confrontation momentary situations with the use of perishable materials, in a concept from the bottom to the top.”5 Barrio defended his antitechnological art, which came from the tropics, against industrial resources used by artists in the United States and Europe. He used garbage, urine, raw meat, spit, saliva, tampons, and toilet paper, choosing his materials for their cheap, vulgar, and perishable qualities. His predilection for the abject is reinforced by his iconography and his writings, in which he speaks extensively about the use of poor elements. What could be simplistically seen as a model for a humble art, however, was in fact a very ambitious project for an all-­encompassing aesthetics in the visual arts. Barrio’s ideas had affinities with the so-­called Cinema Novo movement involving the Brazilian film industry of the 1960s. Proponents of this movement advocated for a truly Brazilian cinema, one rooted in the country’s social reality and making use of its own means of production, in defiance of the prevailing Hollywood industry. Cinema Novo film directors favored the aesthetics and narratives of poverty, drawing on politically and ethically salient issues in their scripts and using impoverished locations as settings, including urban slums and the drought-­plagued northern region of Brazil. Glauber Rocha (1939–81), the most celebrated Cinema Novo filmmaker, wrote the manifesto “A estética da fome” (The Aesthetics of Hunger) (1965), in which he proposed a new political and aesthetic basis for Latin American cinema; his ideas were in close keeping with the movement’s motto, “A camera in the hand, and an idea in the mind.”6 Rocha’s avant-­garde movies depict Brazil’s corruption and social upheaval, showing a debauched society and its decadence. In an allegorical allusion to the coup d’état of 1964 in Brazil and its aftermath, the director set his film Terra em Transe (Land in Anguish) (1967) in the fictional Latin American republic of Eldorado. The film’s main character is an idealistic leftist poet and journalist torn between supporting a populist politician and a fascist dictator; the character is full of contradictions. Terra em Transe not only attacks the corruption of the Brazilian ruling class, but also exposes the ambiguity of artists and intellectuals, indecisive in their positions. Rocha’s simultaneous desires to distance himself from the industrial modes of production coming from developed countries and to create something modern but also genuinely Brazilian were shared by artists in other cultural fields, especially in the visual arts. The art critic Frederico Morais also argued for the creation of a poor, tropical, and underdeveloped art in 82 C H A P T E R

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opposition to the technology-­based art of affluent countries.7 He favored art made out of raw materials such as earth, sand, coffee, cardboard, banana leaves, grass, rubber, rope, water, stone, and detritus from consumer society. Likewise, in his essay “Esquema geral da nova objetividade” (General Scheme of the New Objectivity) (1967), Oiticica spoke of the dilemma of a third world aesthetics, questioning “how an underdeveloped country could explain and justify the creation of an avant-­garde art, without it being considered a symbol of alienation, but instead as a decisive factor for the collective process.” He expressed his belief that art was directly related to social change and proposed an artistic engagement with political and ethical issues: A typical state of current Brazilian avant-­garde should be formulated as “New Objectivity.” Its principal characteristics are: 1) A general constructive will; 2) a move toward the object, as easel painting is negated and superseded; 3) the participation of the spectator (bodily, tactilely, visually, semantically, etc.); 4) an engagement of and a position on political, social, and ethical problems; 5) a tendency toward collective propositions and consequently the abolition, in the art of today, of “isms,” so characteristic of the first half of the century (a tendency which can be encompassed by Mário Pedrosa’s concept of “Post-­Modern Art”); 6) a revival of, and new formulations in, the concept of anti-­art.8 In his call for a general constructive will Oiticica sought an art that could be integrated into society at large. The search for a “constructive vocation” was a recurring concern in his work, dating back to his experimentation with geometric abstraction as part of Grupo Frente in the mid-­1950s and his subsequent involvement with the short-­lived Neoconcrete movement (1959–61). However, his view of what constructive vocation could mean in a country like Brazil changed many times over the years. During his association with Grupo Frente (1955–56) he was interested in activating space through color; later, the more perceptual experiences of the Neoconcrete movement came to dominate his practice. By 1967, when he wrote “Esquema geral da nova objetividade,” his ideas for a new art were more connected to the development of collective artistic practices (including the participation of the viewer) as an agent to promote social transformation. His artistic concern had evolved from formal investigations into the participatory field, including the collective body. In February 1970 Oiticica built upon his thinking with “Brazil diarréia” A R T U R B A R R I O 83

(Brazil Diarrhea), in which he commented on what he saw as a general dilution of Brazilian art. In this essay he also discussed the politics of ambivalence in his own work and the process of constantly evolving and reevaluating his understanding of what art entails in an underdeveloped country, apart from its cultural atavism and dependence on foreign models. Barrio’s practice was rooted in similar concerns regarding the engagement of ethical issues. However, it resonated in a different context: How does one create an avant-­garde art in an underdeveloped country in which censorship, persecution, and political arrests have become part of the daily reality? In contrast to Oiticica’s practice at the time, which stressed art that was performative and participatory, Barrio’s answer came in his choice of materials and his adoption of a visual aesthetics that railed against the excesses of industrial powers. Starting in the late 1960s Barrio began to appropriate the diverse, unattended garbage omnipresent in every aspect of the landscape of developing countries. His first work made with these materials, titled Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 (Situation . . . ORHHH . . . or . . . 5,000 . . . T.E . . . IN . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969) (1969) (see plate 7) was exhibited at Salão da Bússola at the mam/rj (November 1969). For this work Barrio filled paper bags with pieces of newspaper, aluminum foil, and cement, then stained them with red paint and tied them in bundles. He hung one of them from the ceiling and scattered others on the floor, introducing trash from outside into the institutional space of the museum. Viewers were encouraged to interact with the piece, adding their own garbage to the work or writing on the bundles during the exhibition. Barrio describes Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 as “the garbage, plus the bundles, plus the reaction of the spectators, plus the place, the day, the night, the smells, the noises, the words, the wind, the stars, the mist, etc.”9—in essence, he considered the work to be all-­encompassing, a merging of art, self, audience, and environment, an open-­ended work in a permanent state of dematerialization and decay. He saw it as “a work of continuous transformation, totally annulling the concept of germination of the finished work of art.”10 Even the work’s title reflects this natural process of unfolding: the use of ellipses implies an attempt to unfix the work, to expand it, to let it spread out in the space, allowing it to dissolve rather than encapsulating it. After Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 had been exhibited for a month, he then transported everything 84 C H A P T E R

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contained inside the bag to the garden of the museum and placed it in a spot reserved for outdoor sculptures (figure 29). The next day Barrio was informed that his work had drawn the attention of the police, who had called the director of mam/rj to find out if the piece really belonged to the institution. As the museum did not respond promptly, the police, having no way of knowing the detritus was in fact a work of art in the process of decomposition, threw Barrio’s work in the garbage. The most significant record of this work is a photograph showing the moment that Barrio signed the piece in the museum’s outdoor space; in it, he appears to bow over the work in a symbolic act of reverence (figure 30). Though he placed his decomposing objects in the outside area of the museum without any clear explanation, the work was still constrained within the institutional space and subjected to its norms and regulations. This interplay—on the one hand, creating art from the margins of society; on the other, complicity with the institutional system that all artists depended upon—was a line Barrio constantly trod in his work. In a work entitled P . . . H . . . (1969) (in Portuguese, the initials standing for “toilet paper”) (see plate 8), Barrio threw rolls of toilet paper into the gardens of the mam/rj and at the sea, creating designs of paper in the air. In this series of ephemeral actions, Barrio’s body became the point of dialogue with the wind, the water, and the city.11 According to Morais, “His use of toilet paper served the strangest purpose, dissolving it in water, or making drawings with it in the wind, or even transforming it into cocoons in the middle of the green grass.”12 The poetics of space suggested by Morais in Barrio’s work seems to be undermined by the connotations of contamination and filth also associated with these materials. In 1970 Barrio expanded upon his use of waste materials with Defl . . . Situação . . . +S+ . . . RUAS (Defl . . . Situation . . . +S+ . . . STREETS) (figures 31, 32), comprising five hundred plastic bags containing blood, nails, saliva, hair, urine, excrement, bones, toilet paper, tampons, used cotton, film negatives, and spread them throughout the city of Rio de Janeiro. Barrio considered the bags to be “centers of accumulative energy, with varying temperatures.”13 One hundred of these bags had a piece of tape signed by the artist. The intervention was effectively completed when the works were destroyed by garbage collectors or the Department of Sanitation. As degradation and decay lay at the heart of his practice, Barrio welcomed the fact that his works would eventually deteriorate by their own organic process of decomposition. A R T U R B A R R I O 85

29. Artur Barrio, Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 (Situation . . . ORHHH . . . or . . . 5,000 . . . B.B . . . IN . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969) (1969). Paper bag with newspapers, aluminum foam, bag of cement, garbage. Installation view at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. Courtesy of Galeria Millan, São Paulo. Registro- Photo: César Carneiro.

Barrio’s materials evoke what Julia Kristeva describes as the disgust of society toward the abject, a convention she sees as having evolved to protect us from the threat of contaminated food, infection, and disease, since “saliva, blood, breast milk, feces, tears, urine, and sweat, once expelled from the body, carry the potential for contamination and infection.”14 Barrio dismissed this societal obsession with cleanliness and hygiene, refusing to allow social mores of disgust and contamination to dictate the materials of his art or the environments that gave birth to it. He stated, “In my work, the function of the creative process is no longer held within an internal situation, in other words, the studio (or workshop) as the beginning and end of the process of creation. Ideas may germinate anywhere, even in the bathroom, which can thus be considered a workplace.”15 Works of his that draw on scatological materials and processes have a clear parallel with the irrev86 C H A P T E R

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erent Italian artist Piero Manzoni (1933–63), who is perhaps best known for his provocative series Merda d’artista (Artist’s Shit) (1961) (figure 33). Manzoni purportedly packaged his own excrement in ninety small cans, each labeled “Artist’s Shit. Contents: 30 grams net freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961.” He then sold the cans by weight, basing their price on the market value of gold. The true contents have been much debated; since opening one of the cans would imply the destruction of the work, it is part of the work’s irony that they must be maintained intact. Manzoni’s works are usually shown to the public encased inside Plexiglas vitrines, and moreover are much desired by collectors. This is not the case with Barrio’s organic and raw garbage, shown in art institutions and disposed in the streets without any protective barriers. Unlike Manzoni, whose materials were to some extent chosen to undermine notions of the sublime and preciousness in modern art, Barrio chose his materials specifically for their repulsive qualities; he strove to provoke visual shock and reactions of disgust and nausea in the spectator, considering even vomiting and diarrhea to be acceptable responses to his work. In one of his writings he affirms that he

30. Artur Barrio, Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 (Situation . . . ORHHH . . . or . . . 5,000 . . . B.B . . . IN . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969) (1969). Installation view at Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro. Courtesy of Galeria Millan, São Paulo. Registro- Photo: César Carneiro.

31–32. Artur Barrio, Defl . . . Situação . . . +S+ . . . RUAS (Defl . . . Situation . . . +S+ . . . STREETS) (April 1970). Five hundred plastic bags containing blood, nails, spit, hair, urine, excrement, snot, bones, toilet paper, sanitary pads, pieces of used cotton, damp paper, sawdust, leftovers, paint, film negatives, and various other materials. Courtesy of the artist. Registro- Photo: César Carneiro.

33. Piero Manzoni, Merda d’artista. no. 31 (Artist’s Shit, no. 31) (1961). Metal, paper. Musee National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ars), New York/siae, Rome. Photo: Philippe Migeat, courtesy of cnac / mnam / Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, N.Y.

“wants his work to cause psycho-­organic reactions in the spectator, making him/her participate in all its sensorial aspects and its implications of pleasure or repulsion.”16 Barrio’s choice of blood, waste, toilet paper, and decomposing elements as his primary materials is loaded with scatological connotations. His interest in vomiting, excretory functions, and nausea is impregnated with the notion of the abject, a term used by Bataille to describe attraction to the rotten and wasted.17 Bataille wrote about the abject in a group of unpublished texts from the mid- to late 1930s, under the title “Abjection et les formes misérables,”18 and in some of his posthumous essays, first published in English as Death and Sensuality: A Study of Eroticism and the Taboo (1962).19 According to Bataille, “What the system cannot assimilate must be rejected as excremental.”20 The consummate example of Barrio’s involvement with themes of abject matter and organic decomposition was his trouxas ensanguentadas (bloody

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34. A crowd gathers around Artur Barrio’s Situação. . . . . . . .T/T1. . . . . . . , (Situation. . . . . . . .T/T1. . . . . . .) installed at Municipal Park at Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais (April 1970). Courtesy of Collection Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Registro-­Photo: César Carneiro.

bundles)—as they became commonly known—perhaps the most violent work of art publicly displayed in response to the repressive regime. For this brutal and visceral action, which he called Situação. . . . . . . T/T1. . . . . . . (Situation. . . . . . . T/T1. . . . . . .), Barrio purchased twenty kilos of cow meat and bones from slaughterhouses and distributed the offal among fourteen bundles, which he wrapped with blood-­stained rope (see plate 9). The bundles were then anonymously placed in rivers and sewage sites as part of Do Corpo à Terra (From the Body to the Earth), an outdoor, site-­specific exhibition organized and curated by Frederico Morais at the Municipal Park in the city of Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais (17–21 April 1970). The photographer César Carneiro helped to assemble the bundles and then took pictures of the works in situ; he also documented the public’s reaction.21 Viewers were meant to perceive these gruesome bundles as lacerated and bleeding human body parts, perhaps even the remains of people tortured by the dictatorship (see plate 10). The bundles’ presence in public spaces violated the notion of a detached bystander, suggesting the vulnerability of society to the repressive regime. It was estimated that five thousand people 90 C H A P T E R

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35. Jean Fautrier, Tête d’otage no. 21 (Hostage Head no. 21) (1945). Oil on paper mounted on canvas. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ars), New York/adagp, Paris. Photo: Jean-­Claude Planchet, Courtesy of cnac / mnam / Dist. Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, N.Y.

saw Barrio’s bundles on a Sunday morning in the Municipal Park, a popular gathering place for the middle and working classes (figure 34 on p. 90). When the police and firemen came to examine the bundles, a police officer tripped on one of them, escalating an already tense situation.22 By the end of the day the bundles were all destroyed and the bones dispatched to a laboratory for analysis. Barrio’s grisly bundles and their function as surrogates for lacerated human body parts is reminiscent of Jean Fautrier’s Tete d’otage (Hostage Head) (1943–45) (figure 35) series of paintings the artist made after witnessing Nazi atrocities during the occupation of Paris. Fautrier had been arrested by the Gestapo in January 1943 under suspicion of resistance activity.23 After he was released he stayed in a clinic for mental patients on the outskirts of Paris, near an area occupied by German forces. From his room in the sanatorium he could hear the screams of tortured prisoners and the A R T U R B A R R I O 91

sounds of clandestine executions. The Otage series makes use of heavy impasto to evoke wounded flesh—the paintings’ surfaces were described by André Malraux as “an incarnation of horror”24—and, like Barrio’s unidentifiable bundles of corporeal tissue, the series emphasizes both the victims’ anonymity and the unseen horrors committed against them.

Do Corpo à Terra: The Aesthetics of the Margins Barrio was not the only Brazilian artist using death and bodily decay to address political repression. Do Corpo à Terra, the five-­day site-­specific exhibition, was broadly marked by strong references to the Brazilian dictatorship.25 According to Morais, it was also “the first exhibition in Brazil in which artists were invited to create site-­specific works related to body art and Earth-­based artworks.”26 The exhibition was officially sponsored by the hydroelectric company Hidrominas, a public utility company whose major shareholder was the state of Minas Gerais, and all of the artists invited to participate had received an official letter from the government granting them freedom to execute their works in this public space.27 Yet the art critic Francisco Bittencourt argues that the company was not prepared for what happened: “Certainly the official department of the state of Minas Gerais . . . did not plan to offer its quiet population the ritual of sacrifice and the macabre spectacle of distribution of the trouxas ensanguentadas.”28 Ironically, the radical and incendiary nature of many of the works presented may have been a direct response to the exhibition’s corporate and governmental sponsors. Luíz Alphonsus Guimarães’s contribution to the exhibition used napalm, at that time being employed as a weapon by the United States in Vietnam, to burn and destroy a fifteen-­meter-­long banner laid on the grass (figure 36). He remembers the audacity implicit in the event: “Because there was institutional support, I wanted to transgress the rules. The firemen were called. I was almost assaulted by the park’s director. Do Corpo à Terra was our act of guerrilla art.”29 Other artists were similarly provocative, creating memorable artworks and performances that did not shy away from addressing the military dictatorship. Cildo Meireles set fire to live chickens as a metaphor for the torture and killing of political prisoners, provoking strong reactions from politicians. Décio Novello exploded bombs that were for the exclusive use of military officers.30 Metaphors and political messages were present in the rubber stamps created by Thereza Simões, which carried inscriptions such 92 C H A P T E R

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36. Luiz Alphonsus Guimarães, Napalm (1970). Photograph. Courtesy of the artist.

as Dirty, Verbotten [sic], Fragile, and, a slogan borrowed from Malcolm X, Act Silently. Simões said she “wanted to create a disturbing situation by comparing the Brazilian military’s actions to the American war in Vietnam.”31 In a performative work from a project originally conceived by Oiticica, Lee Jaffe threw sugar on a dirt road for ants to devour; unfortunately, the work was destroyed by a tractor from a mining company before the ants could bring it to fruition.32 The exhibition became a landmark known for the strong political content of its work, issuing a powerful call to action to rail against the repressive regime. In the mimeographed manifesto that accompanied the exhibition in lieu of a catalogue, Morais exhorted artists to take to the streets: “It is in the streets that the fundamental human experiences take place. Either the museum takes its activities to the streets, integrating itself into daily life, and considers the city (parks and public squares) its extension, or it will be a fiasco . . . the museum should be more and more a lab of experiences, aiming to amplify the perceptive ability of man. This room, and its environs, the area surrounding the Municipal Park, are today areas of freedom—here life is lived in full.”33 Like the other artists in Do Corpo à Terra, Barrio was drawing on a new wave of artistic production that transgressed societal mores, hovering at the edge of orderly society. In a review A R T U R B A R R I O 93

of Barrio’s work in the newspaper O Diário de Notícias, Morais wrote, “Barrio is a marginal artist. His visceral art scares, irritates, nauseates, and stinks. His basic material is garbage, which he collects in small plastic bags and distributes all over the city. . . . Barrio’s work is never easygoing, and it does not touch the heart or the mind. It goes straight to the audience’s stomach, provoking nausea.”34 The new visual style that came out of the exhibition Do Corpo à Terra became known as “the aesthetics of the margins.” This term, though evocative, is problematic and full of contradictions, however; since there was no official aesthetic imposed by the military regime, a specific mainstream style did not truly exist for artists at the margins to oppose. And though created at the edges of society, these works were nevertheless shown in major exhibitions, many of which were either officially sponsored entirely by the government (like the national salons) or counted on some kind of official support (as did Do Corpo à Terra). While it is true that there was no market for the works of these emerging artists, and they lived on very little money, subsisting mostly on grants and awards, it can still be argued that there was some institutional support in place. Despite its inexact terminology, the expression “the aesthetics of the margins” spurred the most vigorous art made at the time, bold, visceral works that later, given their powerful imagery and political connotations, would become emblematic of the period. The term “marginal” was also loosely used at the time to convey the status of any figure or concept at the periphery. It might be used variously to describe a criminal victim of police brutality, a persecuted political figure who had to hide or live clandestinely, the poor and disenfranchised, the insane, or even emerging artists with no ties to the art market. There was a close connection between political prisoners and social delinquents, especially through their contact at the maximum security penitentiary in Ilha Grande, Rio de Janeiro, a venue used during the dictatorship for the incarceration of both groups. The romanticized concept of marginality played in the imagination of artists, many of whom styled themselves as outcasts living and creating their art at the periphery in the same way that criminals and psychiatric patients existed apart from and alienated by society. This connection was notably exemplified by Oiticica, who was a personal friend of the outlaw Cara de Cavalo (a nickname that translates to “Horse Face”). At the time of his death in 1964, Cara de Cavalo was on the most wanted list for, among many other crimes and assaults, the murder of a police officer; in 1966 Oiti­ 94 C H A P T E R

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37. Hélio Oiticica, B33 Bólide caixa 18, Poema caixa 02—“Homenagem a Cara de Cavalo” (B33 Box Bolide 18, Box Poem 02—“Homage to Horse Face”) (1966). Wood, photograph, nylon mesh, plastic, pigment, paint. Courtesy of Projeto Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro. Photo: Claudio Oiticica.

cica created a work to pay homage to his late friend. Entitled “B33 Bólide caixa 18, Poema caixa 02—“Homenagem a Cara de Cavalo” (B33 Box Bolide 18, Box Poem 02 “Homage to Horse Face) (figure 37), a work featuring images of Cara de Cavalo, dead at the age of twenty-­two from sixty-­one bullets fired by the police. The work consists of a box containing four photographs of the bullet-­ridden corpse stretched out on the ground, arms extended in cruciform, accompanied by the inscription “Aqui está e aqui ficará! Contemplai seu silêncio heróico” (Here he is and here he will remain! Contemplate his heroic silence). In a later work, a red banner displaying the words “seja marginal, seja herói” (Be an outlaw, Be a hero) (1968) (see plate 11),35 Oiticica pays tribA R T U R B A R R I O 95

ute to another bandit, Alcir Figueira da Silva, who was persecuted by the police after robbing a bank.36 Ultimately da Silva threw away the spoils and committed suicide. In addition to drawing attention to this incident with his banner, Oiticica wrote an article titled “O herói anti-­herói e o anti-­herói anônimo” (The Anti-­Hero Hero and the Anonymous Anti-­Hero) (1968), in which he condemned sectors of society, including the police, the media, and various politicians, for violently eliminating and executing everything at its margins. With both pieces he outlined the drive for individual freedom and advocated for justice for the so-­called marginals and social outcasts. He questioned what could have led the bandit to prefer suicide over being sent to jail, coming to the conclusion that his self-­destructive act could only be seen as a bodily revolt against society and its status quo. Barrio’s interest in ideas of marginality stemmed not from association with outlaws or bandits but from his status as an outsider, an artist working at the margins of society, playing between the lines of creativity and ­madness.

The Borderline between Art and Madness Barrio’s art has affinities with the work of Dr. Nise da Silveira (1906–99), who, from 1944 to 1975, implemented and coordinated a progressive art therapy program for patients suffering from schizophrenia at the Pedro II Psychiatric Center in the Rio de Janeiro suburb of Engenho de Dentro. Informed by Carl Jung’s influential work on the collective unconscious, da Silveira rejected traditional psychiatric methods, such as shock therapy and lobotomy, and adopted artistic expression as a form of occupational treatment. In 1952 she expanded upon her work at Pedro II Psychiatric Center by founding the Museum of Images of the Unconscious, an institution advocating for the creative endeavors of mentally ill patients in Brazil. Her pioneering work with schizophrenic patients was well known among artists, Barrio included. Mário Pedrosa paid regular visits to the painting workshop at the psychiatric center accompanied by the artists Ivan Serpa and Abraham Palatnik, both members of Grupo Frente.37 The director of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (mam/sp), Leon Dégand, was also impressed by the vitality of the patients’ work and selected nine of them to exhibit at mam/sp in 1949. Nise da Silveira’s efforts were highly praised by Brazilian intellectuals and artists, especially by Pedrosa, who called the patients’

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paintings “virgin art” and stated that da Silveira “proved that it was possible to be mentally ill and an artist at the same time.”38 Rejecting academicism, placing priority on intuition and expression, probing the intersections of insanity, art, and reason—all these were primary concerns of Barrio’s practice. His own exploration of the murky borderline between sanity and madness was best explored in 4 Dias 4 Noites (4 Days 4 Nights) (May 1970). In this work the artist tested the physical limits of his body and pushed his mind into exhaustion by aimlessly walking the streets of Rio de Janeiro for four days and four nights, never stopping for food or sleep. The only condition he imposed on himself was to be open to the experiences he stumbled upon along the way, allowing chance to lead him into new situations. Throughout his wanderings Barrio literally passed through the city’s sewers and manholes, encountering homeless people and interacting with all sorts of deteriorating materials and environments. Performative works such as 4 Dias 4 Noites bear out Barrio’s insistence that his work “cannot be confined to any specific category of art, but has to be taken as life itself.”39 He said: “4 Dias 4 Noites was a discovery of this reality of the body. . . . I think it was an excessive radicalization. . . . I was aware that I could reach an absolute limit, a perceptive enlightenment, and from there on I could launch a work that would actually break up with everything. . . . I longed to reach a certain level of perception to turn it into creation . . . the expected result would be the creation of a certain kind of work or the performance of a certain kind of action that would really create a new understanding, a new vision of art.”40 4 Dias 4 Noites was not recorded in photographs or in films. No register was left to be apprehended by the system and commercialized by the art market; no remnant remained to be exhibited or sold. A powerful affront to the commodification of art by capitalist society, it survives only in the memory and writings of the artist41—a work of art that left no trace, a story lost in space and time, recovered in its potential state only through the artist’s mind and narrative. Barrio wanted his work to speak directly to the viewers—in most cases, passersby—without mediation. He says, “In my work things are not indicated (represented), but rather lived, and it is necessary to dive into one, manipulate it. And that is diving into yourself. The work has its own life because it belongs to all of us . . . and it is at this point that I give up my categorization as ‘artist,’ because I no longer am.”42 In his subjective, self-­lived experience Barrio eliminated the “culture of the spectacle” so embedded in

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consumer society. Those who crossed paths with him during his peripatetic journey were probably totally unaware of his artistic intentions, oblivious to the sensations he was experiencing as he imposed this test of endurance on his body. Barrio’s 4 Dias 4 Noites recalls the constructions in space proposed by the Situationist International, a group of artists active in Paris between 1957 and 1962, who proposed a transformation of everyday life to be achieved through real-­world interventions that would awaken people from the numbness imposed by the “society of the spectacle.” In their view the object of art as such could never be revolutionary because it would always be seen as a commodity by society; life could be regained only through subjective experience. Occupied by theories of urbanism, the situationists advocated experiencing city life without any preconceived notions or ideas or familiar points of reference in order to critically transform everyday life.43 Guy Debord, the theoretician of the group, originated the idea of derives (drifts), wanderings of chance through existing historical cities. By subversively challenging the planned functions and rigid structures of the city, derives would serve as a critique of existing urbanism; to drift was to regain the city. The situationists posited that this experience would arouse social consciousness, emboldening the rejection of dominant ideologies.44 Barrio did not work within the same Marxist theoretical framework that spurred many of the situationists; he was more interested in exploring sensorial experiences. In the many essays he wrote between 1969 and 1975 he refers to his work in terms of sensations, perceptions, senses, and desire, seeing his practice as a “celebration of life.”45 During his wandering through the city, Barrio did an unexpected intervention at the XIX National Salon of Modern Art, the same salon of Manuel’s spontaneous naked performance, and there are clear parallels between the two actions. Like Manuel, Barrio decided to intervene in an institutional space without officially being invited to participate. Barrio stopped at mam/ rj, where he interacted with an installation by Cláudio Paiva that was composed46 of piles of earth, and tape lying on the floor along with several packages containing gallon cans of paint. Barrio danced around the pile of earth, stepping on it and kicking the dirt. One of the cans opened spilling some of the paint on the museum’s floor. He later stated that his intention was to bond with Paiva’s work, to recreate it and transform it into something else.47 Barrio recalls: “In my performance, I sang a song followed by the appropriate gestures. It was an act of pure creation that little by little transformed 98 C H A P T E R

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itself into a dance in which the work and I blended.” Morais considers this intervention into Paiva’s work to have been among the most intense public acts carried out by a Brazilian artist: “At that moment, art and life, madness and death were mingled with such violence in this performance with no spectators that one could unmistakably say that Brazilian art reached the apex of its tragedy, its peak moment, in the enlightened figure of Barrio, whose existential behavior started being the symbol of a threatened and frustrated generation.”48 After his intervention, Barrio left mam/rj and continued to wander through the city, encountering and incorporating perceptions and sensations. He said that in the process of 4 Dias 4 Noites, “what had initially been a joy became unpleasant because I couldn’t stop it.”49 A few months after completing 4 Dias 4 Noites, in August 1970, Barrio walked the line between artist and madman when he voluntarily admitted himself as a patient to Pinel, the public psychiatric institute of Rio de Janeiro, since he was having trouble sleeping. Once admitted to Pinel, he stayed as a patient for twenty-­five days.50 While there, according to Barrio, he created a work later shown at the exhibition Indagação sobre a natureza, significado e função da obra de arte (Inquiry about the Nature, Significance, and Function of the Work of Art) at the Institute Brazil-­United States, Rio de Janeiro (ibeu). It’s not clear if his stay at Pinel was just a stunt to create a work of art. The myth of the artist as a madman has long been embedded in the fabric of art history constructions, from Vincent van Gogh to Antonin Artaud, and when creating his artistic persona Barrio drew on similar perceptions of the archetypical artist/outsider. His physical endurance in 4 Dias 4 Noites along with his trouxas ensanguentadas can be seen as the most provocative ritualistic acts enacted by a visual artist during the dictatorship. They were radical and raw—like the actions of a barbarian, as acutely pointed out by Morais to characterize the actions and interventions of visual artists from the ai-­5 generation.

“Barbarians of a New Race” In the heat of the crucial debates that were taking place in the late 1960s and early 1970s about the role of the artist in society, Morais coined the phrase “Barbarians of a New Race” to address artists of the ai-­5 generation, including Umberto Costa Barros, Raymundo Colares, Alfredo Fontes, Luiz Alphonsus Guimarães, Cláudio Paiva, Thereza Simões, and Guilherme A R T U R B A R R I O 99

Magalhães Vaz, as well as Manuel, Barrio, and Meireles, who embodied the many facets of the artist as a marginalized figure: the outcast as well as the creative mind.51 Morais’s first reference to “Barbarians of a New Race” appeared in Bittencourt’s article “A Geração Tranca-­Ruas” (The Barricade Generation), in which Bittencourt connected the works of art presented at the exhibition Do Corpo à Terra to the Brazilian political situation. The critic’s term for this new group of artists, the Barricade Generation, labeled them as troublemakers; in Portuguese the term tranca-­ruas means “one who blocks the streets,” and it is most commonly used to curse an aggravating driver. The term became a maxim for the so-­called ai-­5 generation. The expression is also meaningful in the Afro-­Brazilian religion Umbanda, which uses tranca-­ruas to refer to a spiritual entity with the power to clear or block a person’s way, determining his or her future.52 In order to please the spiritual entities, one must leave despachos (offerings), usually in the form of sacrificed animals and perfumes, food, liquor, or candles, in rituals that take place at night on empty streets and at corners. Bittencourt’s designation therefore also subtly alludes to Barrio’s trouxas ensanguentadas, the artist’s bloody offerings left beside rivers and in sewage sites in Belo Horizonte. In Barrio’s case the sacrificial bundles were offered as a symbolic deterrent to repression and censorship. In an interview with Bittencourt, Morais said, “We are the barbarians of a new race. Emperors of the old order, beware! Our material is not the well-­ behaved acrylic or the hygienic primary structures. . . . We work with fire, blood, bones, mud, earth, and garbage. What we do is celebrations, rites, sacrificial rituals. Our instrument is our own body—against the computers. Our artifact is mental. We use our heads—against our hearts. . . . And the viscera, if necessary. Blood and fire purify. Our problem is ethical—against the dreadful aesthetic.”53 Implicit in his use of the term “barbarians” is the idea of us, the primitives or the outsiders, as opposed to them, the cultured Europeans. Morais emphasizes and plays with stereotypes in postcolonial discourse in order to undo them. His statement takes the ideas of one of the most quoted pieces of literature in Latin America, the “Manifesto Antropofágico” (Anthropophagite Manifesto), written by the poet and novelist Oswald de Andrade in 1928. In this manifesto, Andrade proposes the practice of antropofagia, translating to “cultural cannibalism,” encouraging artists to devour European culture, digest it, and transform it into something Brazilian.54 100 C H A P T E R

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Andrade’s “Manifesto Antropofágico” was a response to the supremacy of European modernism as perceived by the colonized mind. There was a popular saying that São Paulo was closer to Paris than to Rio de Janeiro, despite the disparate geographic distances. Andrade was interested not in rejecting Eurocentric culture, but in appropriating foreign models in order to incorporate them into Brazilian art. In the late 1960s there was a revival of Andrade’s ideas, and Morais was carrying the torch of antropofagia when he urged the creation of a Brazilian visuality based on visceral and inexpensive materials as the source of its creative wealth, as opposed to the hygienic and aestheticized industrial and technological apparatus exported from the hegemonic centers. His mention of acrylic and primary structures was a reference to minimalism, which emerged in New York in the m ­ id-­1960s. Many of Morais’s writings from this period have parallels with the ideas developed by the Genovese art critic and curator Germano Celant, who coined the term “Arte Povera” in 1967 to describe a group of Italian artists who had begun to work with nontraditional, often found materials.55 Celant cast aspersions on Pop art and minimalism, and advocated for an art that could not be subsumed by capitalism or commodified by consumer society. The art historian Claire Gilman argues that many of the artists championed by Celant as part of the Arte Povera movement, especially Michelangelo Pistoletto and Jannis Kounellis, were more concerned in their practice with “artifice, narrative, and theatricality” than with the use of inexpensive ­elements.56 Some critics have linked Barrio’s use of disposable and decaying materials to Arte Povera, but, as Gilman points out, even as they disparaged technical perfection Arte Povera artists were more interested in the elaborate artificial constructions of their works than in the use of natural materials for their own sake.57 At the heart of the movement was an aesthetization of the art object that lies in direct opposition to Barrio’s chaotic and visceral work, attesting to the gap between Barrio’s vision for an art coming from underdeveloped countries and the more polished, self-­contained art coming out of Europe. Indeed, the artist himself insists that his work has nothing to do with Arte Povera, which he considers to be a school, an aesthetic current, and merely a visual explanation of Marxist ideas.58 While the visuality of Arte Povera has little to do with Barrio’s aesthetics, the manifestos written by the two prominent critics of the period—­ Celant in Italy and Morais in Brazil—had much in common. Celant wrote the group’s manifesto, titled “Arte Povera: Appunti per una guerriglia” (Arte A R T U R B A R R I O 101

Povera: Notes for a Guerrilla War) (1967), appropriating the term “guerrilla” from the student movement of 1968.59 His manifesto says, “No longer among the ranks of the exploited, the artist becomes a guerrilla fighter, capable of choosing his places of battle and with the advantages conferred by mobility, surprising and striking, rather than the other way around.”60 Morais’s seminal essay “Contra a arte afluente: o corpo é o motor da obra” (Against Affluent Art: The Body is the Motor of the Work), written in early 1970, a few months before the exhibition Do Corpo à Terra took place, described the art from the ai-­5 generation in the same terms, deeming it guerrilla art. Morais likened the artists’ strategy to that of leftist guerrilla groups, who laid down the tenets for an art of resistance that was taking root in Brazil at the time.61 Displaying a striking similarity to Arte Povera’s manifesto, Morais’s essay decreed the following: The artist today is a kind of guerrilla agent . . . acting unexpectedly, where and when he is least expected. . . . The artist creates a permanent state of tension, a constant expectation. . . . The task of the guerrilla artist is to create for the spectator (who could be anybody, not only the one who often visits exhibitions) strange, uncommon, undefined situations, provoking in him, more than strangeness or repulsion, but fear. It is only in the face of fear, when all senses are mobilized, that there is initiative, meaning, creation. . . . The artist is no longer the one that creates the work of art, given to its contemplation, but the one who proposes situations, to be lived and experienced. . . . He is the one who shoots, but the bullet trajectory escapes his will. To participate in an artistic situation today is like being in the jungle or in a favela. At any moment an ambush might appear, and only the one who can take initiative might survive untouched or alive.62 Co-­opting the language of the leftist guerrilla groups—“bullet,” “shot,” “trajectory”—Morais exhorted artists to take action and create works reflecting the political situation of the time. His words were reminiscent of the writings of Carlos Marighella in Mini-­manual do guerrilheiro urbano (Mini-­ Manual of the Urban Guerrilla) written in June 1969 and mimeographed in 1970. Marighella was one of the main leaders of the armed guerrillas and the founder of the leftist dissident group Aliança Libertadora Nacional, which encouraged the use of arms to promote the cause of the people. He was assassinated in an ambush by the military regime in November 1969. In his manual, he writes, “The urban guerrilla member needs to have initiative, 102 C H A P T E R

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mobility, and flexibility as well as versatility and command in any situation. Initiative is an especially indispensable quality. It is not always possible to anticipate all sorts of situations, and the guerrilla agent cannot be confused or wait for orders.” Since Marighella opposed both the military regime and the Communist Party for its condemnation of the armed struggle, artists and intellectuals were attracted to his ideas, even when they were not active militants per se, as the majority of the artists were not. In Italy, Celant’s appropriation of guerrilla terminology anticipated the terrorist attacks of groups like the Red Brigades, founded in October 1970. When Morais wrote his manifesto in Brazil, on the other hand, leftist guerrilla groups were already causing havoc throughout the country, raiding banks and planning the kidnapping of foreign ambassadors, who could be exchanged for Brazilian political prisoners. Guerrillas kidnapped the U.S. ambassador to Brazil, Charles Elbrick, on 4 September 1969, and, in exchange for his release, the Brazilian government was forced to broadcast their revolutionary manifesto on all major Brazilian radio and television stations as well as to release fifteen political prisoners who had been exiled in Mexico. On 11 March 1970 the consul general of Japan in São Paulo was exchanged for five political prisoners; the German ambassador to Brazil, Ehrenfries von Holleben, was taken hostage on 11 June 1970 and exchanged for forty Brazilian political prisoners; and on 7 December 1970 the Swiss ambassador was exchanged for seventy prisoners.63 The Communist Party believed that a return to democracy was possible through negotiation and dialogue with the military regime, whereas a dissident leftist faction argued that the only way to topple the dictatorship was through armed struggle. Many members of the student movement in Brazil were attracted to the latter option. This view proved to be quite tenuous; most of the armed guerrilla groups were brutally suppressed by the regime, their members tortured and sometimes murdered once imprisoned by military agents. These groups were marginalized by the populace, the majority of whom did not support their actions.64 On the contrary, the so-­called guerrilla artists, those making a type of guerrilla art, were left mostly unharmed by the military regime owing to their relatively low visibility in Brazilian culture. But over time some visual artists came to believe that art was too idealistic to effect any real transformation in society and decided to engage in the front lines of the guerrilla movement instead. The historian Marcelo Ridenti has shown that left-­ wing artists constituted less than 1 percent of the guerrilla movement, but A R T U R B A R R I O 103

isolated cases did exist.65 One of the most prominent guerrilla artists was Carlos Zilio, who was involved in the student movement while he was an undergraduate studying psychology at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and attending classes at the National School of Fine Arts. Zilio participated in the Centers of Popular Culture, the grass-­roots movement with a strong Marxist agenda, promoting popular and accessible art for the people. In 1967 Zilio created Lute (marmita) (Fight [a Lunchbox]) (see plate 12), an artwork that took the form of a lunchbox commonly carried by workers to the factories. Instead of food Zilio’s lunchbox contained a yellow image of the artist’s face made out of papier-­mâché, covered with the inscription “Lute” (Fight). This was the last artwork completed by Zilio: he became disillusioned with art and immersed himself in urban guerrilla warfare.66 Early in 1969 Zilio joined one of the dissident wings of the Communist Party, a leftist faction called mr-­8, the group responsible for kidnapping U.S. Ambassador Charles Elbrick. He endured a clandestine life until he was caught, shot, and arrested by the police in March 1970. Zilio spent the next two and a half years in a military prison and was released in June 1972. Upon his release he resumed his artistic practice with Para um jovem de brilhante futuro (For a Young Man of Brilliant Prospects) (1973) (figure 38), a readymade consisting of a briefcase filled with sharp nails in place of papers and documents—a scathing vision of the country’s dark future.67 Other cases were similar to Zilio’s. The architect and painter Sérgio Ferro spent two years in the Tiradentes prison in São Paulo in the early 1970s for being one of the conspirators in the bombing of the U.S. consulate in São Paulo on 19 March 1968 in protest of the Vietnam War.68 In prison Ferro encountered a group of visual artists and architects, all connected by their involvement with several leftist guerrilla movements, who were developing an art studio of sorts inside the jail. In addition to Ferro, Alípio Freire, Carlos Heck, Rodrigo Lefèvre, Sérgio Sister, and Carlos Takaoka all created collective works while incarcerated at Tiradentes prison, using artistic production as a means of expression to communicate their distress.69 Only very rarely were visual artists sentenced to jail for work that was considered subversive. One of the few works that occasioned such an event was the painter Lincoln Volpini Spolaor’s work Penhor da igualdade (Pledge of Equality) (1976), a painting on a wooden panel that had a photograph at its center. The photograph showed a child playing in an abandoned playground with a piece of wood. On one of the walls of the playground was a barely legible graffiti: “Viva a guerrilla do Pará-­73” (Long Live the Guerrilla from 104 C H A P T E R

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38. Carlos Zilio, Para um jovem de brilhante futuro (For a Young Man of Brilliant Prospects) (1973). Executive briefcase and nails. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Paulo Rubens Fonseca.

the State of Pará-­73).70 The political police interpreted the piece of wood as a representation of the national flag and the inscription as the artist’s support for the rural guerrilla warfare. Volpini Spolaor was accused of disrespecting the flag and of projecting a message of subversion.71 The painting was seized by the federal police, and all the members of the jury that had awarded the work at a salon, including Morais and the artists Rubens Gerchman, Carybé, and Mário Cravo, were indicted. They were later absolved, but Volpini was condemned by a military tribunal to spend one year in prison in 1978 with the right to reprieve. The tug-­of-­war between art and politics, aesthetics and actions, idealism and efficacy was at the forefront of the discussions in the artistic and intellectual milieus. There were accusations from both sides, activists accusing artists of being irresponsible and unengaged and artists dismissing activists as inefficient and inexperienced. There were, however, political actions taking place elsewhere in South America that blurred the line between art and activism, succeeding equally well (or equally poorly, some might say) at both. A R T U R B A R R I O 105

In Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation, Luis Camnitzer argues that the guerrilla actions by the Uruguayan group known as the Tupamaros were more successful from a theatrical point of view than from the standpoint of political efficacy, since most of its participants ended up being arrested. Though Camnitzer states that the Tupamaros never declared themselves to be artists, he sees in their actions a taste for spectacle staging and aesthetic appeal; for him, the group’s practice fit somewhere between happenings and mass media events.72 The group action Operación Pando, for example, involved one hundred members of the guerrilla force. On 8 October 1969, the second anniversary of the death of Che Guevara, they walked in a funeral procession to the city of Pando, allegedly to rebury a relative who had died several years earlier. In this stunt operation, instead of holding a corpse, the coffin was full of arms intended to be used in a takeover of the police headquarters, the fire station, the telephone building, and the four banks in town.73 In the case of the Brazilian artists involved in guerrilla warfare, however, their artistic practices were mostly kept separate from their straight political actions. Morais’s use of the term “guerrilla art,” therefore, was a rhetorical one, as was Celant’s—a metaphorical and romanticized allusion to artists adopting guerrilla strategies, and not the other way around, as with Camnitzer’s aestheticization of political actions. The trenchant political language they adopted was simply a means of conveying the new strategies adopted by visual artists of the time.

Surviving Pieces: Artifacts of an Intangible Art Though the majority of his works consisted of transient actions and ephemeral installations, Barrio did experiment at times with physical art objects. In 1969, a year before he created his visceral trouxas ensanguentadas, he produced a few Trouxas protótipo (Prototype Bundles) (figure 39), made of red industrial paint and fabric and tied up with a piece of rope. Unlike the trouxas ensanguentadas, these were tangible works of art, and Barrio saw them as “objects without history,” devoid of the visual power, content, and meaning of the real work.74 In his view these embryonic works became nothing more than “pieces of a collector’s fetish.”75 Only a few of these prototypes have survived and are still in circulation. These formal, aestheticized pieces are obviously commodified art objects, belonging to the realm of consumer society. Though they exist as autono106 C H A P T E R

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39. Artur Barrio, Trouxa protótipo (Prototype Bundle) (1969). Industrial paint, fabric, rope. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Vicente de Mello.

mous works of art, they are unfailingly presented on the art circuit as surrogates for the historical trouxas ensanguentadas. The prototypes pose a fundamental question to Barrio’s work: Are they an acceptable proxy for the historical trouxas ensanguentadas made out of animal meat and bones? The trouxas ensanguentadas were about history and memory, in striking contrast to the prototypes, which lack energy, intensity, and visceral qualities. The questions surrounding the aestheticization of Barrio’s trouxas ensanguentadas are the same as those broached by Manuel’s O corpo é a obra. How to record these ephemeral works without altering their very purpose? Manuel opted for creating a permanent object (Corpobra), an interactive installation with sculptural elements and photographs in a different vein from the spontaneous action that inspired it. The very crux of Barrio’s works lay in their decaying materials and fragile documentation. The prototypes will eventually disappear with the passage of time, given their precarious condition and the reiterated refusal of the artist to consent to any request to exhibit or to restore them. Most of Barrio’s works survived, when they did survive, only in the form of photographic documentation. Many of the artist’s actions were recorded by the photographer César Carneiro. Barrio wanted the documentation of his work A R T U R B A R R I O 107

to be considered only as a record and never as a work of art in itself. He calls them “registro-­photo,” and insists that they should be seen merely as documentary records rather than works of art or actual photographs. He also discourages translations of certain works such as CadernoLivro, in order not to distort their original meaning or intention. In an interview with Morais for the newspaper Diário de Notícias, he said, “In my work, I face documentation through film or photography simply as an informative process of an idea.”76 As such, the surviving records of his actions and installations are often impromptu or even unflattering. For example, a registro-­photo that survived from Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5,000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969, first presented at mam/rj in 1969, shows Barrio surrounded and half covered by detritus and organic refuse from his work (see plate 13), looking like a homeless vagrant. With this image Barrio was making a statement against conventional mechanisms of display, creating an unattractive image of himself that is nevertheless compelling and striking. Two other surviving registros-­photos are similar in their intent. The first shows Barrio placing part of his work Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 in the outdoor area at mam/rj. In this image the artist is seen bowing over a bundle of garbage in a devotional, trancelike rite of respect (see figure 30). In the other photo, a document of the work P . . . H . . . (1969), Barrio acts like a child, making drawings with rolls of toilet paper in the air and also throwing them at the sea as if he were happily playing with a kite (see plate 8). The three characters personified by the artist in these photographs—the outcast, the madman, and the child—summarily define the roles that characterize outsider and naive art. Can Barrio’s art escape the process of commercialization and maintain its distance from the market? Despite his reluctance to commodify his pieces, Barrio faces the dilemma of how to preserve these registros-­photos as pure records, strictly for purposes of documentation. The artist has denied many requests to touch up or to digitize the fragile images that constitute the only records of many of his historical works from the late 1960s and early 1970s. When his documentary photographs are included in exhibitions throughout the world, they usually appear unframed; by specifying such conditions, Barrio deliberately detracts from any interpretation of the images as precious objects of art. After seeing his bundles with garbage at Salão da Bússola at mam/rj, Kynaston McShine, the curator of Information at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, invited 108 C H A P T E R

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Barrio to participate in the historic exhibition.77 Barrio submitted to the exhibition Information two 16mm films that recorded the police and the public reacting to his trouxas ensanguentadas in a sewage site in the Municipal park in Belo Horizonte. These two films were neither edited nor titled and were purposefully put together without technical polish or expertise. Barrio defended their frail quality saying, “Since the material employed in my work is precarious, I don’t see why the record has to be linked to perfect technical standards.”78 Accompanying the two films was a letter addressed to the curator of Information and to the public, in which the artist explained his reasons for using raw, unedited footage rather than highly defined cinematographic images. His letter, unfortunately, was not published in the Information catalogue, which, besides the film stills, contains only a caption: “Work realized in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, April 20, 1970.” Unless the viewers at MoMA were informed about the intentional crudeness of the films, their meaning was undoubtedly lost. At the end of the day, Barrio simply said, “Precariousness is precarious.”79 This was probably the same impression he left with the viewer.

Against the Object: Barrio’s Aesthetic Legacy More interested in process, procedure, and materials than in the finished objects of art that result from his action- and process-­based artistic practice, Barrio does not fit neatly into any one movement of the period during which he made his art. His work has parallels to Joseph Beuys’s sculptures, which are defined by the transformation of materials (in Beuys’s case, most frequently felt and fat).80 Speaking about his social sculptures, Beuys said, “The nature of my sculpture is not fixed and finished. Processes continue in most of them: chemical reactions, fermentations, color changes, decay, drying up. Everything is in a state of change.”81 Barrio’s works similarly depend upon a gradual process of change and decomposition. However, as opposed to Beuys, he defies the transcendental and spiritual power of objects, preferring to emphasize issues of materiality in order to dematerialize his art. As Carlos Basualdo points out, “Barrio postulates a poetic based less on materials and more on its attributes: impermanence, instantaneousness, ­precariousness.”82 His pieces have also been compared to the historic Earth-­based works from the 1970s, despite the fact that his art is fundamentally different from the practice of his North American counterparts. Earth-­based works were A R T U R B A R R I O 109

40. Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970. Long-­term installation at Rozel Point, Box Elder County, Utah. Courtesy of Collection Dia Art Foundation, New York. © 2011 Estate of Robert Smithson / Licensed by vaga, New York, N.Y. Photo: George Steinmetz.

often physically inaccessible to viewers; Barrio, by contrast, took his practice to the city’s streets, sewage sites, and populated public parks. His environmental pieces are in this sense opposed to, for example, Robert Smithson’s Earth-­based works, which Barrio finds “too orderly, organized, and totally different from [his] chaotic and anarchic approach to art.”83 According to Barrio, “Smithson’s rather conventional Spiral Jetty [1970] [figure 40] can still be found at the bottom of the lake, if some archeologist decides to dig up the place.”84 (In fact, it turns out an archeologist wasn’t necessary: the New York Times published an article on 13 January 2004 about the reappearance of the Spiral Jetty after it had been submerged in the Great Salt Lake for nearly three decades. A drought had lowered the water level, and the fifteen-­ hundred-­foot coil of black basalt rocks had slowly begun to reemerge.)85 Nothing could be more extraneous to Barrio’s work than the myth of purity and the concept of order, especially the rigorously formal and clean edges of geometric abstraction from the Concrete movement. Whereas the Concrete artists sought structure, Barrio strove for formlessness and chaos. He embraces disorder, intending for his work to unfold into total entropic

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destruction; he not only accepts but even welcomes the dematerialization and ultimate annihilation of his works. His art exists in a precarious state that continues to evolve as the works disintegrate, disappearing over time in the natural process of organic decomposition. He is therefore displeased with a trend in art criticism that considers the Neoconcrete movement to be the precursor of all Brazilian art that followed and that hails Oiticica and Clark as the main figures of Brazilian contemporary art;86 though technically part of the generation that came after the Neoconcrete movement in Brazil, Barrio’s own influences are more related to trends in surrealism and Dada than to art movements such as neo-­plasticism and constructivism. For Barrio, the sensorial tenets of the Neoconcrete artists, who proposed to integrate the spectator in their works of art, lacked a deeper connection with the realm of sensations. In an interview with Ricardo Basbaum, the artist said, “The Neoconcrete artists did not think of the body plunging into a salty sea, in the sense of being absolutely pleasurable, playful, sensuous, and visual, paradise itself.”87 If anything, his work aims to embrace the totality of the senses. Barrio insists that his work “cannot be confined to any specific category of art, but has to be taken as life itself.”88 His work has in fact been overlooked because it falls somewhere between art and nonart in terms of challenging traditional ways of artistic production and crossing the line between reason and madness as well as addressing social and political issues.

Critical Reception Any analysis of the reception of Barrio’s work at the time must take into consideration the argument that it was dismissed because of its supposed lack of artistic merit, its aesthetic shortcomings. This dispute was most frequently cited by conservative art critics such as Walmir Ayala, who wrote in Jornal do Brasil in defense of artistic skills and craft competence as criteria for art. The same argument was invoked by the members of the jury of the II Salão de Verão (II Summer Salon) held at mam/rj in 1970. Barrio’s submission, entered under the category of drawing, was a handwritten manifesto against the salon’s rules and its jury. The manifesto read: Against the art categories Against the salons Against the awards A R T U R B A R R I O 111

Against the jury Against the art critique89 When his manifesto was accepted by the jury in the drawing category, Barrio was furious. At the opening of the II Salão de Verão he handed out a second manifesto that questioned the reasons for the acceptance of his first manifesto as a work of art. He argued that his work should not have been admitted by the jury since it was not a drawing and should have been considered trash, much like the garbage he had heaped on the blood-­stained bundles in the Salão da Bússola a year before.90 It revived the same debate occasioned by Nelson Leirner’s submission of his life-­size stuffed pig to the IV Modern Art Salon of Brasília in 1967. Leirner’s reaction to the jury’s acceptance of his odd submission was to publicly demand, “Which criterion?” Like Leirner’s vitriolic reaction, Barrio’s manifestos aimed barbs at the jury. He wrote, “The jury, when accepting the manifesto, acted under false and paternalistic liberalism, trying to withdraw all the potential of my protest. . . . The approval of the manifesto would automatically imply the refusal of all the work inscribed in the salon’s categories, including mine.”91 This second manifesto, which goes on to accuse the jury members of incompetence, ignited a prompt response, including an indignant column by Walmir Ayala titled “Manifesto e comentário” (Manifesto and Commentary).92 In the article Ayala condemned Barrio for considering his work a piece of garbage and went on to sardonically praise the formal qualities of Barrio’s first manifesto: the excellence of the paper, the color of the pencil, the structure of the layout, and the visual composition of the space. Ayala also reminded the public that Barrio had proved in the past to be a lousy artist incapable of drawing and painting, despite his desire to do so.93 This same retrograde atavism was also on display when the conservative art critics Antonio Bento and Jacob Klintowitz dismissed Manuel’s O corpo é a obra, holding the bastion of formalism by evoking the work’s lack of aesthetic qualities. Klintowitz went so far as to claim that Manuel has never produced any valuable work.94 Bento was no less condemning in his review, disparaging Manuel’s submission of his own body based on what he perceived as its lack of aesthetic beauty.95 Because Mário Pedrosa and Ferreira Gullar, two of the more progressive voices in Brazilian art criticism, were in exile during this period, there was a void for more conservative critics to occupy. Frederico Morais, who was also 112 C H A P T E R

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part of the jury that accepted Barrio’s work for the II Salão de Verão, tried to come to his defense, arguing more judiciously that Barrio’s work touched upon a crucial problem: the criteria for judging works of art.96 Barrio addressed his detractors with a profusion of texts explaining the logic of his choice for scatological materials, his antiformalist ideas, his disdain for art history terms and classifications, and his hatred of the market, exhibitions, and prizes. It was something of a point of pride to Barrio that almost all of his work was situated between junk and art, material and immaterial, form and chaos. In an audiovisual presentation he recorded about Barrio’s work in 1970, Morais defended the artist’s originality:97 “The garbage of the Queen is like everybody else’s: if it is not quickly collected, it will start smelling badly.” The declaration of the head of the garbage collectors from the Buckingham Palace, justifying their five-­week strike in London, maybe has nothing to do with art, like many proposals of current artists. If some contemporary works of art are exposed for a long time, they will start stinking and bothering the public. Even stinking, the garbage, when shown in a museum, has the protection of the official culture. . . . To make art in the margins of the system, an art that can neither be sold nor restored, can be considered a provocation. Repression won’t take too long to come. This kind of work will always have the police or the garbage collectors around it.98 Barrio was probably the most daring and provocative artist to face the Brazilian dictatorship. He aggressively used visceral materials as a metaphorical representation of the practice of torture executed under authoritarian orders and also engaged in loathsome situations in his actions involving excremental waste and decaying objects that could not be assimilated by society and therefore ended up in the garbage. The next phase of resistance against the Brazilian military regime would involve a more subtle and conceptual strategy: the art of appropriating and infiltrating existing circuits of exchange in society, exemplified by the work of Cildo Meireles.

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4 CILDO MEIRELES

Clandestine Art

When asked in an interview in 1994 about his connection to his country, Cildo Meireles was emphatic in his answer: “Being Brazilian is more of an anxiety than a problem. Each time I started to think about what being Brazilian meant, I always ran into the impossibility of not being Brazilian. What can I say; there is no escaping from that imposition of fate.”1 Indeed, Meireles’s artistic practice, like that of other Brazilian artists who lived and worked in the country during the military regime, would always, at least to some extent, be viewed within the context of his “Brazilian-­ness.” He entered the political arena more than once with his work; during the years of the dictatorship he issued powerful critiques of the military regime with works that dealt with paradoxical situations, such as money depleted of worth, Coca-­Cola bottles and subway tokens as antiestablishment tools, and installations with the potential to be literally explosive. Yet the artist was as interested in pushing the limits of conceptual practices as in making a political point, and he often strove to divorce himself from the country’s repressive regime. In 1970, when Meireles made his debut on the international art scene at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, he made it clear he was not an official representative of the Brazilian government and that

he did not support the military dictatorship in any way. In the catalogue for Information, he boldly denied any allegiance: “I am here, in this exhibition, to defend neither a career nor any nationality.”2 Meireles began his artistic career in the first years of the dictatorship, and his works from the period are marked by a searching for resolution between two poles: on the one hand, formally rigorous, conceptually based investigations of time and space, and on the other, strong critiques of the regime. Later on, his work would be in the eye of the storm surrounding the discussion of what constitutes conceptual art and how much the term would have to be stretched to accommodate artists falling outside its traditional definition—both artists working outside of mainstream centers like New York and Europe and artists exploring not only the dematerialization of the work of art, institutional critique, and tautological linguistic games, but also ideological and political matters, the physicality of the work of art, and its perceptual experience. And therein lay the crux of Meireles’s artistic endeavors: Coming from a country in which censorship was part of the daily reality, what sort of art held meaning? Could a conceptually based practice still be politically cogent? Born in 1948, Meireles is among the most acclaimed conceptual artists coming out of Brazil’s ai-­5 generation; of the careers of the three artists discussed in this book, his is the one that became the most entrenched in the global arena. Though a native of Rio de Janeiro, Meireles spent his formative years (1958–67) in Brasília with his family. Designed by the architects Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer at the express wish of President Juscelino Kubitschek, Brasília was an artificial city, built in only four years and exemplifying the tenets of modernist architecture. Its inauguration in April 1960 signaled the country’s entry into the modern industrial era.3 Meireles’s parents were part of the first generation that moved to Brasília in 1958, before its official designation. Meireles’s upbringing in Brasília gave him a poignant awareness of the country’s inequalities early on. Built on the vast plateau in the Central West region of the country, Brasília replaced Rio de Janeiro as the federal capital. The utopian dream of the planned model city was bitter from the first days of construction. Pockets of poverty arose immediately since the workers could not afford to live in the city. The planned industrialization was not followed by a social program for its inhabitants. The federal administration and political power became concentrated there, far removed and disconnected

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41. Cildo Meireles, Cruzeiro do Sul (Southern Cross) (1969–70). Wooden cube, one section pine, one section oak. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Wilton Montenegro.

in every sense from the rest of the country, attracting much criticism. More an administrative district than a livable community, Brasília brought to light Brazil’s social and racial disparities. The plight of native peoples was a cause close to Meireles’s family: his father, a government official in the state of Goiás, in the north of Brazil, worked for the Indian Protection Service and was involved with the Indians’ Rights Movement. By exposing a government scandal involving genocide, he became one of the first people in Brazil to bring the murderers of a tribe of Indians to court.4 During the 1940s and 1950s the artist’s uncle, Chico Meireles, was one of the first to try to save the Indians from inevitable extinction by helping them to gain control of their lands. His uncle’s son, Apoena Meireles, also worked with Indians in their fight for the demarcation of their land in the 1960s.5 Their leftist ideas and social concerns would have a strong impact on Meireles’s approach to the arts, especially his focus on minorities long neglected by Brazilian society.6 Meireles addressed the colonization of the Indians by missionary Jesuits and their misunderstanding of native cults and mythology in one of his early works, Cruzeiro do Sul (Southern Cross) (1969–70) (figure 41). The sculpture, a tiny nine-­millimeter cube, half soft pinewood and half hard oak, is usually displayed alone in a huge space (ideally in a two-­hundred-­square-­meter room), making it almost imperceptible. The oak and the pine are more than 116 C H A P T E R

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42. Cildo Meireles, Espaços virtuais: Cantos (Virtual Spaces: Corners) (1967–68). Wood, canvas, paint, woodblock, flooring. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Renato Laclete.

mere natural elements for the Tupi Indians; they believe these materials have divine power. The friction created by rubbing one against the other creates fire, a sacred manifestation of their deities. The tiny cube contains potentially explosive energy, an idea that would later be taken to extremes by Meireles in some of his most emblematic works against the military regime. Despite his natural interest in politics and social issues, Meireles’s first artworks had a bent toward more formal and perceptual concerns. In 1967 he began a group of drawings that eventually evolved into Espaços virtuais: Cantos (Virtual Spaces: Corners) (1967–68) (figure 42), a series of three-­ dimensional installations resembling corners of rooms, based on Euclidean principles of space. Drawing on the artist’s interest in mathematics, physics, and phenomenological ideas, the corners are investigations of time and space. In 1969 three works from the series Espaços virtuais: Cantos entitled Nowhere Is My Home I, II, and III were selected to be part of the Pre-­Paris Biennial, the ill-­fated exhibition scheduled to take place at the mam/rj in May 1969. C I L D O M E I R E L E S 117

After the event was closed down by the Department of Political and Social Order (dops), Meireles’s works were stored at mam/rj. In November of that year, having no place to keep them, he submitted the three works to Salão da Bússola—the same salon that gave an award to Manuel’s installation Soy loco por ti and launched Barrio’s career with his bundles created from garbage—as well as a number of other works that relayed or enacted propositions related to time and space. In a series of typewritten texts called Fonômenos, a neologism based on the Portuguese words fenômeno (phenomenon) and fonema (phoneme),7 he gave instructions for various actions the viewer might undertake: one suggested that the viewer go to the beach, make a hole in the sand, and wait until the hole was filled by the wind; a second instructed the reader to go to a noisy corner in the neighborhood of Copacabana and stay there, eyes shut, trying to hear the sounds coming from as far away as possible, concentrating on marking off a mental area encompassing the sum total of all that noise; a third text asked the reader to refrain from drinking water for twenty-­four hours and then to very slowly drink a half liter of water from a small silver vessel.8 Another work, the installation Arte física: Caixas de Brasília/Clareira (Physical Art: Brasília Boxes/Clearing) (1969) (figure 43), documented an Earth-­based intervention the artist completed in Brasília.9 It began with the demarcation of an area beside Lake Paranoá, an artificial lake on the outskirts of the city. The delineated area was cleared, and the leaves and wood were gathered in the center of the clearing and burned. A wooden box containing some of the ashes and the soil from a hole dug in the earth was buried at the site. The remaining ashes and soil were placed in two other boxes.10 As an impermanent action, Arte física: Caixas de Brasília/Clareira survived only through photographic documentation and physical artifacts: sixty black-­and-­white images recording the action, the two boxes containing the residue from the bonfire, and a map of the location in which the action took place.11 Another work Meireles showed at Salão da Bússola was Arte física: Cordões / 30 km de linha estendidos (Physical Art: Cords / 30 km of Extended Line) (1969) (figure 44), a conceptually based work comprising a wooden box, a map, and a piece of rope. The thirty-­kilometer cord, now placed inside the box, was once extended along the coastline of Rio de Janeiro; the corresponding map indicated the area it once demarcated. Like Arte física: Caixas de Brasília/Clareira, this work questioned issues related to the perception of space. Each of the works Meireles submitted to the salon—typewritten texts, ashes, cords—represent absent spaces. As they do not resemble the 118 C H A P T E R

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43. Cildo Meireles, Arte física: Caixas de Brasília / Clareira (Physical Art: Brasília Boxes/ Clearing) (1969). Sequence of photographs and maps; three boxes of earth. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Wilton Montenegro.

original places they refer to, they become disembodied, indexical signs, like those described by Charles Sanders Peirce.12 Compared to other works at Salão da Bússola, Meireles’s works were relatively conservative, devoid of political content. Even so, he was awarded the salon’s grand prize, a cash sum equivalent to six thousand dollars and an airline ticket to Paris and New York, for his works from the series Espaços virtuais: Cantos. Around the time he was attracting attention for his perceptual investigations into space and time, as seen in his contributions to Salão da Bússola, Meireles’s work underwent a radical change. As the military regime stepped up its repressive practices—by 1970 over a thousand instances of torture had been reported13—Meireles in turn shifted his artistic practice, moving C I L D O M E I R E L E S 119

44. Cildo Meireles, Arte física: Cordões / 30 km de linha estendidos (Physical Art: Cords / 30 km of Extended Line) (1969). Industrial cord, map, wooden box. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Wilton Montenegro.

from his earlier formal and phenomenological emphasis into a harsh critique of the military regime.

Frying Chickens: Torture of Political Prisoners The urge to address the political situation of the time struck Meireles on the day the Pre-­Paris Biennial was closed by the Department of Political and Social Order. Boldly signaling the military dictatorship’s practice of artistic censorship, this incident compelled him to further engage politics in his work.14 At the age of twenty-­two he created his first work of vehement critique of the regime for Frederico Morais’s exhibition Do Corpo à Terra (17–21 April 1970), held in the Municipal Park of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. The exhibition became a landmark for its strong works addressing the military regime, including Barrio’s trouxas ensanguentadas (bloody bundles) (1970). 120 C H A P T E R

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45. Cildo Meireles, Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político (Tiradentes: Totem-­ Monument to the Political Prisoner) (1970). Wooden pole, white cloth, thermometer, ten live chickens, gasoline, fire. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Luiz Alphonsus Guimarães.

No less striking was Meireles’s contribution to the exhibition, titled Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político (Tiradentes: Totem-­Monument to the Political Prisoner) (1970) (figure 45). The installation consisted of a wooden stake driven into the ground, with ten live hens tied to it. The stake, approximately 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) in length, had a clinical thermometer attached on top, and a white cloth square surrounded the ground around it. Gasoline was poured on the hens, and they were set on fire. Carrying references to Afro-­Brazilian syncretistic rituals of Candomblé and Umbanda, animal sacrifices were often used in Brazil as a metaphor for the brutality of the regime, as in Manuel’s O bode (The Goat) and Barrio’s trouxas ensanguentadas. In Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político, the act of burning the hens alive was a cruel ritual intended to represent the torture and death of political prisoners. With this work Meireles also drew a parallel between the repressive situation in Brazil at the time and C I L D O M E I R E L E S 121

the harsh conditions of the colonial era; Tiradentes (teeth-­puller) was the nom de guerre of Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, the dentist turned martyr of Brazilian independence who was hanged by the Portuguese on 21 April 1792 after being accused of leading a conspiracy movement against the crown.15 Tiradentes’s body was dismembered, and his severed head was displayed in the main square of Ouro Preto, in Minas Gerais, where he had lived. This was one of the most gruesome episodes in Brazilian history, reminiscent of the public beheadings following the French Revolution, the bloody event Foucault deemed the “spectacle of the scaffold.”16 Tiradentes became a national hero, and 21 April became a national holiday commemorating the most important rebellion against the Portuguese during the colonial period. Meireles chose this symbolic date for the enactment of his performance of Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político. Ironically, the military government sought to celebrate this historic day as well, by sponsoring Do Corpo à Terra, the exhibition containing some of the most blatantly and viscerally antiregime works the country had seen to date. According to Meireles, “The figure of Tiradentes was being used by the military regime in a very cynical way. He represented the antithesis of what they stood for. . . . Of course, the hypocrisy of their symbolic maneuvers was clear, and I decided to make a work about this.”17 Meireles’s aim was to evoke the past through Tiradentes’s ordeal as a way of calling attention to the repressive situation of the present. As his work indicates, despite the different historical contexts a parallel existed between the punishment of Tiradentes and the torture of political prisoners during the military regime. In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Foucault shows how after the Enlightenment the public spectacle of the bodies of convicted criminals changed to a different mechanism of control based on discipline, confinement, and surveillance.18 People who committed crimes previously punished through public torture and ritual disemboweling were now incarcerated in prisons and mental hospitals instead.19 Though Meireles was not aware of Foucault’s writings during the period in question (Foucault’s essays were not known in Brazil until the late 1970s and 1980s), Meireles agrees that his work “is not monolithic and is open to many different readings; it invites parallels and comparisons to a broad body of knowledge, including the ideas of Foucault.”20 Applying Foucault’s analysis, one can see the analogy made by Meireles in Tiradentes: Totem-­ monumento ao preso político between torture as a public spectacle (the dis-

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membering of Tiradentes in 1792) and torture as an enclosed and secretive practice (carried out inside Brazilian prisons during the late 1960s and 1970s). The title of the work referred to a historical martyr, but Meireles’s goal was to denounce the contemporary torture of political prisoners. His reference was intended not to bring to the present some long-­forgotten fact but to evoke cultural memory in relation to the present. Meireles also claimed that Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político was inspired by the Vietnamese monks who set themselves on fire to protest the Vietnam War: “In Tiradentes . . . I was interested in metaphor and in the dislocation of the theme. I wanted to use the subject, life and death, as the raw material for the work. This dislocation is what matters in the history of the art object . . . as a formal object; it evokes memories of self-­immolation, or of victims of explosions or napalm attacks. There was all this imagery of war at the time, and I wanted to make reference to this in a way which would bring it attention.”21 During the performance of Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político, the thermometer exploded from the heat, making the event even more dramatic and provoking a strong reaction from the conservative community of Minas Gerais.22 The day after the event, top leaders of the Brazilian military government, including President Emílio Garrastazú Médici, went to Ouro Preto for a luncheon—ironically, coq au vin was the dish served—at which one of the politicians made a harsh speech condemning Meireles’s work.23 What remained of Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político after its exhibition, namely, the pole to which the chickens had been tied (figure 46), became a symbol of Meireles’s artistic assault on the regime. Usually flags, banners, and vertical poles suggest heroic accomplishments, such as subjugation and conquest. In the case of Meireles, the stake became an antinationalist emblem, and the burning chickens represented the brutal use of torture against political prisoners. Three months after Do Corpo à Terra took place, Meireles was scheduled to participate in two exhibitions: Agnus Dei at Petite Galerie, Rio de Janeiro (8–17 July 1970), and Information at MoMA (2 July–20 September 1970).24 For Agnus Dei he created one of his most acutely morbid works to date, a sculpture titled Introdução a uma nova crítica (Introduction to a New Criticism) (1970) (figures 47, 48). It was a wooden chair with nails protruding from its seat; the chair was partially covered by a black cloth hanging from an iron frame, as if it were trapped inside a tent. Resembling a macabre tor-

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46. Cildo Meireles, Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político (Tiradentes: Totem-­ Monument to the Political Prisoner) (1970). Wooden pole, white cloth, thermometer, ten live chickens, gasoline, fire. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Luiz Alphonsus Guimarães.

47–48. Cildo Meireles, Introdução a uma nova crítica (Introduction to a New Criticism) (1970). Wooden chair, nails, netting, and iron frame. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Wilton Montenegro.

ture chamber, the piece alluded to the military regime’s practice of torturing its political opponents as a method of interrogation. It also recalled his gruesome installation at Do Corpo à Terra. For his debut on the international art scene at Information, however, Meireles tapped into his more conceptual vein, experimenting with less cathartic, more subtle modes of representation that would nevertheless vehemently convey his antiregime position. Information stressed the relationship between the written and the visual worlds, placing emphasis on global communication and highlighting a new era in which information itself became an esteemed commodity. Textual and linguistic propositions were part of the lingua franca of conceptual art at the time, and some of Meireles’s works that the curator Kynaston McShine had seen at Salão da Bússola a year earlier fit the bill. Yet though his work for Information was conceptually based, Meireles’s practice was never divorced from the political spheres that had originally contextualized it. It therefore became a critical task, especially in light of the major boycott of the X São Paulo Biennial a year earlier, for Meireles to address the regime and at the same time detach himself in the international arena from any possible misunderstanding that he was officially representing Brazil at Information. In his introductory essay for the exhibition catalogue, McShine asked a fundamental question: What kind of art could be significant under repressive circumstances? He wrote, If you are an artist in Brazil, you know of at least one friend who is being tortured; if you are one in Argentina, you probably have had a neighbor who has been in jail for having long hair, or for not being “dressed” properly; and if you are living in the United States, you may fear that you will be shot at, either in the universities, in your bed, or more formally in Indochina. It may seem too inappropriate, if not absurd, to get up in the morning, walk into a room, and apply dabs of paints from a little tube to a square canvas. What can you as a young artist do that seems relevant and meaningful?25 Examining the intersection of social activism and conceptual practices, Information reflected the political climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s. MoMA had increasingly come under fire by artists and activists participating in the Art Workers’ Coalition, a short-­lived organization founded in 1969 to protest the Vietnam War and to promote artists’ rights. Antiwar protests and accusations regarding the connections and profitable involvement of 126 C H A P T E R

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MoMA’s trustees in the war industry were among the exhibition’s heated subjects.26

Inserções em circuitos ideológicos (Insertions into Ideological Circuits) (1970) At Information Meireles also turned his work into an instrument of political resistance, creating a system of counterinformation. Increasingly he had begun to experiment with open routes of circulation already in place in society, and how these ideological systems could be used as a vehicle to comment on established power structures, particularly those of the military regime. His interest in these circuits evolved into his next major project, Inserções em circuitos ideológicos. In a text dated April 1970 he wrote about some of the issues at play in this series: 1) There are in society certain mechanisms of circulation (circuits); 2) These circuits send ideological messages from their producer, but at the same time are able to receive back insertions into its circulation; 3) and this occurs whenever people initiate them. The Inserções em circuitos ideológicos were also created based on two common popular practices: chain letters (those letters that are received, copied, and resent to other people) and the bottles thrown by shipwreck victims into the sea. Implicit in these practices is the notion of a circulation medium, a notion which also applies to money and, metaphorically, to returnable containers, such as recycled bottles.27 The initial project in the series was Inserções em circuitos ideológicos: Projeto Coca-­Cola (Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Coca-­Cola Project) (1970) (see plate 14). For this work, which was first shown in the art circuit in Information, Meireles used a silkscreen process with vitreous white ink to transfer text to empty Coca-­Cola bottles. He wrote the following message on the bottles: “Inscribe on the bottles critical opinions and send them back into circulation.” Carefully devised to match the bottle’s logo, the inscriptions were practically invisible when the bottles were empty. The subversive messages became apparent only when the bottles were returned to the factory to be recycled—once they were refilled with Coca-­Cola, the writing became legible against the dark liquid. Meireles modified over a thousand bottles and sent them into circulation with political messages, encouraging people to contribute their own statements as well. C I L D O M E I R E L E S 127

Meireles carried the same concept into his next project in the series, Inserções em circuitos ideológicos: Projeto Cédula (Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Banknote Project) (1970–75). For this series he appropriated cruzeiro bills, the Brazilian currency at the time, and inscribed them with ideological messages, such as “Yankees Go Home” (see plate 15), a clear protest of the U.S. government’s support of dictatorships all over Latin America, and “Down with the Dictatorship”; on some bills he inscribed the names of people who had been victims of the regime. Meireles was attracted to circuits of exchange that were decentralized and unconstrained, preferring these structures to the closed organization of the art world (museums, galleries, any conventional institutional art spaces). He was not interested in systems of circulation that were subject to surveillance and censorship, such as the mass communication venues of the press, radio, and television.28 The postal system did not interest him either because letters could be controlled and possibly censored by the state.29 Inserções em circuitos ideológicos was created out of the need to use a source of exchange that would reach the public without depending on any kind of centralization; therefore, he opted for the open systems of circulation of soda bottles and banknotes.30 While it is true that his appropriation of Coca-­Cola bottles and currency has affinities with Warhol’s early work, which shares some of the same iconic images, Meireles was not interested in Pop art per se. He was aware of the work of Pop artists—especially after the São Paulo Biennial of 1967, which had a large roster of American Pop artists—but like many other Brazilian artists at the time, including Barrio and Manuel, Meireles was skeptical of Pop art, especially of Warhol’s work, considering it to be apolitical and celebratory of North American consumerism. Likewise, while he followed in the legacy of Duchamp’s readymades, his work is distinctive for its social and political connotations. Meireles infused his cultural symbols with political overtones, turning them into tools of information. Instead of inserting the readymade into the institutional art space, as Duchamp did before him, Meireles returned the Coca-­Cola bottles to their original system of circulation, while at the same time investing them with a different message and a new meaning. Indeed, he argues that his work takes the opposite direction from Duchamp’s readymades: “The Inserções,” he said, “would act in the urban environment not as industrial objects set in the place of the artworks but as artworks acting as industrial objects.”31 A more fitting model for understanding Meireles’s insertion into open 128 C H A P T E R

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circuits of exchange can be found in Foucault’s writings about how mechanisms of power are constructed in society. In a lecture published in Power/ Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (1980),32 Foucault discusses how power is disseminated: “Power must be analyzed as something which circulates, or as something which only functions in the form of a chain. . . . Power is employed and exercised through a netlike organization . . . individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application.”33 Meireles implicitly understood, in Foucauldian terms, that control is created through a system of relationships spread throughout society and that individuals not only are the passive recipients of this apparatus but also active players, either reiterating it or resisting it. When Foucault writes that mechanisms of power are channeled through the machinery of the state and that “in reality, power in its exercise goes much further, passes through much finer channels, and is much more ambiguous, since each individual has at his disposal a certain power, and for that very reason can also act as a vehicle for transmitting a wider power,” he speaks to issues at the heart of Meireles’s Inserções.34 Meireles used his work as an exercise in the “micro-­ physics of power,” a term coined by Foucault to describe “the dissemination of a dispersed network of apparatuses without a single organizing system, center, or focus, a transverse coordination of disparate institutions and technologies.”35 He introduced his art into circuits that were open to the participation of its receivers, using the system against itself to facilitate the circulation of counterinformation in society, like a virus contaminating networks of exchange. His tactic was to take advantage of a preexisting system of circulation to spread information and provide instructions to the public on how to repeat the process. Some of his Coca-­Cola bottles listed the materials used to make a Molotov cocktail—pavio, fita adesiva, gasolina (wick, tape, gasoline)—in a clear allusion to the domestic explosives used by students against the police during street riots and by the urban guerrillas in their actions. One of the most interesting issues brought forth by the series Inserções em circuitos ideológicos was not its beginning (the author), its middle (the message), or even its end (the receiver), but its designated social function: it existed to show that there were flaws in the system, flaws which could be used as a form of resistance to criticize the system itself. In today’s terms it can be compared to the actions of Internet hackers: though they usually do not have a collective or defined ideological agenda, they nevertheless disrupt the social order so as to reveal its vulnerability. By using the system C I L D O M E I R E L E S 129

itself and some of its most powerful symbols in capitalist society—the Coca-­ Cola bottles representing multinational corporations, the banknotes symbolizing capital itself—Meireles found a gap in which to stage resistance. Meireles claimed that Inserções em circuitos ideológicos was basically “a kind of graffiti that circulated,” but he acknowledged that there was nothing stopping participants from using the network of circulating items in a manner that was antithethical to his intentions.36 Anyone who received one of Meireles’s altered bottles could create his or her own message and send it back into circulation. The endless possibilities present in each bottle attested to the open-­ended quality of his project. Inserções em circuitos ideológicos more precisely spoke to a collective need at that time in Brazilian history for a venue in which people could speak their minds without being charged with the authorship of what was being said. Acting more as a facilitator than a creator of a finished work of art, Meireles solicited the collective voice of the many receivers who participated in its circuit. Thus a shift from the individual to the collective took place, and through its circulation the work remained anonymous. Taking a cue from Roland Barthes, who wrote, “The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author,”37 Meireles’s series implies the death of the artist as the sole originator of the multiple layers of meaning that constitute a work of art, which ultimately will be generated by the many participants in the circuit. In the case of Projeto Coca-­Cola, for example, it did not matter who was speaking or even what was being said on the recycled bottles. Unfortunately, it is difficult to assess the reception of his work since no record of the messages inscribed on the bottles by the consumers remains. The critical point, however, is not how or if the recipient chose to participate, but simply that participation and collaboration were encouraged at all.

Ideological Conceptualist, Political Conceptualist, or Just Conceptual? In 1971, disillusioned with the art circuit, which he found rather naive in its debate of domestic issues, Meireles left Brazil for New York.38 While living in New York, he created another project for the Inserções series. Inserções em circuitos antropológicos (Insertions into Anthropological Circuits) (1971) (figure 49) were coinlike tokens made out of clay compressed in handmade molds. They approximated the coins used in public telephones and subway tokens.

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49. Cildo Meireles, Inserções em circuitos antropológicos (Insertions into Anthropological Circuits) (1971). Metal tokens for dispensing machines, telephones, or transport; empty matchboxes; clay. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Pedro Oswaldo Cruz.

The fake tokens implicated those whose hands they fell into, inviting people to take on the role of a hacker, to transgress the norm. In New York, Meireles became increasingly skeptical of the emerging conceptual art movement, whose works he considered too hermetic and self-­ involved. He was more inclined to use terms like “anti-­art,” as defined by Oiticica, than “conceptual art,” as envisioned by Joseph Kosuth. In Brazil from the late 1960s and early 1970s, the key words were “access” and “participation.” How to create an art with participatory elements? How to eliminate notions of originality and authorship? How to create open, subjective experiences rather than closed, definite works of art? When considering his own work in relation to conceptual art, Meireles stressed the importance of the work’s sensorial presence: The problem for me as far as so-­called Conceptual art is concerned is its aspiration to achieve sensory absence. For me such extreme and painful asepsis results in permanent blindness. It is like a sandwich filled with C I L D O M E I R E L E S 131

sand or cotton, imbued with great desolation. Conceptual art raised the question of time in a place where time should not exist. Unlike cinema or music or literature, the physical art object allows the possibility of immediate attraction or repulsion. Consequently I believe that it is important not to abandon that historically characteristic property of the art object, its instantaneousness.39 Meireles placed as much weight on visuality, formal resolution, and perceptual experience as he did on politics and ideology; if anything, he aimed to combine both parts of the equation: content and form, politics and aesthetics, context and ideology. Conceptual art is understood as art that conveys an idea or concept, which may exist distinct from and in the absence of its representative object. The term embraces a wide range of artistic practices in which the idea for a work supersedes the finished product.40 Conceptual artists investigated the possibilities of art-­as-­idea and to that end explored linguistic, mathematical, and process-­oriented dimensions of thought and aesthetics. The Art and Language group in England and artists such as Kosuth in the United States wrote theoretical essays in favor of the primacy of the idea or its linguistic definition. In some cases, such texts served as the artworks in and of themselves.41 Like other Latin American conceptualists, Meireles used language as an integral part of his work, especially in the series Inserções em circuitos ideológicos, but did not reduce the product of his art to a self-­ referential linguistic proposition; on the contrary, he used language as a tool to address the political context of the time. He refused to confine the aesthetic construction to a tautological condition, maintaining that art had a social purpose; that view was in opposition to Kosuth’s philosophy, which held that “works of art are analytic propositions,” that “art consists of the artist’s idea of it, and that art can claim no meaning outside itself.”42 Meireles also stressed ideas and propositions over a finished object of art. Many of his works functioned only as an instruction or a proposition for others to react to or carry out. In his account of the history of conceptual art, the art historian Benjamin Buchloh criticized Kosuth’s narrow demarcation of conceptualism as a tautological, self-­reflexive statement. Buchloh extended his narrative of the movement to include post-­Duchampian practices in the late 1960s and 1970s, such as the revival of the readymade as a tool to question ideological control and to expose the cultural legitimacy and power exercised by social 132 C H A P T E R

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institutions.43 In his redefinition of conceptual art, Buchloh embraces the social role of artistic practices. In Meireles’s case, there was an emphasis on the social function and role of art in society beyond its autonomous status. The art historian and curator Mari Carmen Ramírez points out that Latin American conceptualists had a very different agenda from their European and North American counterparts. They saw the possibility of getting away from the tautological model proposed by mainstream conceptual artists by addressing political and social realities in their work.44 To distinguish Latin American’s version of conceptual art from the mainstream model, Ramirez borrows the term “Ideological Conceptualist,” coined by the Spanish art historian Simón Marchán Fiz in 1972 to define Spanish and Argentinean conceptual artists.45 The Brazilian psychoanalyst and curator Suely Rolnik disputes this definition and disagrees with the notion that Meireles’s practice might be considered under its terms. Rolnik astutely argues that to call Meireles an ideological or political conceptualist “denies the state of estrangement that such a radically new experience produces in our subjectivity.”46 By insisting on the physicality of the art object and emphasizing its sensorial and participatory elements, Meireles added layers of meaning to his work, moving beyond a practice solely based on verbal discourse or political agenda. Because of all the elements incorporated into and intertwined within his work—the political, sensorial, participatory, formal, and ideological—­ finding the right terminology to describe Meireles’s practice becomes an intricate enterprise. Proffering a broader understanding of Latin American conceptualism, in Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation Luis Camnitzer compiled many idiosyncratic practices exercised by artists in the 1960s and 1970s in Latin America, including body art, performance art, media-­based art, and Earth-­oriented artworks, among others, and placed them all under the label of conceptualism. Camnitzer’s emphasis was not so much on the political or ideological as on visual artistic practices that favored ideas over form. As Camnitzer pointed out, “The periphery couldn’t care less about style and produced conceptualist strategies instead.”47 At the time, official salons and art exhibitions in Brazil did not yet have any classifications for installations, performance, body art, Earth-­based artworks, or conceptual art. Indeed, one could say that mediums and movements were evolving at a pace that exceeded critics’ and artists’ capacity to label them. The regulations of Salão da Bússola, for example, stated that

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50. Salão da Bússola, ficha de inscrição (Compass Salon, entry form) (1969). Courtesy of Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação / Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro.

artists could submit their works under the categories of painting, drawing, etching, sculpture, or “et cetera.” Since Meireles’s works did not conform to these traditional categories, his pieces were submitted under the humorously vague label “et cetera” (figure 50 on p. 134).

Critical Response: Conceptual Art versus the Regime In the Brazilian art world of the late 1960s and early 1970s, as in the United States and Europe, artists were challenging not only repressive regimes, but also the role of art institutions, juries, and salons. As an art critic and curator, Frederico Morais was often called upon to comment on norms of behavior and taste, and to act as the arbiter of salons and exhibitions. In 1970 he responded to the climate of questioning surrounding established criteria of art criticism with a bold move, situating himself as the artist. In 1970 the Petite Galerie, a small gallery in the neighborhood of Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro, presented Agnus Dei, a series of three consecutive exhibitions by Thereza Simões (26–29 June), Guilherme Magalhães Vaz (30 June– 7 July), and Meireles (8–17 July). The publicity set the tone for the exhibition: a black-­and-­white poster (figure 51) depicted the three artists of the series as well as the photographer, Renato Laclete, in a funeral home. In the photograph, Meireles has his back to the spectator, his image reflected in a mirror (an allusion to Las Meninas [1656–57] by Diego Velázquez). Laclete is holding a newspaper, Simões appears in profile next to two coffins, and Magalhães Vaz is on the telephone, acting as the owner of the funeral home. The coffins referenced the climate of terror in Brazil. In addition to three Coca-­Cola bottles from the series Inserções em circuitos ideológicos: Projeto Coca-­Cola, Meireles exhibited photographs of Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político as well as the remainder of the actual pole where the chickens were sacrificed. This was also the first time he showed his sinister nail-­studded-­chair sculpture, Introdução a uma nova crítica. Rather than writing a review of the exhibitions Morais created an exhibition of his own, called A Nova Crítica (The New Criticism). Speaking of the basis for this unconventional response, Morais wrote, “A deep revision of the critical methodology is necessary. There is a call for poetic criticism. . . . It is no longer possible to make any judgment. The art critic today is an idle professional.”48 Morais’s strategy of shifting places with the artist, who then

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51. Poster for exhibition Agnus Dei at Petite Galerie (Rio de Janeiro, 1970). Graphic project: Thereza Simões. Photo: Renato Laclete.

shifts places with the spectator, who can also interfere in the work of art, was part of his call for a less authoritarian role for the curator and art critic in the art world. As he envisioned it, the participation of the public was also implicit in this new mode of art. He believed that “in the artistic guerrilla, everybody is a participant and has to take initiative. Artist, public, and critic are constantly changing positions, and the artist himself can be a victim of an ambush plotted by the spectator.”49 For his exhibition Morais filled the gallery with fifteen thousand empty Coca-­Cola bottles, donated and transported to the gallery by Coca-­Cola’s

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official representative and distributor in Brazil (Coca-­Cola Refreshments S.A.). Morais covered the floor with the soda bottles, placing a few of Meireles’s inscribed bottles interspersed with the regular ones. He also showed photographs of a self-­immolating Buddhist Vietnamese monk surrounded by biblical texts from Genesis and Exodus. By placing just a few of Meireles’s bottles in a sea of unaltered bottles, Morais was casting aspersions on the ability of Meireles’s work to challenge the status quo. Morais had arranged for the official distributor of Coca-­Cola to donate thousands of bottles to the exhibition, and Meireles’s bottles appeared utterly impotent when juxtaposed with the physical heft of so many bottles. Morais thus created a physical representation of his belief that the system is strong enough to remain undisturbed by Meireles’s work.50 According to the curator Gerardo Mosquera, “Morais was implying that it is impossible to infiltrate these circuits, as they will always devour you.”51 With his evocative installation, Morais showed, rather than implicitly stated, that Meireles’s work was a utopian project, one incapable of being effective. In response to Morais’s response to Meireles, Antonio Manuel also intervened in the exhibition A Nova Crítica urinating into one of the Coca-­Cola bottles in Petite Galerie. Later, Manuel’s intervention became the work Isso é que é (This is it) (1975), a photograph in which Manuel is seen urinating in a Coca-­Cola bottle next to Mário Pedrosa and Jackson Ribeiro.52 In response to the white minimalist paintings of Simões, Morais placed blank canvases inside male restrooms in bars throughout the bohemian neighborhood of Ipanema. The bars’ patrons, most of them intellectuals and artists, defaced the canvases with erotic images and strong critiques of the Brazilian president Emílio Garrastazú Médici. Once the canvases were exhibited inside Petite Galerie, the police threatened an invasion; the organizers of the exhibition decided to close the space rather than risk a confrontation.53 A Nova Crítica lasted for only four hours. Morais’s exhibition might easily have been considered a stunt, a footnote in the history of Brazilian art. But apart from reflecting the zeitgeist of changing notions and popular misgivings regarding the role of art institutions, art critics, juries, and salons, it also evocatively and memorably raised important questions about the efficacy of artistic practices in responding to a repressive regime.

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52. Malasartes, no. 3 (April/May/June 1976). Photo: Miguel Rio Branco.

The Short-­Lived Malasartes Magazine Responding to these questions of the efficacy of objects of art, a group of eight artists and one art critic, Ronaldo Brito, from Rio and São Paulo created the magazine Malasartes in 1975 (figure 52). The journal—whose title can be read as a combination of the Portuguese words malas (suitcases) and artes (arts) or as a melding of the Portuguese words mal (bad), as (to the), and artes (arts)—aimed to promote debate, to evaluate the recent production of Brazilian contemporary art, and to discuss a variety of subjects ranging from issues on regionalism to the latest trends in the visual arts, including conceptual art. Despite the brevity of its existence (only three issues between September 1975 and June 1976) and its relatively small run of five thousand copies per edition, the magazine became one of the most celebrated artists’ journals published in Brazil during the mid-­1970s. An editorial in the magazine’s first issue stated that it would be about “the politics of the arts.” Meireles helped to create the magazine and was also one of its editors.54 Published in Rio de Janeiro, Malasartes had an interdisciplinary approach, mainly focusing on the visual arts but also including essays on film, architecture, design, sculpture, and poetry as well as discussions on geopolitics, such as the Indians’ rights movement. In addition to essays by its editors and guest writers, the journal invited artists to develop 138 C H A P T E R

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specific projects for the magazine. It also published translations of international articles by Joseph Kosuth and Allan Kaprow, among others; Kosuth’s essay “Art after Philosophy” (1969) was translated by Ronaldo Brito and published in the first issue (September–November 1975).55 Brito opened the first issue of Malasartes with the essay “Análise do circuito” (Circuit Analysis), in which he analyzes the intricate relationship of contemporary art production with the market and advocates for practices that would exist outside the predominant art circuit yet could still maintain a critical discourse and have a social efficacy. In the same issue Meireles published works that had been overlooked, including pieces by Umberto Costa Barros, Luiz Fonseca, Alfredo Fontes, Cláudio Paiva, Vicente Pereira, Tunga, and Guilherme Magalhães Vaz as well as Meireles’s own series Inserções em circuitos ideológicos: Projeto Coca-­Cola and Inserções em circuitos antropológicos. Most of the theoretical writings that appeared in the magazine agreed that Brazilian contemporary art was fragmented in its many endeavors and that a lack of continuity made it impossible to construct linear narratives; in the second issue (December–February 1976) excerpts from Carlos Zilio’s book A querela do Brasil (The Quarrel of Brazil)56 posited that this situation would continue unless an alternative could be found to the foreign models determined by the dominant centers of culture. The third and final issue (April–June 1976) featured a translation of Kaprow’s “The Education of the Un-­Artist,” written in 1969 and published two years later in Art News, in which the originator of the happening dwells on the implications of such terms as “non-­art,” “anti-­art,” and “ART-­art” and concludes that ultimately everything is art: “Context instead of category, flux in place of the work of art.” Kaprow’s insistence on the openness of the concept of art had positive repercussions for artists and intellectuals involved with Malasartes. After the publication of the third issue of Malasartes its nine editors could no longer agree on what direction the magazine should take in the future: one group wanted it to be a general vehicle for cultural information, in order to make it more financially viable; the other wanted it to continue in a more theoretical vein based in scholarly pursuits and artists’ projects. They could not reach a consensus, and the magazine was discontinued after the decisive split of its editorial founders. It was a successful enterprise from an intellectual and artistic point of view, but it could not survive on its limited funds and circulation.

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“Quem Matou Herzog?” (Who Killed Herzog?) (1975) Also in 1975 Meireles revisited Projeto Cédula (Banknote Project) to protest the alleged assassination of the journalist Vladimir Herzog. Vlado, as he was known, was the director of the department of journalism of tv Cultura in São Paulo, a journalist, and the former editor of the magazine Visão. On 25 October 1975 he was accused of subversion, arrested, and tortured to death with electroshocks that same day in a prison in São Paulo. The official explanation for his death, which no one believed, was that after confessing allegiance to the Communist Party, Herzog had hung himself from the bar of his cell, using his coverall belt (though the inmates’ coveralls did not have belts). Some journalists who were incarcerated with Herzog affirmed that he had died from the torture administered by military officials.57 According to Jewish tradition, Herzog would have to be buried in a special area of the cemetery reserved for victims of suicide. But disputing the claims of the military authorities, Rabbi Henri Sobel of São Paulo refused to bury Herzog in the reserved area, thereby reinforcing the widespread belief that he was violently murdered and had not committed suicide.58 In a reaction to the political events, Meireles stamped banknotes with the inscription “Quem Matou Herzog?” (Who Killed Herzog?) (1975) (figure 53). In asking “Who Killed Herzog?” Meireles was not really formulating a question but was rather positing a rhetorical proposition underlining the fact that the official explanation given by the government was falsely generated to mask the real causes of Herzog’s death. As Paulo Herkenhoff has pointed out, Meireles’s question was uncomfortable to the regime as well as to an intimidated public. With their provocative messages, Meireles’s banknotes did not last long in the hands of the recipient; people would neither keep them in their pockets nor rip them up, so they kept circulating quickly.59 Yet some issues concerning the reception of Meireles’s work have to be addressed. Who knew who Herzog was, and the circumstances of his death? In truth it was only a very small, well-­informed, and privileged sector of the population, one with access to leftist publications that, despite censorship, managed to publish reports of the victims of the military regime. The press, including popular venues such as major newspapers, television, and radio stations, was still censored at the time, and a large segment of Brazilian society was probably unaware of Herzog’s plight. Therefore, while Meireles’s work participated in an open, nonelitist system of distribution and circulation, his message was still dependent on the recipient’s level of understand140 C H A P T E R

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53. Cildo Meireles, Inserções em circuitos ideológicos: Projeto Cédula (Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Banknote Project) (1975). Rubber stamp on banknote. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Pedro Oswaldo Cruz.

ing, restricted to the liberal, middle-­class spectator, which in its limitations is problematic. It is unknown who the actual recipients of Meireles’s work were and unlikely that most people who received the banknotes or the bottles of Coca-­ Cola recognized them as objects of art. Given the tiny percentage of bottles actually inscribed relative to the total distribution of the unadulterated product in the market (according to the artist about one thousand bottles inscribed with his initials were recycled), it is uncertain how many of them survived, since their inherent nature was to keep circling within the system. Ultimately those remaining became highly collectible items. (Morais, for instance, owns a Meireles Coca-­Cola bottle, as do some private collectors and museums.) In his writings Meireles points out some crucial issues regarding the consumption and reception of the Inserções. According to him, “The work only exists to the extent that other people participate in it. What also arises is the need for anonymity. By extension, the question of anonymity involves the question of ownership. When the object of art becomes a practice, it beC I L D O M E I R E L E S 141

comes something over which you can have no control or ownership.”60 The Inserções defy traditional models of ownership and of presentation since the works are not only intended to be “exhibited” per se, but also to become actively engaged with the viewer in the sphere of circulation.61 When the work does not take place in the closed circuit of the art world, in which the receiver is usually a dealer, a buyer, or a collector, it raises questions of ownership: Who possesses a work that is doomed to continue circulating in the system? Meireles asserted that he never sold works from the Inserções series. For him, these works were relevant only within the historical moment in which they were made.62 The artist agreed, however, that his work cannot escape the dynamics of the art market and that he cannot prevent it from being sold by dealers, collectors, and art institutions.63 As much as Meireles’s Coca-­ Cola bottles participated in the open circuit, they were at the same time presented as works of art in exhibitions such as Information and Agnus Dei and therefore commodified through their insertion into the art circuit. These dynamics of the art world forced the question of the value of Meireles’s work, regardless of his own stance on the issue. How much is it worth? What is the relationship between its exchange value and its use value? How much does the consumer pay for a bottle of soda? And how much would the art market pay for one of Meireles’s Coca-­Cola bottles? for one of his banknotes? These issues were already at play in some of Meireles’s works: an installation of 1969 entitled Árvore do dinheiro (Money Tree) (1969) (figure 54), for instance, comprised a bundle of one hundred one-­cruzeiro notes tied up with two elastic bands and placed on a white pedestal base. When it was first shown publicly, its asking price was two thousand cruzeiros, twenty times its actual value, calling attention to the discrepancy between use value and exchange value.64 (Since cruzeiro banknotes are no longer the Brazilian currency, their use value is null; the work’s exchange value, on the other hand, keeps increasing as Meireles’s fame and recognition rise.) Meireles would continue playing with notions of money, worth, and exchange rates through his career. In a project entitled Zero cruzeiro (1974–78), he created false cruzeiro bills, swapping the images of politicians and national heroes for the image of a native Indian from the Kraô tribe on one side and that of a mentally ill patient on the other. These bills were worth nothing—a compelling reminder of the lack of value placed by society in the marginal groups stamped on them.

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54. Cildo Meireles, Árvore do dinheiro (Money Tree) (1969). One hundred folded one-­ cruzeiro banknotes. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Wilton Montenegro.

The Danger of Potential Fire While working on the series Inserções em circuitos ideológicos, a work that goes beyond the boundaries of institutional art spaces, Meireles was also searching for a commercial gallery to exhibit an installation with a performance component that directly referenced the climate of fear and terror instilled by the military regime. Because of the nature of this work, it had been refused by a gallery in São Paulo and another in Rio de Janeiro.65 Meireles conceived of the project in 1973, but it took him six years to bring it to fruition. The installation finally took place in 1979—the year when amnesty was granted to political opponents of the regime—in a small university gallery, Cândido Mendes, in the affluent neighborhood of Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro. The sole work in the exhibition, O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux (The Sermon on the Mount: Fiat Lux) (1973–79) (figure 55), was a display of 126,000 matchboxes bearing the brand name “Fiat-­Lux,” the most popular brand of matches in Brazil.66 The matchboxes were stacked in a large cube in the center of the gallery. Upon entering the exhibition, the spectator felt his feet C I L D O M E I R E L E S 143

55. Cildo Meireles, O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux (The Sermon on the Mount: Fiat Lux) (1973–79). 126,000 matchboxes, sandpaper, eight mirrors with transfers of the beatitudes (from the Sermon of the Mount in the gospel of Matthew 5:3–12). Installation view at Centro Cultural Cândido Mendes (Rio de Janeiro, 1979). Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Luiz Alphonsus Guimarães.

scratching the black sandpaper that covered the floor, mimicking the sound of something burning and generating fear of a potential fire. Eight mirrors were placed on the walls, and the installation was surrounded by five actors dressed as bodyguards wearing suits and dark glasses (figure 56); they were supposedly there to prevent the visitors from touching the matches because that could ignite an explosion. The presence of the faux bodyguards created a sinister atmosphere because they resembled undercover agents from the dops, known as the political police. The situation got out of control when the public actually started touching the matchboxes. The bogus security guards were forced to call a real police patrol to evacuate the gallery. Letters of protest were sent to local newspapers. Among them was one by the Brazilian art dealer Afonso Henrique Ramos Costa, entitled “Mau Gosto” (Bad Taste), in which he called O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux “a cultural aggression toward the public.”67 In describing the event, Costa wrote, “When entering the gallery the public saw a text asking them to sit down because something imminent was about to 144 C H A P T E R

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56. Cildo Meireles, O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux (The Sermon on the Mount: Fiat Lux) (1973–79). Installation view at Centro Cultural Cândido Mendes; shown: five actors posing as bodyguards (Rio de Janeiro, 1979). Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Luiz Alphonsus Guimarães.

happen.”68 According to Costa, “The actual terror came from the ‘gorillas’ dressed like phony security guards who started to use violence to expel whoever tried to touch the matchboxes.”69 Meireles did not plan to go to the opening of the event, but he was called in because of the emergency and rushed to the gallery.70 After the artist arrived, the situation calmed down, but nevertheless many policemen were already inside the gallery, and they left only after the dean of the university interfered.71 O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux was supposed to last a full day but lasted only a few hours. The cryptic reference to an imminent event, the transformation of the space into a fire hazard, the aggressive presence of the phony security guards—­ everything in the performance worked as a metaphor of the fear Brazilian society was experiencing at the time. It was a comment on the state of violence which characterized Brazilian life during the military regime.72 Using the language of metaphor, Meireles created some of the strongest works of art during the military regime. In the late 1960s and early 1970s he mirrored the brutal, barbaric aspects of the dictatorship with sensational C I L D O M E I R E L E S 145

works utilizing lurid imagery, such as Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político and Introdução a uma nova crítica. When the regime intensified its repression and it was no longer possible to openly criticize it, Meireles used his acute sensibility to create the series Inserções em circuitos ideológicos, in which authorship and therefore the danger of persecution were no longer attached to the work. Later on, in O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux he was able to stirringly recreate the implicit sensations of fear, insecurity, and danger that were such tangible realities at the time. Through the many anonymous voices that participated in his circulating artworks, Meireles managed to generate a counterpropaganda circuit for messages that gave voice to opposition to the military regime; through his evocative installations and interventions in space he was able to directly denounce the climate of intimidation that dominated the times as well. In the face of this situation, he created art that ignited a spark while at the same time allowing him to fade away into a web of clandestine messages.

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Conclusion: Opening the Wounds, Longing for Closure

During the Brazilian dictatorship more than 50,000 people were sent to jail, and over 400 died or disappeared, according to the Dossiê ditadura: Mortos e desaparecidos políticos no Brasil (1964–1985) (Dossier Dictatorship: Political Deaths and Disappearances in Brazil [1964–1985]), an ongoing project organized by the families of the victims of the military regime.1 Nothing can be more appalling and repulsive than the stories told by the relatives of the victims and by the witnesses of the violence imposed on those who were considered political opponents of the regime. It was truly the harshest period in modern Brazilian history, a time of untold fears and unspeakable horrors. So while the works of art discussed in this book came out of a genuine desire to resist, provoke, or denounce the regime, it would be absurd to credit the dictatorship with having had a predominantly stimulating effect on the artistic production of the time. There is no telling what buds of artistic ingenuity might have blossomed if not for the fear of repression, or what international trends might have been adopted and made great if not for the country’s seclusion under military rule. The artists discussed in this book harnessed their creativity and ingenuity to address the repressive policies of the regime, but their creativity did not come out of the regime itself—they

created neither because of the regime nor despite it, yet their art was inevitably, inextricably linked to its gruesome realities. Any discussion of the period’s artistic production, however, must be clear: regardless of the important cultural output that may have arisen during the military dictatorship, it was a bleak time. Although not directly victimized by the dictatorship, Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles lived and worked under a climate of self-­ censorship, created and maintained by a pervasive sense of the imminent threat of persecution by the regime. As the art critic Mário Pedrosa pointed out, there were no clear rules established on the exercise of censorship of the visual arts.2 Although they used their art to criticize the dictatorship—and one could reasonably argue that their irreverence and shock value did invite some level of reflection on the country’s repressive situation—the impact of their actions and works on the eventual fall of the military regime was probably inconsequential. At the end of the day, the government dismissed them as insignificant and irrelevant, no more than anarchic jesters, and much of the mainstream public was unaware of their attempts at transgression. In a way this helped to protect them from the dire, often tragic reprisals the regime imposed on perceived enemies with more overt and visible political agendas. Other, comparatively conspicuous, art forms like theater and music were more carefully monitored by the regime, and several writers and performers were doomed to imprisonment or exile. The artists discussed in this book were interested in furthering new forms of expression, yet theirs was not an art based in academic theory or on dry verbal discourse; at the heart of each artist’s oeuvre was a focus on strong visuality. In their adoption of global trends they created not derivations or replicas of their North American or European counterparts, but highly individualistic, local responses to the dilemmas imposed by the military dictatorship. Living under a military regime that did not represent them at all, these artists rejected the notion of officially representing their country in art exhibitions abroad. In pursuit of new languages and innovative modes of representation, Manuel, Barrio, and Meireles each created work that was rooted in strong visual investigations yet also referenced the Brazilian political context of the time, including its particularities and complexities. Following the model of the artist as instigator or proposer of ideas, rather than as creator of finished art objects, they were intuitively attuned to the latest developments in the international arena and challenged traditional modes of production. They 148 C O N C L U S I O N

drew on these practices to imaginatively and critically address the political circumstances of the country, always emphasizing the importance of form as much as ideas. They created a new hybrid art that, as has been discussed throughout this book, was difficult to define within existing terminologies. Manuel’s work was viewed as sharing similarities with body art and media-­based art. Barrio’s work could be interpreted as adhering to the trend toward de­ materialization in the visual arts, which aimed for the ultimate elimination of the work of art. From his earliest works, Meireles has been inserted into the milieu of conceptual art, despite the fact that he departed significantly from the way the movement was understood by the North American and European canon. To use an expression coined by the curator Gerardo Mosquera, these artists were interested in making “international art in a Brazilian way.”3 At times the three artists were invested in discussing issues of authenticity and proposing alternatives to hegemonic European and North American models, as in Barrio’s “Manifesto” arguing for an art for the third world based on inexpensive materials. The same principles came into play in Frederico Morais’s quasi-­manifesto “Barbarians of a New Race,” in which the art critic and curator also advocated for an intrinsically visceral art in stark opposition to the technological approach coming from the dominant centers of artistic production. Their reaction against the Brazilian dictatorship assumed many forms. It could be fun and irreverent, as when Manuel took off his clothes at an art opening at the mam/rj. It could be violent and visceral, as in Barrio’s trouxas ensanguentadas, or subtle and conceptual, as with Meireles’s merging of history and language in the series Inserções em circuitos ideológicos. Isolated, sometimes severe incidents of censorship occurred, but officially the Brazilian dictatorship had no interest in determining any specific parameters for the visual arts. Ironically, this undefined, unpredictable surveillance created an aura of fearful uncertainty that forced artists to innovate and as a result directly led to the creation of some of the most invigorating artistic forms in decades. Apart from their obvious stylistic and artistic strategies, Manuel, Barrio, and Meireles also varied dramatically in how they approached issues of preservation and commodification—absorption by the art market and arts institutions—of their works. Barrio, for instance, insisted that the process of decay and erosion was integral to his works and aimed for their ultimate anO P E N I N G T H E W O U N D S 149

nihilation. Manuel, by contrast, expressly transformed his ephemeral action of public nudity into a permanent work of art with the installation Corpobra (1970). Meireles understood the historic importance of his work and embraced its survival, along with the repurposing and revision that become inevitable as a work lives on in history.

The End of the ai-­5 and Pandora’s Box The ai-­5 lasted for a period of ten years, and at midnight on 31 December 1978 President Ernesto Geisel officially declared its expiration, concluding a decade of censorship and systemized repression. For the first time in years Brazilian citizens enjoyed the right of habeas corpus and the legislative and the judiciary powers were no longer subordinated to the executive command. Yet when the time of its demise finally arrived, the matter received little attention in the media and elsewhere. The political situation was already in the process of changing, and there was a movement toward the abertura politica (political distension), which led the country into democracy in 1985. Under pressure from civil society, the shift from the hard-­line edge of the regime into the political détente was already an indelible fact. The transition to a democratic regime was done “slowly, gradually, and securely,” as it had been announced and orchestrated by its executor, President Geisel. The process was not finished until 1985, when the military regime was finally removed from power. According to the journalist Elio Gaspari, the Brazilian dictatorship ended for three main reasons: the decision of President Geisel and his military assessor, Gen. Golbery do Couto e Silva, to dismantle it; the elections for the Brazilian Senate in 1974, in which the opposition won seventeen of the twenty-­two seats; and the decision of the United States to dissociate itself from military regimes in Latin America following the inauguration in 1977 of President Jimmy Carter, whose foreign policy had a human rights focus.4 In the cultural sphere, this process opened old wounds that until that point had been shielded from public view. The most heated and controversial debate in the media those days revolved around the Patrulhas Ideológicas (Ideological Patrols), a term coined by the Cinema Novo filmmaker Carlos Diegues to expose artists and intellectuals associated with either the Communist Party or the liberal left who wanted to impose an unofficial censorship on the arts, an implicit straightjacket on the country’s cultural production.5 These groups demanded a politically engaged attitude that, in the 150 C O N C L U S I O N

view of Diegues and other Brazilian intellectuals and artists, was even more repressive and controlling than that of the military dictatorship. When the conservative newspaper O Estado de São Paulo published an interview with Diegues on 31 August 1978 the story received considerably more attention in the cultural and intellectual circles than a news headline exactly four months later announcing the already predictable expiration of ai-5. If one considers that the decade began with the Brazilian literary critic Roberto Schwarz’s celebrated essay “Culture and Politics in Brazil, 1964– 1969” (1970), which argued that, in spite of the reactionary military dictatorship, the left dominated the cultural sphere, its conclusion came with Diegues’s polemical interview, in which he challenged the widespread belief that the left was unified, instead positing that it was overtly split. It was as if the time had arrived to open up the wounds, to say what could not have been said before. In the absence of a common enemy, the military dictatorship, to unite them, the left became plagued by intricate infighting among its many and divergent factions. It was time to revise other pervasive myths as well. Despite the prevalent notion that the dictatorship, specifically the ai-­5 and its concomitant censorship, had created a vacuum of artistic endeavors—the so-­called vazio cultural (cultural emptiness) first described in the magazine Visão in July 1971—there was in fact robust artistic production during the dictatorship.6 The Brazilian artistic community emerged from the period of the regime with a reinvigoration paradoxically born of the stagnant policies of a repressive regime. In 1968 the question dominating cultural discourse in Brazil was one of artistic involvement in political issues: Did artists and intellectuals have a duty to engage in socially or politically motivated art? Ten years later, this same discussion seemed far away and moreover impracticable. The ties of artists and intellectuals with the masses had been cut by the military regime, the cultural production of the orthodox left had failed, and the involvement of institutional powers in some cultural sectors (especially in cinema, which received lavish governmental resources) was infamous. Among artists there was a strong desire to resist political intimidation and interference, whether from the left or from the right, and artistic autonomy became prized and fiercely defended in the intellectual milieu. Upon the first direct elections for the presidency in 1989, the act that marked the official reestablishment of democracy in the country, artists began to deal less with political issues and more with the politics of the arts. There was a great proclivity to leave the past behind and to forget issues reO P E N I N G T H E W O U N D S 151

lated to the politics of repression, now considered as outmoded as the dictatorship itself. The artists discussed here did not strive to be activists and were by no means interested in the stereotype of Latin American artists as politically engaged. One of the main obstacles I faced in embarking upon this project was to convince those involved that there was something interesting, fresh, and timely about the visual arts produced under the dictatorship. Many visual artists wish to disassociate their practices from the narrow parameters of so-­called political art, a label so frequently assigned to social trends favoring ideology to the detriment of aesthetics. In recent decades there has arisen a certain reluctance to being connected to the defunct dictatorship; the military regime looks moldy and musty, a moment in the past better buried and forgotten. When I started this project, few materials about the period I discuss were available. As more exhibitions on the subject are organized, as new books about the period surface, these artists’ relevance to contemporary practices will be ever more evident.7 In recent years Luis Camnitzer’s Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation (2007) has became a landmark in the field for its broad, sound information and analysis; yet an in-­depth assessment of the relationship between Brazilian art during the dictatorship and contemporaneous artistic practices in other Latin American countries remains to be completed. Because Brazil is the only Portuguese-­speaking country on the continent, its artistic production is often seen as being isolated from that of the rest of Latin America. Brazil was not the only country ruled by a military regime in the 1960s and 1970s. During the period covered here, at least five other countries in South America fell under military dictatorships at some point: Argentina (1966–73/1976–83), Chile (1973–89), Paraguay (1958–89), Peru (1968–80), and Uruguay (1973–84). In some of these countries art was used as a political tool to undermine the repressive practices of the military regimes. In Argentina, for instance, the collective event “Tucumán Arde” rejected aesthetics in favor of political action, appropriating the existing structure of mass media in order to produce politically based works of art. Street actions undertaken in Chile by the group Colectivo de Acciones de Arte (cada) attempted to reclaim the public space after the coup d’état by Gen. Augusto Pinochet in September 1973.8 The cada movement was active mostly between 1975 and 1980, later than the period in question here, yet many parallels can be drawn between the artistic reactions to the Brazilian and Chilean military dictatorships. In Mexico, the 152 C O N C L U S I O N

government reacted with brutal force against a student movement in 1968. Coming on the heels of this opposition, the collective groups had a strong presence in the country’s art scene, intermingling art and politics. As this historical moment passed, the three artists discussed here abandoned their politically oriented art, moving in other directions. Their contribution to the period is invaluable, but, importantly, each is still actively producing art and contributing to the current cultural discourse. In the past three decades Manuel has created abstract geometric canvases, such as the painting On the Hand (2006) (see plate 16), that have the same formal structure as his interventions in the newspaper pages (Flans) in the late 1960s but now are devoid of political or social content. Barrio continues his artistic practice, experimenting with sensorial and ephemeral elements, employing perishable, decaying, and decomposing materials, and creating his own logic inside the apparent chaos of his art. Meireles’s work has become internationally acclaimed and continues to carry a subtle, sharp, and conceptual tone reminiscent of his pieces from the late 1960s and early 1970s, only less overtly political.9 Without being part of a cohesive movement, not issuing a common manifesto, not always showing in the same exhibitions, and engaging with disparate artistic mediums and styles, Manuel, Barrio, and Meireles constructed an exciting and lively visual language under the bleak military regime. Their actions were more mundane than heroic. They were not the martyrs of their generation: they did not take up arms, were not exiled, sent to jail, tortured, or even consistently persecuted. If anything, they were antiheroes, pariahs, jesters, and dreamers, the marginal figures most readily cast off by history. They did what they were inclined to do in their utopian wish to confront the military regime. It is impossible to measure the success or failure of their actions. Likewise it is impossible to deny these endeavors’ value as part of a crucial historical moment in Brazil—a moment in which radical innovations in the visual arts faced the brutality of a regime that wanted to impose a set of rules without defining what they entailed. In view of the absurdity and senselessness of the situation, these artists had to move quickly and reflexively, devising new strategies for creating a lasting art while leaving as few vestiges as possible in order to avoid persecution. Their actions were a pointed response to a repressive political and local situation that fortunately is long gone. But what might have been merely circumstantial emerges as a vivid testament to the resilient nature of the creative impulse, a defiant and provocative art created under the Brazilian ­dictatorship. O P E N I N G T H E W O U N D S 153

APPENDIX 1

Dossier “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo”

Read at the Paris City Museum of Modern Art (16 June 1969).1 I am going to stand up here as a living witness against the São Paulo Biennial this year because it is completely dominated by the ridiculous rules imposed by the Brazilian fascist regime. The Brazilian artists, among the most gifted, don’t have the opportunity to participate freely or, better yet, are under strong censorship that forbids everything that might challenge the regime or the morals of the Brazilian people. For example, all erotic art as well as everything that might be considered subversive or criminal. And in order to monitor these artworks, there is a censor, probably a military officer, who is part of the juries. Even if this is not the case, I can witness and affirm here that I am in 1. The dossier “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo” read during the meeting at the Paris City Museum of Modern Art on June 16, 1969, was translated by the author from the original document in French and edited by Susan Rogers, professor of anthropology and French studies at New York University, New York. It is from the private archives of Frederico Morais, who gave the author permission to disclose it. The original French document is in the hand of the author, New York City.

total solidarity with my friends and colleagues who suffer directly from this oppressive situation that has been imposed on us Brazilians. These reasons are sufficient enough to understand that a country like France should not participate in a situation like this. French art and culture have always been exemplars of freedom and intellectual power. How can we submit ourselves to these lamentable conditions? After the majority of a group, chosen by Mr. Gassiot-­Talabot, refused to participate, it became completely immoral and absurd not to respect this decision and furthermore to consider another group of artists to replace the first one without any further discussion. If this were to occur, we would not only reinforce the fascist censorship, but also transform the French artists into objects that can be unscrupulously manipulated. Not respecting the decision of the first group that was selected is an irresponsible act that reinforces the Brazilian fascist regime, which imposes censorship and oppression upon those who live there and who are condemned to silence today. I want to witness here that any French artist who participates in this biennial does a disservice that cannot be repaired. They will miss the chance to combat the inhuman conditions established in Brazil, especially after December 1968. They will contribute to the prosperity of the blind ideas of fascism in a country marked by underdevelopment, in a country that needs free and intelligent spirits to escape a total disaster. After some time the feelings will be totally destroyed and we will fear a terrible future for Brazil. So, why does France not refuse to participate?

Brazil 1969, Partial Dossier on the Repression of the Biennial All the Brazilian intelligentsia is today suffering from the repression of the regime that threatens professors, artists, journalists, students, composers, popular singers, and the clergy. The police brutality, instead of vanishing after the establishment of the regime that carried out the coup d’état in 1964, only increased its hatred toward the intelligentsia. Some of the facts related to the repression are already known in Europe. Nevertheless, a succession of arbitrary decrees and of violence committed by the regime after its reinforcement in December 1968 made the work of the European newspapers difficult, because it is harder to record the acts committed by the military dictatorship after their ascension to power. The facts exposed below are limited to the attacks against intellectuals 156 A P P E N D I X

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and artists. A complete dossier has still to be compiled, but the facts exposed here are sufficient to demonstrate that participation in an international event in Brazil, such as the São Paulo Biennial, would mean supporting the obscure political measures taken by the military regime.

Closure of the National Biennial of Bahia Owing to the total censorship, no report on the closure of the National Biennial of Bahia appeared in the Brazilian press. Nevertheless, through witnesses we know that it was closed the same day it opened to the public because of superior orders made in the presence of local authorities. Three works of art were burned, and sixteen were confiscated. The organizers and some artists who participated were imprisoned and subjected to a military inquiry. Later, the biennial was reopened once the works of art considered subversive or immoral were excluded from it. For ten days the people of Bahia spontaneously refused to visit the biennial.

Closure of the Modern Art Salon of Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais This Salon was closed because of the presence of works of art considered immoral and subversive.

Banning of the Brazilian Delegation to the VI Youth Paris Biennial, 1969 The group of painters, sculptors, engravers, photographers, and musicians chosen to represent Brazil at the VI Youth Paris Biennial is not going to participate in the event by an order from the cultural department of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The exhibition of works that were going to Paris, scheduled to take place at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, was closed, and the works were prohibited from being shipped out of the country. Reason: A photograph by Evandro Teixeira concerning the student movement, and a serigraphy by Antonio Manuel about the same subject. These works were considered subversive and prejudicial to the regime.

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Memorandum The Secretary of the São Paulo Biennial sent out a letter asking the commissaries to avoid sending immoral or subversive works of art.

Repression Concerning Politicians, Intellectuals, and Artists The Institutional Act #5, enacted December 13, 1968, put in place the suspension of civil and political rights of 107 intellectuals, artists, and politicians: fifteen national congressmen, fifty-­nine provincial congressmen, nine mayors, eleven diplomats, and sixty-­ seven university professors. Among these were the painter Abelardo Zaluar; the art critic Mário Barata; the painter Quirino Capofiorino; the architect João Batista Artigas, professor of the University of São Paulo, and his colleagues the physicist and art critic Mário Schenberg, the physicists José Leite Lopes and Jaime Tiemme, the sociologists Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Florestan Fernandez, and Otávio Ianni, the historians Caio Prado Jr., Maria Yeda Linhares, and Guy de Holanda; and the journalist and writer Antônio Callado. In the meantime, the following singers and composers were imprisoned or were being prosecuted: Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Geraldo Vandré. All the directors of the newspaper Correio da Manhã were arrested, including Ms. Niomar Moniz Sodré Bittencourt, Osvaldo Peralva, Edmundo Moniz, and Hélio C. de Almeida. The same happened to Mr. Sete Camara, director of Jornal do Brasil, and the filmmaker Joaquim Pedro de Andrade. Many students were sent to prison, among them Wladimir Palmeira, who was accused of a crime carrying a sixteen-­year prison sentence. The list is very long and certainly not as meaningful to the French public as it is to the Brazilians. A huge number of other professors and artists have received the same treatment after the coup d’état on March 1964. The essential point is that all these exceptional measures are part of a general political program that degrades people based on a series of institutional acts, the last of which dates from Friday, December 13, 1968, with the closure of Congress, banning of newspapers, closure of universities, prosecution of professors, and allegedly justified takeover of the unions and prosecution of its leaders, priests, etc., etc., etc. . . . note finally that the news concerning all political or cultural activity cannot be disclosed in the press without government ­approval. June 16, 1969. 158 A P P E N D I X

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APPENDIX 2

Chronology of Exhibitions

1963 Otra Figuración (New Figuration), Bonino Gallery, Rio de Janeiro

1965 Opinião 65 (Opinion 65), Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro (12 August–12 September)

1966 Supermercado 66 (Supermarket 66), Relevo Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (April) Opinião 66 (Opinion 66), Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro (August) Pare (Stop), G-­4 Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (December)

1967 Bandeiras na Praça (Flags in the Plaza), São Paulo

Nova Objetividade Brasileira (New Brazilian Objectivity), Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro (6–30 April) IV Salão de Arte Moderna de Brasília (IV Modern Art Salon of Brasilia), Brasília (December)

1968 Bandeiras na Praça (Flags in the Plaza), Praça General Osório, Rio de Janeiro III Salão de Ouro Preto (III Salon of Ouro Preto), Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais Arte no Aterro—Um mês de arte pública (Art in Aterro—A Month of Public Art), Aterro do Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro (6–28 July) II Bienal Nacional da Bahia (II National Biennial of Bahia), Convento da Lapa, Salvador, Bahia (December) Tucumán Arde (Tucumán is Burning), Buenos Aires and Rosário (November)

1969 I Salão do Museu de Arte da Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte (I Salon of the Art Museum of City Hall of Belo Horizonte), Minas Gerais Pré-­Bienal de Paris (Pre-­Paris Biennial), Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro (29 May) VI Biennale de Jeunes Artistes de Paris (VI Youth Paris Biennial), Paris City Museum of Modern Art, Paris (September–November) X Bienal de São Paulo (X São Paulo Biennial), Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo (September–December) Salão da Bússola (Compass Salon), Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro (5 November)

1970 Do Corpo à Terra (From the Body to the Earth), Municipal Park of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais (17–21 April) XIX Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna (XIX National Salon of Modern Art), Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro (May) Agnus Dei, Petite Galerie, Rio de Janeiro. Series of three exhibitions by Thereza

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Simões (26–29 June), Guilherme Magalhães Vaz (30 June–7 July), and Cildo Meireles (8–17 July) Information, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2 July–20 September) A Nova Crítica (The New Criticism), Petite Galerie, Rio de Janeiro (18 July)

1973 Exposição de Antonio Manuel—De 0 à 24 Horas (Exhibition of Antonio Manuel— From 0 to 24 Hours), Sunday Arts Leisure Supplement, O Jornal (Rio de Janeiro), 15 July IV Salão Global de Inverno (IV Global Winter Salon), Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais

1979 O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux (The Sermon on the Mount: Fiat Lux), Cândido Mendes Gallery, Rio de Janeiro (25 April). Project conceived by Cildo Meireles in 1973

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Notes

Introduction 1. Boris Fausto, A Concise History of Brazil, trans. Arthur Brakel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 283. 2. See Marcelo Ridente, Em Busca do Povo Brasileiro: artistas da revolução, do cpc à era da tv (Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2000). 3. Zuenir Ventura, 1968: O ano que não terminou (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1988) gives a broad account of the repression of the student movement, censorship of the press, and the aggressive actions taken against actors, filmmakers, singers, and composers. Luiz Carlos Maciel, Geração em transe: memórias do tempo do tropicalismo (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 1996) focuses on theater, cinema, and music. Heloísa Buarque de Hollanda, Impressões de Viagem: cpc, Vanguarda e Desbunde: 1960/70 (Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 1992) takes into consideration the developments in marginal poetry and literature at the time, especially its relationship to the countercultural movement of the 1960s. Christopher Dunn, Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001) focuses on the countercultural musical movement Tropicália, from the late 1960s. 4. In São Paulo, the short-­lived Grupo Rex (June 1966–May 1967), composed of the artists Geraldo de Barros, Carlos Fajardo, Wesley Duke Lee, Nelson Leirner, Frederico Nasser, and José Resende, was also interested in creating new strategies to question

the art circuit in Brazil. See Fernanda Lopes, A Experiência Rex: “Éramos o time do Rei ” (São Paulo: Alameda, 2009). 5. Roberto Schwarz, “Cultura e Política, 1964–1969,” in O Pai de Família e outros estudos (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1978). Reprinted in Cultura e Política (São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2001). According to Schwarz, the people who were in contact with the workers, peasants, mariners, and soldiers were the ones tortured and imprisoned by the regime. After the ties between the cultural movements and the masses were cut, the government of Gen. Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco (1964–67) did not forbid the circulation of the ideas of the left, which continued to flourish under the dictatorship. 6. Elio Gaspari, interview by author, 30 July 2003, São Paulo. A comprehensive account of the political events in Brazil under the military dictatorship can be found in Gaspari’s four-­book series about the period, A Ditadura Escancarada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002), A Ditadura Envergonhada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002), A Ditadura Derrotada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2003), and A Ditadura Encurralada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2004). 7. Elio Gaspari, A Ditadura Envergonhada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002), 282. 8. For more details on the Passeata dos 100,000, see Zuenir Ventura, 1968, 155–65. 9. Ibid., 239–55. 10. See Daniel Aarão Reis, Marcelo Ridenti, Rodrigo Patto Sá Motta, eds., O Golpe e a ditadura militar: quarenta anos depois (1964–2004) (São Paulo: edusc, 2004), 23. 11. John Womack, interview with the author, 17 December 2008, Cambridge, Mass. Womack is the former Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics at Harvard University. 12. Hélio Oiticica, “Esquema geral da nova objetividade,” in Nova Objetividade Brasileira (New Brazilian Objectivity) exhibition catalogue (Rio de Janeiro: Museu de Arte Moderna, 1967). Reprinted in English as “General Scheme of the New Objectivity” in Guy Brett et al., Hélio Oiticica (Rotterdam: Witte de With, 1993; Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1992), 110–20, and in Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson, eds., Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology (Cambridge: mit Press, 1999), 40–42.

1. “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo” 1. A few days before the meeting, on 10 June, 1969, Hélio Oiticica addressed a letter to the French representation committee of the X São Paulo Biennial urging France not to participate in the biennial. He wrote, “I want to testify and say, here, that anyone, any French artist that is envolved [sic] in this representation in this Bienn[i]al, is doing a harm that nothing can repair; he is taking or holding back the chance of many oppressed artists, to win such an inhuman condition established in Brazil, mainly after last December; he is contributing to the prosperity of blind fascist ideas and ideals, in a country rotten by underdevelopment, in a country in need of intelligent

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minds in work to save it from total disaster” (doc. 0441/69; aho/pho Projeto Hélio Oiticica, Rio de Janeiro). 2. The dossier “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo” was translated by the author from the original document in French and edited by Susan Rogers, a professor of anthropology and French studies, New York University, New York. Transcript in the possession of the author, New York City. 3. Max Bill had had a monographic exhibition at the mam/sp in 1950, a year before he received the first prize at the inaugural São Paulo Biennial. In 1953 Bill returned to Brazil to give lectures at the Department of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo and at the mam/rj. 4. The geometric abstract movement received official designation on 9 December 1952 with the opening of the exhibition Ruptura at mam/sp. Grupo Ruptura roundly dismissed informal abstraction as romantic and emotional and favored a rational art based on clear and universal principles. 5. The term “Concrete art” was coined in 1930 by the Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg and was first used in the title of the review he founded, Art Concret. In 1956 the first National Exhibition of Concrete Art in Brazil took place at mam/sp, bringing together Concrete artists from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. 6. The “Neoconcrete Manifesto” was published in the Sunday supplement of Jornal do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro) on 21–22 March 1959 on the occasion of the first Neoconcrete exhibition. Written by Gullar and signed by Amilcar de Castro, Lygia Clark, Reynaldo Jardim, Lygia Pape, Theon Spanudis, and Franz Weissmann. 7. Ferreira Gullar’s “Teoria do não-­objeto” (Theory of the Non-­Object) was published in the Sunday supplement of Jornal do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro) 19–20 December 1959. 8. Gullar’s idea was to place explosives behind or within all the works in the exhibition. People would view the works until 6:00 p.m., when they would be asked to leave the gallery so that the exhibition could be dramatically destroyed. Oiticica was not interested in Gullar’s proposition. Sadly, on 17 October 2009 a fire destroyed great part of Oiticica’s estate, housed at the residence of the artist’s brother, César Oiticica, in the neighborhood of Jardim Botânico in Rio de Janeiro. 9. In his polemical Cultura posta em questão, written in 1963 and published a year later (São Paulo: Civilização Brasileira), Gullar puts his finger on a crucial issue: “Can the vanguard in a developed country necessarily be the same one as in an underdeveloped country?” See Ferreira Gullar, Cultura posta em questão, Vanguarda e subdesenvolvimento: Ensaios sobre arte (Rio de Janeiro: Editora José Olympio, 2002), 185. Originally published in 1969. 10. The IV São Paulo Biennial in 1967 also included a retrospective of Edward Hopper, which made the strongest impression on Manuel. Antonio Manuel, interview with the author, 26 July 2003, Rio de Janeiro. 11. The term “Pop art” was coined by the English art critic Lawrence Alloway in 1954.

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12. IX Bienal de São Paulo, exhibition catalogue (São Paulo: Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, September–December 1967), unpaginated. In a telephone interview with the author (6 July 2004), Antonio Manuel recalled that he had seen Warhol’s Saturday Disaster (1964) at the 1967 São Paulo Biennial. 13. Andy Warhol: Death and Disasters, exhibition catalogue (Houston: Menil Collection and Houston Fine Art Press, 1988). 14. See Thomas Crow, “Saturday Disasters: Trace and Reference in Early Warhol,” in Andy Warhol, ed. Annette Michelson, 58 (Cambridge: mit Press, 2001). Originally published in Thomas Crow, Modern Art in the Common Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). 15. Antonio Manuel participated in the 1967 São Paulo Biennial, his first, with five drawings, winning an acquisition prize for a drawing in India ink on newspaper. He would not participate again until thirty years later, in the twenty-­fourth São Paulo Biennial in 1998 curated by Paulo Herkenhoff. 16. Zuenir Ventura, 1968: O ano que não terminou (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira, 1988), 287–88. 17. Ibid, 288–89. 18. Le Monde (Paris),“Les dix commandements,” 14 January 1969. 19. Elio Gaspari, interview with the author, 30 July 2003, São Paulo. 20. Ferreira Gullar left Brazil and lived in exile in Moscow, Chile, Peru, and Argentina, returning to Brazil in 1977. Gullar was exiled in 1970. Visual artists who left Brazil during the dictatorship included Rubens Gerchman, who in 1967 got a travel fellowship from the National Salon of Modern Art and moved to New York, where he stayed until 1973; and Antonio Dias, who left to study in Paris for six months in 1965 after receiving the prize for painting at the IV Paris Biennial and living there until 1968, when he moved to Milan. 21. Frederico Morais, “O que deixamos de ver e debater em dez anos,” O Globo (Rio de Janeiro), 17 August 1978. 22. A year later the event “Flags in the Square” was reprised in a public square in Rio de Janeiro (Praça General Osório in Ipanema) with no major incident with the police. Nelson Leirner showed the same flags as in São Paulo and was joined by Cláudio Tozzi, who created a banner displaying an image of Che Guevara. Samuel Szpigel created a banner saying, “Vote for Tomé de Souza for Governor General” (1965). This was an ironic statement: there were no elections in Brazil under the military regime, and Tomé de Souza, the first governor general of Brazil (from 1549 to 1553, when the country was still a Portuguese colony), had long since been dead. 23. Military officers also wanted to remove the paintings Um bilhão de dólares (One Billion Dollars) and Só (Alone) by Rubens Gerchman, and Ele (He) by José Roberto Aguillar, from the IV Modern Art Salon of Brasília. 24. The jury of the IV Modern Art Salon of Brasília consisted of the art critics Mário Barata, Frederico Morais, Mário Pedrosa, Clarival Valadares, and Walter Zanini.

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25. Frederico Morais, “Como julgar uma obra de arte: o porco do Leirner,” Diário de Notícias (Rio de Janeiro), 14 January 1968. Excerpts are reprinted in Tadeu Chiarelli, “Which Criterion? Against the Power of Criticism and the Institutions,” in Nelson Leirner: arte e não arte (São Paulo: Galeria Brito Cimino, 2001), 111. 26. Pedrosa’s article “Do porco empalhado, ou os critérios da crítica” was reprinted in Mário Pedrosa-­Mundo, homem, arte em crise, edited by Aracy Amaral (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1975), 231–36. 27. When Fountain (1917) was rejected by a small margin, Duchamp, who sat on the society’s board of directors and also chaired the exhibition’s hanging committee, resigned in protest, followed by the society’s president, Walter C. Arensberg. 28. One hundred thirty-­one artists participated in the II National Biennial of Bahia. According to Morais, the exhibition started with a bad omen: on opening night there was a short circuit and some of the works on view were in the dark and could not be seen by the public. 29. Lúcia Carneiro and Ileana Pradilla, Antonio Manuel: Palavra do artista. Entrevista com Lúcia Carneiro e Ileana Pradilla (Rio de Janeiro: Lacerda, 1999), 17. 30. Ibid. Other salons outside Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo that were also censored by the military regime were the III Ouro Preto Salon, in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais (1968), and the first City Hall Art Museum Salon of Belo Horizonte (1969), also in Minas Gerais. A few engravings were taken from both exhibitions for being considered either subversive or erotic. 31. The rules of the Pre-­Paris Biennial stated that artists should be under thirty-­ five years of age. The following artists were selected to represent Brazil in the VI Youth Paris Biennial: Umberto Spíndola (painting), Carlos Vergara (sculpture), Antonio Manuel (engraving), Evandro Teixeira (photography); a group from the state of Paraná, led by Jaime Lerner, was chosen in the architecture and urbanism category. 32. Paulo Venancio Filho, “Ato/Fato” in Fatos Antonio Manuel, exhibition catalogue (São Paulo: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2007), 24. 33. At the VI Youth Paris Biennial the space dedicated to Brazil was left empty to show that the country’s representation was censored. The only category in which there was participation was architecture and urbanism. The group of architects led by Lerner was considered strikebreakers by their colleagues. See Frederico Morais, Cronologia das Artes Plásticas no Rio de Janeiro, 1816–1994 (Rio de Janeiro: Top Books, 1995), 307–8. 34. Surprisingly, there are no records of the events related to the banning of the Pre-­Paris Biennial in the archives of mam/rj. 35. Statement by Niomar Moniz Sodré Bittencourt, transcript in the possession of the author, New York City. Moniz Sodré (1916–2003) was considered the grande dame of the leftist resistance in Brazil. 36. Carneiro and Pradilla, Palavra do artista, 17. 37. Many of the panels from the series Repressão outra vez—eis o saldo were lost.

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Of the few that were left Manuel owns a complete series of five panels, and another complete series belongs to the collection of João Sattamini in Rio de Janeiro. The collector Gilberto Chateaubriand, also based in Rio de Janeiro, has a few panels from this series. Antonio Manuel, interview with the author, 22 August 2002, Rio de Janeiro. 38. Frederico Morais, ed., Depoimento de uma geração 1969–1970 (Rio de Janeiro: Arte Banerj Gallery, 1986), unpaginated. 39. Statement by Maurício Roberto to the staff of Arte Banerj Gallery (Rio de Janeiro, 14 May 1986), in Morais, Depoimento de uma geração, unpaginated. 40. Eduard de Wilde, Amsterdam, letter to a friend, Paris, 10 June 1969, transcript in the possession of the author, New York City. The letter explains Wilde’s reasons for withdrawing from the X São Paulo Biennial. 41. Pierre Restany, Paris, letter to a Brazilian friend, 21 June 1969, transcript in the possession of the author, New York City. 42. Corriere della Sera (Milan), “Lo Scandalo di San Paolo—La Biennale rischia per la situazione politica del Brasile,” 6 June 1969. 43. Nouvel Observateur (Paris), “Petite histoire d’une sélection,” 23 December 1968. According to this article the French artists chosen to participate in the X São Paulo Biennial were François Arnal, Daniel Buren, Jean Degottex, Richard Demarco, Erró, Jacques Monory, François Morellet, Bernard Rancillac, and Hervé Télémaque. 44. Ibid. The letter in opposition to the X São Paulo Biennial was signed by the French artists François Arnal, Jean Degottex, Jacques Monory, François Morellet, and Bernard Rancillac. 45. In all the consulted primary sources, the term “commissary” is used to refer to the designated curator of a national representation at the early São Paulo biennials. 46. Christiane Duparc, “Une exposition en trompe-­l’oeil,” Nouvel Observateur (Paris), 17 June 1969. The second group of French artists selected to participate in the X São Paulo Biennial included Attila, Pierre Courtin, Luc Delahaye, Jean Dewasne, Marcel Pouget, Charles Semser, and Hugh Weiss. 47. Dossier “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo.” 48. Ibid. 49. Quoted in “Scandalo di San Paolo,” Corriere della Sera (Milan), 1969. 50. Walmir Ayala, “A bienal em questão,” Jornal do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro), 27 September 1969. 51. György Kepes (1906–2001) was a painter, designer, educator, and art theorist. After immigrating to the United States in 1937, he taught design at the New Bauhaus, later the Illinois Institute of Design in Chicago. In 1947 he founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at mit, where he taught until his retirement in 1974. 52. Hans Haacke, New York, letter to György Kepes (Cambridge, Mass., 22 April 1969), transcript in the possession of the author, New York City. This letter was originally written in English but translated into French, which was in a sense the official language spoken by artists and intellectuals in the São Paulo biennials.

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53. The Howard Wise Gallery on 57th Street in New York focused on kinetic art and multimedia works that explored the relationship between art and technology. The gallery was closed in 1970. 54. Statement by Jack Burnham (New York, 20 June 1969), transcript in the possession of the author, New York City. 55. Vassilakis Takis, Paris, letter to Pierre Restany (Paris, 17 January 1969), transcript in the possession of the author, New York City. 56. Grace Glueck, “No Rush for Reservations,” New York Times, 6 July 1969. 57. Ibid. 58. Julia Bryan-­Wilson, Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 178. 59. Ibid, 13. 60. Aracy A. Amaral, Arte e meio artístico: entre a feijoada e o x-­burguer, 1961–1981 (São Paulo: Nobel, 1983), 156. 61. Grace Glueck, “São Paulo Show Loses U.S. Entry,” New York Times,17 July 1969. 62. Amaral, Arte e meio artístico, 157. 63. Twenty-­five Brazilian artists were initially invited to participate in the X São Paulo Biennial, and another five were placed on a substitute list. The official list was announced on 28 May 1969. The twenty-­five artists invited to the X São Paulo Biennial were João Câmara Filho, Willys de Castro, Lygia Clark, Roberto Delamônica, Antonio Dias, Hermelindo Fiaminghi, Rubens Gerchman, Gastão Manuel Henrique, Tomoshige Kusumo, Wesley Duke Lee, Nelson Leirner, Roberto Magalhães, Marcelo Nitsche, Hélio Oiticica, Abraham Palatinik, José Resende, Ione Saldanha, Mira Schendel, Ivan Serpa, Amélia Toledo, Yutaka Toyota, Rubem Valentim, Carlos Vergara, Mary Vieira, and Franz Weissmann. The five substitute artists were Miriam Chiaverini, Humberto Espindola, Avatar Morais, Hisao Ohara, and Vanda Pimentel. 64. Jacques Lassaigne had a long relationship with the São Paulo biennials. At the I São Paulo Biennial, in 1951, he replaced Jean Cassou as the French commissary. The reason for the Brazilian government’s discontent with Lassaigne was that he had sent a telegram protesting the closure of the II National Biennial of Bahia and also had signed a manifesto against the imprisonment of Niomar Moniz Sodré Bittencourt, the publisher of Correio da Manhã. 65. The Italian theoretician Umberto Eco was among the intellectuals who refused to participate in the symposium organized by the X São Paulo Biennial. See Amaral, Arte e meio artístico, 157. 66. The International Association of Art Critics (aica) was founded in 1949 in Paris, under the auspices of unesco, with more than forty countries affiliated with it. 67. Morais, Cronologia das Artes Plásticas, 308. 68. Mário Pedrosa’s “Os deveres do critico de arte na sociedade,” was reprinted in Mário Pedrosa, Política das artes, textos escolhidos I, edited by Otília Arantes (São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 1995), 211–16. 69. The British exhibition, organized by the British Council, had eight sculptures

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by Anthony Caro. Agnaldo Farias, ed., Bienal 50 anos: 1951–2001 (São Paulo: Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, 2001), 148. 70. Andrea Giunta, “Rewriting Modernism: Jorge Romero Brest and the Legitimation of Argentine Art,” Listen, Here, Now! Argentine Art of the 1960s: Writings of the Avant-­Garde, ed. Inés Katzenstein, 78–92 (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2004). 71. The debate on international art criticism counted on the presence of Jiri Kotalik from Czechoslovakia, Lilian Sommerville from England, and Jorge Hernandez Campos from Mexico. 72. Amaral, Arte e meio artístico, 155. 73. Ayala, “A bienal em questão,” Jornal do Brasil, 1969. 74. Luis Enrique Pérez-­Oramas, ed., Léon Ferrari and Mira Schendel: Tangled Alphabets, exhibition catalogue (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2009), 39. 75. Zuenir Ventura’s “O vazio cultural” was first published in Visão (July 1971) and reprinted in Elio Gaspari, Heloísa Buarque de Holanda, and Zuenir Ventura, eds., 70/80 Cultura em Trânsito: Da Repressão à Abertura (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Aeroplano, 2000), 40–51. 76. Ibid., 41.

2. Antonio Manuel 1. The National Salon of Modern Art, organized by the Ministry of Culture and Education, was an annual event with official sponsorship by the state, and the members of the jury were to be approved by the Brazilian government. Its major prize was a two-­year international traveling grant. 2. Marisa Raja Gabaglia, “O incrível Antonio Manuel,” Ultima Hora (Rio de Janeiro), 14 March 1975. 3. Antonio Manuel, interview with the author, 22 August 2002, Rio de Janeiro. 4. Ibid. 5. Hélio Oiticica stated his motto in his essay “Esquema geral da nova objetividade” (General Scheme of the New Objectivity) (1967), in Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson (Cambridge: mit Press, 1999), 42. 6. Ronaldo Brito, “Fluido labirinto” (Fluid Labyrinth), in Antonio Manuel, trans. Paulo Henriques Britto (Rio de Janeiro: Centro Cultural Hélio Oiticica, 1997), 67. 7. Jacob Klintowitz, “O nu no ‘malfadado,’” Tribuna da Imprensa (Rio de Janeiro), 2 June 1970. 8. Ibid. 9. Antônio Bento, “Dada no Salão Moderno,” Última Hora (Rio de Janeiro), 22 May 1970. Bento refers to the sculpture Apolo de Belvedere (ad 340) at the Vatican Museum and to the painting Maja Desnuda (1800) by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes at the Museo del Prado, Spain. 10. Willoughby Sharp, “Body Works,” Avalanche, no. 1 (fall 1970), 14–17. 11. Vito Acconci, “The State of the Art, 1985,” Arts Magazine, no. 59 (summer 1985),

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122. Cited in Amelia Jones, Body Art/Performing the Subject (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 134. 12. Jones, Body Art, 134. 13. Antonio Manuel, Entrevista a Lúcia Carneiro e Ileana Pradilla. Série Palavra do Artista (Rio de Janeiro: Lacerda Ed., 1999). A translation of the interview can be found in Antonio Manuel, ed. Michael Asbury and Garo Keheyan (Cyprus: Pharos Centre for Contemporary Art), 112–13. 14. This statement on Manuel’s intervention was at first just recorded on tape. Much later it was reprinted by Mário Pedrosa in the newspaper A Gazeta (São Paulo), 15 January 1976. The term “the experimental exercise of freedom,” was coined by Pedrosa in his article “A bienal de cá para lá,” written in Cabo Frio (Rio de Janeiro), February 1970; originally published in Ferreira Gullar, Arte Brasileira, Hoje (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1973), 1–64; and republished in Mário Pedrosa-­Mundo, Homem, Arte em Crise, ed. Aracy Amaral (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1986). Also in Mário Pedrosa, Política das Artes: textos escolhidos I, ed. Otília Arantes (São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 1995), 283–84. 15. In reality the decision was not unanimous; three members of the National Commission of Fine Arts did not participate in the meeting because they had disagreed with the measure. 16. This official note by the National Commission of Fine Arts was published in O Globo (Rio de Janeiro), 20 May 1970. 17. Manuel, interview with the author, 26 July 2003, Rio de Janeiro. See Francisco Bittencourt, “Dez anos de experimentaçao,” in Depoimento de uma geração 1969–1970, unpaginated. 18. Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966); Herbert Marcuse, One-­Dimensional Man (1964; repr., Boston: Beacon Press, 1991). 19. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, xvii. 20. Ibid. 21. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Allan Sheridan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975), 25. 22. Ibid. 23. W. J. T. Mitchell, “Wall Labels: Word, Image, and Object in the Work of Robert Morris,” in Robert Morris, The Mind/Body Problem (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1994), 72–73. 24. One of the pieces at Abramović s MoMA retrospective, Imponderabilia, consists of two nude performers facing one another in a doorway. It was originally performed by the artist and her former partner, Ulay, in 1977. Visitors to the show could pass through to the next room by working their way through this living gate. (A few steps away there was an alternate route into the next room; in the original performance, at Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna in Bologna, visitors were required to pass between Marina and Ulay to enter the show.) Abramović also performed a new piece in

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MoMA’s public atrium entitled The Artist Is Present; six days a week, seven hours a day for the duration of the eleven-­week run of the exhibition the artist sat in a plain chair across from an empty chair. Visitors to the museum were invited to sit in a chair facing her and to silently return her gaze for any length of time. An intricate and disciplined routine was designed for her, including the help of personal trainers and spiritual gurus as well as special diets and baths to keep up her stamina and endurance during the exhibition. See Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2010). 25. In what can be seen as her contribution to the debate, Abramović herself reperformed historical works by major artists such as Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, and Valie Export, among others, at her one-­week exhibition Seven Easy Pieces at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in November 2005. 26. MoMA reported paying seventy thousand dollars for an edition of Kiss (2004), a living sculpture that was on loan for the Tino Sehgal exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (January–March 2010). See Carol Kino, “A Rebel Form Gains Favor. Fights Ensue,” New York Times, 14 March 2010. 27. Antonio Manuel, interview with the author, 22 August 2002, Rio de Janeiro. 28. Manuel and Oiticica exchanged letters during the eight years Oiticica lived in New York, from the end of 1970 until 1978. While living in the United States, Oiticica experimented with film and video and developed environmental projects. See Carlos Basualdo, ed., Hélio Oiticica: Quasi-­Cinemas (Cologne: Kölnischer Kunstverein; New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art; and Columbus, Ohio: Wexner Center for the Arts, 2001). 29. Guy Brett et al., Hélio Oiticica (Rotterdam: Witte de With, 1993; Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 1992), 124–26. 30. Caetano Veloso, Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil, trans. Isabel de Sena (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 119. 31. Christopher Dunn, Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 8. 32. Rogério Duarte, from the state of Bahia, was at the center of the Tropicália movement in the late 1960s and 1970s. A multimedia musician, composer, filmmaker, and poet, he is best known for his graphic designs for the covers of Tropicália’s records and for posters advertising Cinema Novo films, including Glauber Rocha’s Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (Black God, White Devil) (1964). 33. Apocalipopótese was part of a bigger event called Arte no Aterro—Um mês de arte pública (Art in Aterro—A Month of Public Art), a series of public art events curated by Morais, which took place in Rio de Janeiro’s Flamengo Park (6–28 July 1968). The name Apocalipopótese was suggested by Rogério Duarte to convey the idea of a “probable object.” A number of artists took part in this event: Roberto Lanari, Antonio Manuel, Lygia Pape, and Jackson Ribeiro to name a few. The event was sponsored by the newspaper O Diário de Notícias (Rio de Janeiro). One of the main attractions of

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Arte no Aterro was an exhibition of sculptures by Jackson Ribeiro located in front of the Japanese Pavilion in Flamengo Park. Parallel to it, very short exhibitions, each only lasting one week in duration, took place inside the Japanese Pavilion. They were by the artists Dileny Campos, Pedro Escosteguy, Miriam Monteiro, Júlio Plaza, Ione Saldanha, and from the group Poem/Process. See Frederico Morais, Cronologia das Artes Plásticas no Rio de Janeiro, 1816–1994 (Rio de Janeiro: Top Books, 1995), 301. 34. Ibid. 35. Hélio Oiticica, Aspiro ao grande labirinto, Luciano Figueiredo, Lygia Pape, and Waly Salomão, eds. (São Paulo: Rocco, 1986), 129. This book is a selection of texts written by Oiticica between 1954 and 1969. 36. Barbara Haskell, “Happenings,” from Blam! Explosion of Pop Minimalism and Performance, 1958–64 (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1984), 31. 37. Ibid. 38. Lygia Pape et al., Lygia Pape (Rio de Janeiro: Funarte, 1983), 46. For a discussion of Lygia Pape’s O ovo (1968), see Lygia Pape: Gávea de Tocaia (São Paulo: Cosac and Naify, 2000), 300–303; and Guy Brett, “Life Strategies: Overview and Selection,” in Russell Ferguson, ed., Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object, 1949–1979 (Los Angeles: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1998), 208. 39. Morais, Artes Plásticas, 301–2. 40. Antonio Manuel, exhibition catalogue (Porto: Fundação Serralves, 2000), 24–25. 41. Ibid, 50. Manuel’s Urnas quentes were mentioned by Oiticica in his essay “Apocalipopótese,” Aspiro ao grande labirinto, 128–30. 42. Hélio Oiticica, “Bases fundamentais para uma definição do Parangolé,” in Opinião 65 (Rio de Janeiro: Museu de Arte Moderna, 1965), unpaginated. Reprinted in English as “Fundamental Bases for the Definition of the Parangolé,” in Brett et al., Hélio Oiticica, 85. 43. Brett et al., Hélio Oiticica, 93. 44. The transcript of Oiticica’s letter to Manuel is in the possession of the author, New York City. This excerpt was translated by the author. 45. Antonio Manuel, interview with the author, 22 August 2002, Rio de Janeiro. Also in Lúcia Carneiro and Ileana Pradilla, Antonio Manuel: Palavra do artista. Entrevista com Lúcia Carneiro e Ileana Pradilla (Rio de Janeiro: Lacerda, 1999). 46. Dunn, Brutality Garden, 149. Originally in Marisa Alvarez Lima, “Marginália: arte e cultura na idade da pedrada,” O Cruzeiro, 14 December 1968. Reprinted in Marisa Alvarez Lima, Marginália: arte e cultura na idade da pedrada (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Aeroplano, 2002), 100. The term Idade da pedrada (Stone-­throwing age) was borrowed from the modernist writer and poet Oswald de Andrade. 47. Dunn, Brutality Garden, 149. See also Alvarez Lima, Marginália, 100. 48. Dunn, Brutality Garden, 149. 49. Frederico Morais, interview by the author, July 22, 2003, Rio de Janeiro. 50. Manuel, e-­mail to the author, 23 November 2009.

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51. The debate at Salão da Bússola was entitled “Communication and Creation in Mass Society.” The panel included the humorist Ziraldo, the art critics Morais and Pedrosa, the poet Décio Pignatari, Oiticica, and the publicist Lindoval de Oliveira. 52. Frederico Morais, ed., Depoimento de uma geração 1969–1970 (Rio de Janeiro: Arte Banerj Gallery, 1986), unpaginated. According to Morais, a few minutes after the bomb went off agents from the dops questioned the writer Paulo Leminsky because he was distributing some pamphlets in support of the Brazilian urban guerrilla leader Carlos Marighella. 53. Antonio Manuel, interview with the author, 26 July 2003, Rio de Janeiro. 54. Morais, Artes Plásticas, 307. 55. An analysis of Manuel’s interventions in Brazilian major newspapers can be found in Edith A. Gibson, “Re-­Aligning Vision: Alternative Currents in South American Drawing,” in Mari Carmen Ramírez, ed., Re-­Aligning Vision: Alternative Currents in South American Drawing (Austin: University of Texas, 1997), 58, 174–75. 56. Antonio Manuel, A arma fálica, graphic project by Luciano Figueiredo (Rio de Janeiro: Rio Arte, 1995). A reproduction of the fotonovela A arma fálica was published in the exhibition catalogue Antonio Manuel: I Want to Act, Not Represent!, Claudia Calirman, Alexandra Garcia, and Gabriela Rangel, eds. (New York and São Paulo: Americas Society; Associação para o Patronato Contemporâneo, 2012). 57. When Antônio de Pádua Chagas Freitas found out about Manuel’s activities in O DIA, he immediately expelled him from the newspaper’s printing room. 58. Carneiro and Pradilla, Palavra do artista, 37. 59. Ibid. 60. See Paulo Venancio Filho, “Ato/Fato,” in Fatos Antonio Manuel, exhibition catalogue (São Paulo: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2007), 15–42. 61. Eduardo Costa, Raúl Escari, and Roberto Jacobi, “A Media Art (Manifesto),” in Oscar Masotta, ed., Happenings (Buenos Aires: Jorge Alvarez, 1967), 119–22. Reprinted in English in Alberro and Stimson, ed., Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology, 2–4. 62. Luis Camnitzer, Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007), 181–82. 63. The Tucumán Arde group included, from Rosario, the artists Graciela Carnevale, Noemí Escandell, Eduardo Favario, Juan Pablo Renzi, among others; and from Buenos Aires artists such as León Ferrari and Roberto Jacoby. See Camnitzer, “Tucumán Arde: Politics in Art,” in Conceptualism in Latin American Art, 60–72. See also Mari Carmen Ramírez, “Tactics for Striving on Adversity: Conceptualism in Latin America, 1960–1980,” in Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950–1980s (New York: Queens Museum of Art, 1999), 66–67. 64. In Rosario the exhibition lasted two weeks, and in Buenos Aires it was closed after two days. See Mariano Mestman and Ana Longoni, “Tucumán Arde: Una Experiencia de Arte de Vanguardia, comunicación y política en los años sesenta,” Causas y Azares, no. 1 (1994), 74–85.

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65. María Teresa Gramuglio and Nicolás Rosa, “Tucuman Burns,” in A Critical Anthology, Alberro and Stimson, eds., 76–79. This manifesto was written collectively by the artists of the group and was first published as a mimeograph entitled “Tucumán Arde, um manifesto” in 1968. 66. Antonio Manuel (Porto: Museu Serralves, 2000), 68. 67. The debate at mam/rj was organized by Duarte, Morais, and Oiticica. 68. Luiz Carlos Saldanha’s imprisonment was not related to political issues. 69. Loucura & Cultura (Madness and Culture) (1973) was awarded best film at the second Jornal do Brasil / inc Short Film Festival and Semi-­ótica (Semiotics) was awarded best social-­anthropological film at the fifth Short Film Festival of Bahia.

3. Artur Barrio 1. Ricardo Basbaum, “Dentro d’água,” in Artur Barrio, ed. Ligia Canongia, trans. Paulo Andrade Leite (Rio de Janeiro: Modo, 2002), 221. 2. Artur Barrio, “CadernosLivros,” in Artur Barrio: A metáfora dos fluxos, 2000–1968 (São Paulo: Paço das Artes; Rio de Janeiro: Museu de Arte Moderna; Bahia: Museu de Arte Moderna de Bahia, 2001), 73. 3. The term “Fluxus” was coined in 1961 by the Lithuanian-­born artist George Maciunas (1931–78) as the title of an anthology compiled by such artists as George Brecht, Al Hansen, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Yoko Ono, Bob Watts, and La Monte Young, among others. 4. Artur Barrio, “Manifesto,” in Canongia, ed., Artur Barrio, 145. 5. Ibid. 6. Glauber Rocha’s manifesto “A Estética da Fome” was first published in Revista Civilização Brasileira, Rio de Janeiro, July 1965. 7. Frederico Morais, “Contra a arte afluente: o corpo é o motor da obra,” Revista Continente Sul-­Sur, January–February 1970, 176–77. 8. Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson, eds., Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology (Cambridge: mit Press, 1999), 40. 9. Artur Barrio, e-­mail to the author, 10 December 2003, transcript in the possession of the author, New York City. 10. Canongia, ed., Artur Barrio, 16. 11. Ibid., 15. 12. Frederico Morais, “O lixo é a arte,” Diário de Notícias (Rio de Janeiro), 25 January 1973. 13. Canongia, ed., Artur Barrio, 146. 14. Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 2, 3, 4. 15. Canongia, ed., Artur Barrio, 146. 16. Ibid.

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17. Barrio was aware of Georges Bataille’s writings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Artur Barrio, e-­mail to the author, 7 July 2004, transcript in the possession of the author, New York City. 18. See Georges Bataille, Ouevres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), 2:217–21. 19. Originally published as L’Erotisme (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1957) and later published as Erotism: Death and Sensuality, trans. Mary Dalwood (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1986). 20. Georges Bataille, “The Use Value of D. A. F. de Sade,” Georges Bataille, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927–1939, ed. and trans. Allan Stoekl (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 91–102. Bataille’s notion of the abject was defined through his theory of “base materialism”—against the authority of idealism, philosophy, and religion over matter—and “utopian transgression,” which he argued was the result of humans’ need to transgress taboo. 21. Frederico Morais, Do Corpo à Terra: Um Marco Radical na Arte Brasileira (Belo Horizonte: Itaú Cultural, 2001), unpaginated. This brochure was published on the occasion of the revival of the historical exhibition Do Corpo à Terra (17–21 April 1970). Organized by Morais for the Itaú Cultural Institute in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, it included such documentary materials as photographs, films, news coverage, and statements based on the 1970 exhibition. He renamed it Do Corpo à Terra: Um Marco Radical na Arte Brasileira (From the Body to the Earth: A Radical Landmark in Brazilian Art). 22. Ibid. 23. Frances Morris, Paris and Post War: Art and Existentialism 1945–55 (London: Tate Gallery, 1993), 89. 24. Ibid., 20. See also André Malraux, “Les otages,” in Les Otages, peintures et sculptures de Fautrier (Paris: René Drouin Gallery, 1945). 25. Parallel to the site-­specific works of art created for the Municipal Park in Belo Horizonte for the exhibition Do Corpo à Terra, Morais also organized another exhibition, Objeto e Participação (Object and Participation), for the newly inaugurated Palace of the Arts in Belo Horizonte. Morais was invited to organize these exhibitions by Mari’Stella Tristão, director of the exhibitions department of Palace of the Arts, Belo Horizonte. 26. From an untitled and unpublished essay written by Frederico Morais, transcript in the possession of the author, New York City. 27. Ibid. 28. Francisco Bittencourt, “Dez anos de experimentação,” in Depoimento de uma geração, 1969–1970, ed. Frederico Morais (Rio de Janeiro: Arte Banerj Gallery, 1968), unpaginated. 29. Statement by Luis Alphonsus Guimarães, in Morais, ed., Depoimento de uma geração 1969–1970, unpaginated. 30. Morais, Do Corpo à Terra, unpaginated. 31. Statement by Thereza Simões, in Morais, ed., Depoimento de uma geração 1969– 1970, unpaginated.

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32. Morais, Do Corpo à Terra, unpaginated. 33. Frederico Morais, “Manifesto Do Corpo à Terra” (Belo Horizonte, 18 April 1970). Morais’s mimeographed manifesto was printed in Mari’Stella Tristão, “A Semana da Vanguard 1,” in O Estado de Minas (Belo Horizonte), 28 April 1970, 5. 34. Morais, “O lixo é a arte,” Diário de Notícias (Rio de Janeiro), 1973. 35. Oiticica’s banner “seja marginal, seja herói” was used as the stage setting at a concert by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil at the nightclub Sucata in Rio de Janeiro (October 1968). An agent for the dops saw it and remarked that instead of “Be an Outlaw, Be a Hero” it should read “Be Studious, Be a Hero.” The banner had to be removed from the show, and the club was shut down. False rumors were spread in the press that Veloso was seen during the show wrapped in the national flag while singing the Brazilian anthem, an act of civil disobedience. This episode contributed to Veloso’s being imprisoned, along with Gil, several months later. The two eventually were exiled from Brazil and went to London in October 1969, staying there until January 1972. 36. Oiticica also created Bólide B44 Bólide caixa 21 (1966–67) using a newspaper photograph of the corpse of the bandit Alcir Figueira da Silva. 37. The painting workshop at Pedro II Psychiatric Center was called Ateliê do Engenho de Dentro. It lasted from 1946 to 1951 and was coordinated by Dr. Nise da Silveira and the artist Almir Mavignier. 38. Mário Pedrosa, Forma e percepção estética, textos escolhidos II, edited by Otília Arantes (São Paulo: Editora Universidade de São Paulo, 1996), 337. 39. Canongia, ed., Artur Barrio, 147. 40. Ibid., 246–47. 41. Barrio, interview with the author, 15 August 2003, Rio de Janeiro. 42. Canongia, ed., Artur Barrio, 146. 43. Ibid., 22. 44. Ibid. Guy Debord’s belief that society could be transformed through the creation of new “situations, constructed encounters and creatively lived moments in specific urban settings, instances of a critically transformed everyday life,” as well as his ideas of revolution as a celebration of the imagination, influential on the events of May 1968 in France. 45. Barrio, “4 Dias 4 Noites,” in Canongia, ed., Artur Barrio, 155–58. 46. Canongia, ed., Artur Barrio, 156. 47. Ibid., 156. 48. Morais, Depoimento de uma geracão, 1969–1970, unpaginated. 49. Statement by Artur Barrio, in Morais, Depoimento de uma geração 1969–1970, unpaginated. 50. Ibid. 51. Morais, interviews with author: 24 November 2001, Rio de Janeiro; 22 July 2003, Rio de Janeiro; and 12 August 2003, Rio de Janeiro. 52. Cécile Dazord, “Génération Tranca-­Ruas” (Barricade Generation),” Cildo Meireles (Strasbourg: Musée d’Art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, 2003), 143.

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53. Francisco Bittencourt, “A Geração Tranca-­Ruas,” Jornal do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro), 9 May 1970. 54. Oswald de Andrade, “Manifesto Antropofágico,” Revista de Antropofagia (São Paulo), no. 1, May 1928. 55. Artists associated with Arte Povera included Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Gilberto Zorio, among others. According to Celant, the movement lasted from 1967 until 1972. 56. Claire Gilman, “Reconsidering Arte Povera,” Arte Povera: Selections from the Sonnabend Collection (New York: Miriam and Ira D. Wallash Art Gallery, Columbia University, 2001). 57. Ibid., 23. 58. Ibid., 151. 59. Germano Celant, “Arte Povera: Appunti per una guerriglia” Flash Art 5 (November/December 1967). The manifesto was launched two months after his exhibition titled Arte Povera e IM Spazio at Galleria La Bertesca in Genoa (September 1967). 60. Ibid. For a discussion of the relationship of art and politics to Arte Povera, see Nicholas Cullinan, “From Vietnam to Fiat-­nam: The Politics of Arte Povera,” October 124 (Massachusetts: mit Press, 2008), 9–30. 61. Frederico Morais’s “Contra a arte afluente: o corpo é o motor da obra” was originally published in Revista Vozes (January–February 1970). Revista Vozes was a bimonthly Catholic publication. This essay was reprinted in Revista Continente Sul-­Sur, ed. Frederico Morais (Porto Alegre: Instituto Estadual do Livro, no. 6, 1997), 169–78. 62. Ibid., 171. 63. Elio Gaspari, A Ditadura Escancarada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002), 472. 64. Boris Fausto, A Concise History of Brazil, trans. Arthur Brakel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 292. 65. Christopher Dunn, Brutality Garden; Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 112. 66. Carlos Zilio, interview with the author, August 2002, Rio de Janeiro. 67. Zilio was exiled in Paris and returned to Brazil in 1978; a year later amnesty was declared for persons who had committed political crimes. 68. Sérgio Ferro admitted his complicity in the bombing of the U.S. consulate in São Paulo in an interview published in the newspaper Folha de São Paulo (18 May 1992). 69. See Marcelo Ridente, Em Busca do Povo Brasileiro: Artistas da revolução, do cpc à era da tv (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, 2000), 207–10. For the experience of the artists’ studio at Tiradentes’s prison, see also Teoria e Debate, no. 27 (December 1994 / January / February 1995) and Alípio Freire et al. (org.), Tiradentes, um presídio da ditadura (São Paulo: Scipione, 1997). 70. Volpini Spalaor’s Penhor da igualdade received a prize at the Salão Global de Inverno in Belo Horizonte, 1976.

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71. Frederico Morais, “Arte e crítica nos tribunais militares,” 1978 (reprinted in Revista Continente Sul-­Sur, 1997, 325). 72. Luis Camnitzer, “The Tupamaros,” Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007), 44–58. 73. Ibid., 53. 74. Ricardo Basbaum, “Artur Barrio: Burning Issues,” Trans>Arts. Cultures. Media, no. 9/10, 224. 75. Canongia, ed., Artur Barrio, 222–23. 76. Morais, “O lixo é a arte,” Diário de Notícias (Rio de Janeiro) 1973. 77. McShine also invited Cildo Meireles, Hélio Oiticica, and Guilherme Magalhães Vaz to participate in Information at MoMA. 78. Canongia, ed., Artur Barri0,153. 79. Ibid., 153. 80. In 2005 an exhibition titled Artur Barrio: Barrio-­Beuys (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent, Belgium) noted this connection, departing from the premise of an imaginary dialogue between Barrio and Beuys. 81. Carin Kuoni, ed., Energy Plan for the Western Man: Joseph Beuys in America (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1990), 19. 82. Carlos Basualdo, “Contra a eloquência: notas sobre Barrio, 1969–1980,” in Canongia, ed., Artur Barrio, 235. 83. Barrio, interview with the author, 4 August 2002, Rio de Janeiro. 84. Ibid. 85. Melissa Sanford, “The Salt of the Earth Sculpture,” New York Times, 13 January 2004. 86. In a review of the exhibition Brazil: Body and Soul at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (19 October 2001–29 May 2002), Michael Kimmelman referred to Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica as the “shamans of Brazilian postwar art.” In “Brazil in All Its Extravagant Glory,” New York Times, 26 October 2001. 87. Basbaum, Trans>Arts. Cultures. Media, 228. 88. Canongia, ed., Artur Barrio, 147. 89. Ibid., 145. 90. Ibid., 148. 91. Ibid., 149. 92. Walmir Ayala, “Manifesto e comentário,” Jornal do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro), 28 January 1970. 93. Ibid. 94. Jacob Klintowitz, “O nu no ‘malfadado,’” Tribuna da Imprensa (Rio de Janeiro), 2 June 1970. 95. Antônio Bento, “Dada no Salão Moderno,” Última Hora (Rio de Janeiro), 22 May 1970. 96. Frederico Morais, “Critérios de julgamento,” Diário de Notícias (Rio de Janeiro), 27 January 1970.

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97. The audiovisual presentation, titled O pão e o sangue de cada um (The Bread and the Blood of Each One) (1970), was part of Morais’s series of exhibitions entitled A Nova Crítica. It contains eighty-­one slides with a voiceover seven minutes in length. The images are by César Carneiro, Luiz Alphonsus Guimarães, and Frederico Morais and the text is by Morais. Frederico Morais, Audiovisuais (São Paulo: Museum of Modern Art, 1973), 5. 98. This quote was taken from Morais, Do Corpo à Terra: Um Marco Radical na Arte Brasileira, unpaginated.

4. Cildo Meireles 1. Nuria Enguita, “Places for Digressions: Interview with Nuria Enguita (1994),” in Cildo Meireles (Valência: IVAM Centre del Carme, 1995), 166. Hereafter referred to as Cildo Meireles (Valência). 2. Cildo Meireles, “Cruzeiro do Sul” (Southern Cross), in Kynaston McShine, ed., Information (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1970), 85. In the same catalogue, Oiticica likewise stated, “I am not here representing brazil [sic]; or representing anything else: the ideas of representing-­representation-­etc. are over.” 3. For a discussion on the relationship of Brasília to the modernization of the country, see James Holston, “The Spirit of Brasília: Modernity as Experiment and Risk,” Brazil: Body and Soul, ed. Edward J. Sullivan (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2001), 540–57. 4. Cildo Meireles, interview with the author, 7 August 2002, Rio de Janeiro. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. “Interview with Cildo Meireles by Hans-­Ulrich Obrist,” Cildo Meireles, exhibition catalogue (Strasbourg: Musée d’Art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg), 163. 8. Cildo Meireles (London), 137. 9. Arte física: Caixas de Brasília/Clareira was made in collaboration with the artists Alfredo Fontes and Guilherme Magalhães Vaz. When looking for a site for Caixas de Brasília/Clareira, Meireles noticed that the city was under surveillance from the television tower situated at its highest point. Every time he found a site to work in, he heard sirens, and the army quickly turned up, as did the fire brigade, which forbade him to ignite a bonfire. 10. Cildo Meireles, Guy Brett, ed., exhibition catalogue (London: Tate Modern, 2008), 48. 11. Cildo Meireles, interview with the author, 7 August 2002, Rio de Janeiro. 12. See Charles Sanders Peirce, The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, ed. Nathan Houser and Christian Kloesel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992). 13. Elio Gaspari, A Ditadura Escancarada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002), 470.

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14. Cildo Meireles, interview with the author, 7 August 2002, Rio de Janeiro. 15. Boris Fausto, A Concise History of Brazil, trans. Arthur Brakel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 61–62. 16. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Allan Sheridan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1975), 32. 17. Gerardo Mosquera, “Gerardo Mosquera in Conversation with Cildo Meireles,” in Cildo Meireles (London), 15. 18. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 8–9. 19. Ibid., 11. 20. Cildo Meireles, telephone interview with the author, 22 April 2004. 21. Gerardo Mosquera, in Cildo Meireles (London), 15. 22. Frederico Morais, interview with the author, 22 July 2003, Rio de Janeiro. 23. Frederico Morais, Do corpo à terra: Um marco radical na arte Brasileira (Belo Horizonte: Itaú Cultural, 26 October 2001–25 January 2002), unpaginated. 24. Meireles could not go to New York to attend the opening of Information because he had to stay in Rio de Janeiro to prepare for Agnus Dei. Oiticica took Meireles’s works to New York. According to Morais, McShine also saw the works by the participating artists at Salão da Bússola in his home in Santa Teresa, Rio de Janeiro. Morais, interview with the author, 24 November 2001, Rio de Janeiro. 25. McShine, Information, 138. Reprinted in Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson (Cambridge: mit Press, 1999). 26. See Julia Bryan-­Wilson, Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). 27. Cildo Meireles, “Inserções em circuitos ideológicos,” in Cildo Meireles (Valência), 98. Originally in Ronaldo Brito and Eudoro Augusto Macieira de Souza, eds., Cildo Meireles (Rio de Janeiro: Funarte, 1981), 24. Hereafter referred to as Cildo Meireles (Rio de Janeiro). 28. Ibid. 29. Cildo Meireles, interview with the author, 7 August 2002, Rio de Janeiro. 30. Ibid. 31. Cildo Meireles, “Artist’s Writings,” in Cildo Meireles (London), 109. 32. Colin Gordon, ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980). 33. Foucault, “Two Lectures,” ibid., 98. 34. Foucault, “Questions on Geography,” ibid., 71. 35. Ibid., 72. 36. Paulo Herkenhoff, “A Labyrinthine Ghetto: The Work of Cildo Meireles,” in Cildo Meireles (London), 50. 37. Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” in Image-­Music-­Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1997), 148. 38. Interview with Cildo Meireles by Frederico Morais, in Cildo Meireles: algum desenho [1963–2005], exhibition catalogue (Rio de Janeiro: Centro Cultural Banco do

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Brasil, 2005), 67. While in New York, from 1971 until 1973, Meireles worked as a velvet painter in a factory and also as a bicycle messenger. 39. Cildo Meireles, “Artist’s Writings,” Cildo Meireles, Geografia do Brasil, ed. Paulo Herkenhoff (Rio de Janeiro: Artviva Produção Cultural, 2001), 86. 40. The term “Conceptual art” was coined by Henry Flynt in 1961. Ever since its emergence and its historical peak from the mid-­1960s to the mid-­1970s the label has generated a range of polemics in the attempt to define its borders. 41. In New York the dematerialization of the work of art was heralded in Lucy Lippard’s Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (New York: Praeger, 1973). 42. Joseph Kosuth “Art after Philosophy, Part I,” Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. Alberro and Stimson, 165. This text was first published in three parts in Studio International 178: 915–17 (October–December 1969), 134–37, 160–61, 212–13. 43. Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, “Conceptual Art 1962–1969: From the Aesthetics of Administration to the Critique of Institutions,” October 55 (winter 1990), 105–43. See also “Joseph Kosuth and Seth Siegelaub Reply to Benjamin Buchloh on Conceptual Art,” October 57 (summer 1991), 152–57, and the follow-­up rebuttal by Buchloh to Kosuth and Siegelaub in October 57 (summer 1991), 158–61. 44. Mari Carmen Ramírez, “Blueprint Circuits: Conceptual Art and Politics in Latin America,” Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. Alberro and Stimson, 557. Originally published in Waldo Rasmussen, ed., Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1993), 156–67. 45. Simón Marchán Fiz, Del arte objetual al arte de concepto, 1960–1974 (Madrid: Ediciones Akal, 1988), 269–71. See also Ramírez, “Blueprint Circuits: Conceptual Art and Politics in Latin America,” in Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology, ed. Alberro and Stimson, 550. 46. Suely Rolnik, “A Shift towards the Unnamable,” in Cildo Meireles (London: Tate Modern, 2008), 136. 47. Luis Camnitzer, Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007), 2. 48. Frederico Morais, Cronologia das Artes Plásticas no Rio de Janeiro, 1816–1994 (Rio de Janeiro: Top Books, 1995), 312. 49. Ibid. Morais was probably aware of Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Author as Producer,” which was originally delivered as an address at the Institute for the Study of Fascism in Paris on 27 April 1934. 50. Frederico Morais, interview with the author, 12 August 2003, Rio de Janeiro. 51. Gerardo Mosquera, in Cildo Meireles (London), 12. 52. See Ronald Brito. Antonio Manuel (Rio de Janeiro: Centro Cultural Hélio Oiticica, 1997), 56. 53. Morais believed that an anonymous call was placed to the police denouncing the presence of this canvas in the exhibition since police cars were parked in front of the gallery.

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54. Malasartes was published by the art critic Ronaldo Brito, the poet Bernardo de Vilhena, and the artists Luis Paulo Bavarelli, Waltércio Caldas, Rubens Gerchman, Cildo Meireles, José Resende, Carlos Vergara, and Carlos Zilio. 55. Joseph Kosuth, “Arte Depois da Filosofia,” trans. Ronaldo Brito, Malasartes, no. 1 (Rio de Janeiro: September–November 1975). 56. Carlos Zilio, A Querela do Brasil-­A questão da identidade na arte brasileira: a obra de Tarsila, Di Cavalcanti e Portinari / 1922–1945 (Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará, 1997). First edition was published in 1982 (Rio de Janeiro: Funarte). 57. Elio Gaspari, A Ditadura Encurralada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2004), 176. 58. Not until 1978 did the Brazilian justice system recognize that Vladimir Herzog was murdered by the state, and in 1987 his family was compensated. 59. Paulo Herkenhoff, “A Labyrinthine Ghetto: The Work of Cildo Meireles,” in Cildo Meireles (London), 50. 60. Cildo Meireles, in Cildo Meireles (London), 112. Originally in Cildo Meireles (Rio de Janeiro), 24. 61. Cildo Meireles, “Artist’s Writings,” in Cildo Meireles (Valência), 174. 62. Cildo Meireles, interview with the author, 6 August 2003, Rio de Janeiro. 63. Ibid. 64. Meireles, in Cildo Meireles (Valência), 173. Originally in Cildo Meireles (Rio de Janeiro), 28. Árvore do dinheiro was first exhibited at Agnus Dei at Petite Galerie in 1970. 65. Frederico Morais, interview with the author, 12 August 2003, Rio de Janeiro. 66. In order to find the matches Meireles went to the Fiat-­Lux factory; ironically, the director of public relations was a retired colonel. 67. Afonso Henrique Ramos Costa, “Mau Gosto,” letter to Jornal do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro), 10 May 1979. 68. Ibid. 69. Ibid. 70. Cildo Meireles, interview with the author, 7 August 2002, Rio de Janeiro. 71. Ibid. 72. Frederico Morais, interview with the author, 12 August 2003, Rio de Janeiro.

Conclusion 1. Dossiê ditadura: Mortos e desaparecidos políticos no Brasil (1964–1985), organized by the Comissão de Familiares de Mortos e Desaparecidos Políticos (Commission of Relatives of the Political Dead and Missing) (São Paulo: Instituto de Estudos sobre a Violência do Estado and Imprensa Oficial do Estado de São Paulo, 2009), 21. Since 1979 this ongoing project has gathered information on the political persecution and crimes committed by the military regime. 2. Luís Rodolpho [Mário Pedrosa], “Os deveres do crítico de arte na sociedade,” Correio da Manhã (Rio de Janeiro), 10 July 1969.

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3. Gerardo Mosquera, “Gerardo Mosquera in conversation with Cildo Meireles,” Cildo Meireles, ed. Paulo Herkenhoff, Gerardo Mosquera, and Dan Cameron (London: Phaidon Press, 1999), 28. 4. Elio Gaspari, “Alice e o Camaleão,” 70/80 Cultura em trânsito: Da repressão à abertura, ed. Elio Gaspari, Heloísa Buarque de Hollanda, and Zuenir Ventura (Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano Editora, 2000), 15. 5. Published on 31 August 1978 in O Estado de São Paulo. Reprinted on 3 September 1978 in Jornal do Brasil. The purpose of Diegues’s interview was to promote the release of his new movie Chuvas de Verão (Summer Showers). His previous feature, Xica da Silva, had been violently attacked in the press as racist, and Diegues feared that his new movie would also be criticized by the intellectual left. 6. Reprinted in 70/80 Cultura em Trânsito, ed. Elio Gaspari, Heloísa Buarque de Hollanda, and Zuenir Ventura, 40–51. 7. Antonio Manuel had an exhibition at the Americas Society (September–December 2011) focusing on his political works from the late 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition entitled Antonio Manuel: I Want to Act, Not Represent! was curated by Claudia Calirman and Gabriela Rangel. A catalogue of the same name of the exhibition was published by the Americas Society; the Associação para o Patronato Contemporâneo, 2012. 8. For a discussion on the Chilean group cada, see Nelly Richard, “Margins and Institutions: Performance of the Chilean Avanzada,” in Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas, ed. Coco Fusco (London: Routledge, 2000), 203–18, and Robert Neustadt, “Chilean Art and Action: Subverting Order, Performing Change,” in Arte ≠ Vida: Actions by Artists of the Americas 1960–2000, ed. Deborah Cullen (New York: El Museo del Barrio, 2008), 162–79. 9. Meireles had a major retrospective at Tate Modern in London from October 2008 to January 2009.

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Index

Italicized page numbers refer to illustrations. Plates appear following page 78. abertura politica (political distension), 150 “Abjection et les formes misérables” (Bataille), 89 Abramović, Marina, 49–50; The Artist is Present, 171–72n24; The House with an Ocean View, 50; Imponderabilia, 171n24; Seven Easy Pieces (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2005), 172n25 Acconci, Vito, 42–43, 172n25; Conversions III (Association, Assistance, Dependence), 42–43, 43 Agnus Dei exhibition (Petite Galerie, Rio de Janeiro, 1970), 123, 125–26, 135–36, 142, 160–61 ai-­5 (Ato Institucional #5, Institutional Act #5), 5–6, 17–18, 35, 99–106, 150–51, 158 Alberro, Alexandre, xiv Aliança Libertadora Nacional, 102

Almeida, Hélio C. de, 158 Amaral, Aracy, 30 Amaral, Tarsila do, 63 “Amostragem da Cultura Loucura-­ Brasileira” (Sampling of Brazilian Culture-­Madness, mam/rj, 1968), 77 “Análise do circuito” (Circuit Analysis, Brito), 139 Andrade, Joaquim Pedro de, 10, 158 Andrade, Oswald de, 100–101 Andrade, Silvio Correa de, 17 animal sacrifice, 74, 121 anos de chumbo (leaden years), 5 Anselmo, Giovanni, 178n55 Antonakos, Stephen, 28 Antonio Manuel: I Want to Act, Not Represent! (Calirman and Rangel), 184n7 antropofagia (cultural cannibalism), 100–101

Apocalipopótese (Rio de Janeiro, 1968, ­Oiticica), 54–57, 172n33 Apollo de Belvedere, 41 Arensberg, Walter C., 167n27 arma fálica, A (The Phallic Weapon, Manuel), 67–68, 69 armas do diálogo, As (The Weapons of Dialogue, Manuel), 65, 66 Art and Language group (England), 132 Art and Technology exhibition (Paris), 25 Artaud, Antonin, 99 “Arte de los Medios” (Costa, Escarí and Jacoby), 72–73 Arte física: Caixas de Brasília/Clareira (Physical Art: Brasília Boxes/Clearing, Meireles), 118, 119, 180n9 Arte física: Cordões/30 km de linha estendidos (Physical Art: Cords/30 km of Extended Line, Meireles), 118–19, 120 Arte no Aterro—Um mês de arte pública (Art in Aterro—A Month of Public Art, Rio de Janeiro, 1968), 160, 172n33 “Arte Povera: Appunti per una guerriglia” (Arte Povera: Notes for a Guerrilla War, Celant), 101–2 Arte Povera movement, 101–2, 178n55 ArtForum magazine (U.S.), 17 Artigas, João Batista, 158 Art in America (magazine), 17 Art Workers’ Coalition, 29, 126 Árvore do dinheiro (Money Tree, Meireles), 142, 143 Ayala, Walmir, 30, 33, 111–12 B33 Bólide caixa 18, Poema caixa 02— “Homenagem a Cara de Cavalo” (B33 Box Bolide 18, Box Poem 02—“Homage to Horse Face,” Oiticica), 95 Bandeiras na Praça (Flags in the Plaza, São Paulo, 1967 and 1968), 19, 159–60 Barata, Mário, 158, 166n24 Barbarians of a New Race (Morais), 99–100, 149 Barrio, Artur, xiv–xv, 79–80, 111–12; aes-

200 I N D E X

thetic of, 81–82, 109–11; Arte Povera and, 101; commercialization and, 108; critical reception of, 111–13; ephemeral art and, 8, 79, 97–99, 149; garbage and perishable materials and, 8, 84–92, 113, 153; marginality and madness and, 93–94, 96–100; military dictatorship and, 4, 35–36, 90, 148, 153; Pop art and, 128; preservation and documentation and, 106–9, 149–50 Barrio, Artur, works by: CadernosLivros (notebooks/books) series, 80, 81, 108; Defl . . . Situação . . . +S+ . . . RUAS (Defl . . . Situation . . . +S+ . . . STREETS), 85, 88; “Manifesto,” 80, 82, 149; P . . . H . . . , plate 8, 85, 108; 4 Dias 4 Noites (4 Days 4 Nights), 97–99; Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 (Situation . . . ORHHH . . . or . . . 5,000 . . . T.E . . . IN . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969), plate 7, plate 13, 84–85, 86–87, 108; Situação. . . . . . . T/T1. . . . . . . (Situation. . . . . . . T/T1. . . . . . .), plates 9–10, 90–92, 90; trouxas ensanguentadas (bloody bundles), 8, 89–92, 99–100, 106–9, 120–21, 149; Trouxas protótipo (Prototype Bundles), 106–9, 107 Barros, Umberto Costa, 99, 139 Barthes, Roland, 130 Basbaum, Ricardo, 79, 111 Basualdo, Carlos, 109 Bataille, Georges, 80, 89, 176n20 Bauhaus, 12 Bento, Antônio, 41, 112, 170n9 Beuys, Joseph, 109, 172n25 Bill, Max, 165n3; Unidade Tripartite, 12–13, 13 Bittencourt, Francisco, 92, 100 Bittencourt, Niomar Moniz Sodré, 23–24, 158, 167n35, 169n64 bode, O (The Goat, Manuel), 74, 74–75, 121 body art, 42–46, 49–51, 55, 149 Body Art/Performing the Subject (Jones), 43 Boghici, Jean, 63

Bonino Gallery (Rio de Janeiro), 63 Bonomi, Maria, 30 boycott of X São Paulo Biennial (1969), 8, 10–12, 24–30, 32–33, 35, 61–62, 126, 155–58 Brasília, 21, 115–16 “Brazil diarréia” (Brazil Diarrhea, Oiticica), 83–84 Brazilian Association of Art Critics (abca), 31–33 Brett, Guy, 57 Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades), 103 Brito, Ronaldo, 138–39, 183n54 Buchloh, Benjamin H. D., 132–33 Buñuel, Luis, 80 Burle Marx, Roberto, 54 Burnham, Jack, 28 Bury, Pol, 7 CadernosLivros (notebooks/books) series (Barrio), 80, 81, 108 Caetano Veloso veste Parangolé P4 capa 1 (Caetano Veloso wears Parangole P4 Cape 1, Oiticica), plate 5 Cage, John, 54, 80 Caldas, Waltércio, xiv, 183n54 Calirman, Claudia, 184n7 Callado, Antônio, 158 Camara, Sete, 158 Camargo, Sérgio, 30 Camnitzer, Luis, 106, 133, 152 Campos, Dileny, 172–73n33 Cândido Mendes gallery, 143 Candomblé religion, 121 Capinan, José Carlos, 60 Capofiorino, Quirino, 158 Cara de Cavalo, 94–95 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 158 Carioca, 33, 44 Carneiro, César, 90, 99, 107, 180n97 Carneiro, Lúcia, 21 Carnevale, Graciela, xv, 174n63 Caro, Anthony, 169–70n69 Carter, Jimmy, 150

Carybé (Héctor Julio Páride Bernabó), 105 Cavalcanti, Emiliano Di, 63 Celant, Germano, 101–3, 106 censorship: by left, 150–51; by military dictatorship, 2–3, 7–8, 17–24, 34–36, 59, 147–49, 155–58, 167n30; self-­, 2–3, 18, 20–21 Center for Advanced Visual Studies (mit), 28, 168n51 Centros Populares de Cultura, 1, 73, 104 César (César Baldaccini), 25 Chryssa (Chryssa Vardea-­Mavromichaeli), 30 Cinema Novo movement, 82, 150 civil rights movement (U.S.), plate 1, 6 Clandestinas (Clandestines, Manuel), 70, 70–71 Clark, Lygia, 14, 30, 44, 51, 111, 165n6, 169n63 Coca-­Cola Refreshments S.A., 137 Colares, Raymundo, 62, 99 Colectivo de Acciones de Arte (cada, Chile), 152 commercialization and commodification of art, 3, 15, 63–64, 80, 106–8, 128, 141–42, 149–50 Communist Party and orthodox leftism, 1–2, 4, 98, 101, 103–4, 150–51 conceptual art, 8, 126, 131–35, 149, 153, 182n40 Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation (Camnitzer), 106, 133, 152 Concrete art movement, 14, 34, 67, 110, 165n5 constructivism, 67, 111 “Contra a arte afluente: o corpo é o motor da obra” (Against Affluent Art: The Body is the Motor of the Work, Morais), 102 Conversions III (Association, Assistance, ­Dependence) (Acconci), 42–43, 43 copyright, 50–51 I N D E X 201

Cordeiro, Waldemar, 7, 13 Corpobra (Bodywork, Manuel), 46–51, 47, 107, 150 corpo é a obra, O (The Body Is the Work, Manuel), 37, 39, 41–42; critical response to, 40–41, 44–45, 112, 149, 171n14; documentation and preservation of, 46–51, 107, 150; regime response to, 38, 68, 70–71, 149 Correio da Manhã (Rio de Janeiro), xv, 11, 23, 33, 158 Corriere della Sera (Milan), 25, 31 Costa, Afonso Henrique Ramos, 144–45 Costa, Eduardo, 72–73 Costa, Lúcio, 115 Costa e Silva, Artur da, 27 countercultural movement, xiii, 6, 46, 51, 60, 163n3 Couto e Silva, Golbery do, 150 Cravo, Mário, 105 Cronologia das Artes Plásticas no Rio de Janeiro: 1816–1994 (Chronology of the Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro: 1816– 1994, Morais), 18 Cruzeiro do Sul (Southern Cross, Meireles), 116, 116–17 Cuba, 6 “Culture and Politics in Brazil, 1964–1969” (Schwarz), 4, 151 Czechoslovakia invasion (1968), 6 Da Adversidade Vivemos! (From Adversity We Live!, Oiticica), 38 Dada, 111 Death and Disaster series (Warhol), 15–16 Death and Sensuality: A Study of Eroticism and the Taboo (Bataille), 89 death squads, 78 Debord, Guy, 98, 177n44 Defl . . . Situação . . . +S+ . . . RUAS (Defl . . . Situation . . . +S+ . . . STREETS, Barrio), 85, 88 Dégand, Leon, 96 Depoimento de uma geração, 1969–1970

202 I N D E X

(Testimony of a Generation, 1969– 1970) (Morais), 18 derives (drifts), 98 “deveres do crítico de arte na sociedade, Os” (The Obligations of the Art Critic toward Society, Pedrosa), 32 DIA, O (Rio de Janeiro), 69–71 Diário de Notícias (Rio de Janeiro), 172n33 Dias, Antonio, xiv, 166n20, 169n63 Diegues, Carlos, 150–51 Dines, Alberto, 17 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Foucault), 46, 122 Do Corpo à Terra (From the Body to the Earth, Belo Horizonte, 1970), 35, 90–94, 120–26, 160, 176n21 Doesburg, Theo van, 165n5 Domus (magazine, Milan), 17 “Do porco empalhado, ou os critérios da crítica” (On the Stuffed Pig, or the Criteria for Criticism, Pedrosa), 20 dops (Departamento de Ordem Política e Social), 24, 118, 120, 144, 174n52, 177n35 Dossiê ditadura: Mortos e desaparecidos políticos no Brasil (1964–1985) (Dossier Dictatorship: Political Deaths and Disappearances in Brazil [1964–1985]), 147 Duarte, Paulo Sérgio, xiv Duarte, Rogério, 54–55, 62, 77, 172nn32– 33 Duchamp, Marcel, 20, 42, 67, 80, 128, 167n27 Dunn, Christopher, xiv, 163n3 Earth-­based art, 110 “Education of the Un-­Artist, The” ­(Kaprow), 139 Elbrick, Charles, 103–4 ephemeral and perishable art, 3, 63, 79–80, 106–9, 149–50, 153, 182n41 Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (Marcuse), 45–46 Escarí, Raúl, 72–73

Escosteguy, Pedro, 172–73n33 Espaços virtuais: Cantos (Virtual Spaces: Corners, Meireles), 117, 117 “Esquema geral da nova objetividade” (General Scheme of the New Objectivity, Oiticica), 8, 83 Estado de São Paulo, O, 17 “estética da fome, A” (The Aesthetics of Hunger, Rocha), 82 Exaltação (Exaltation, Manuel), 62 Experimental Exercise of Freedom ­(Pedrosa), 44–45, 78, 171n14 Export, Valie, 172n25 Exposição de Antonio Manuel—De 0 à 24 Horas (Exhibition of Antonio Manuel— From 0 to 24 Hours, O Jornal, Rio de Janeiro, Manuel), 75–76, 76, 161 4 Days 4 Nights, (Barrio), 97–99 Fabro, Luciano, 178n55 Fajardo, Carlos, 163n4 Fautrier, Jean, 91–92 Fernandez, Florestan, 158 Ferrari, León, 174n63 Ferro, Sérgio, 104, 178n55 Flans series (Manuel), 65–67, 153 Fluxus movement, 80, 175n3 Fonômenos (Meireles), 118 Fonseca, Luiz, 139 Fontes, Alfredo, 99, 139, 180n9 fotonovela, 67–68 Foucault, Michel, 8, 46, 122, 129 Fountain (Duchamp), 20, 42, 67, 167n27 Frazier, Charles, 29–30 Freire, Alípio, 104 Freitas, Antônio de Pádua Chagas, 69 Freitas, Ivan Chagas, 69 French Revolution (1789), 122 French student demonstrations (1968), 6, 25, 177n44 Friberg, Roj, 27 Gaspari, Elio, xiv, 18, 150 Gassiot-­Talabot, Gerald, 25–26, 156

Gates to Times Square (Chryssa Vardea-­ Mavromichaeli), 30 Geiger, Anna Bella, xiv, 44 Geisel, Ernesto, 150 gender and sexuality, 40–49 “Geração Tranca-­Ruas, A” (The Barricade Generation, Bittencourt), 100 Gerchman, Rubens, xiv, 105, 166n20, 166n23, 169n63, 183n54 Gestalt theory, 14 Gil, Gilberto, 10, 60, 158, 177n35 Gilman, Claire, 101 Glueck, Grace, 29 Goeldi Gallery (Rio de Janeiro), 63 Goodyear, John, 28 Goulart, João, 2 Greek dictatorship, 28–29 Grieco, Donatello, 23 Grupo Frente, 13, 41, 83, 96 Grupo Rex, 163n4 Grupo Ruptura, 13, 34, 165n4 guerrilla art, 2, 102–6, 136 guerrilla strategy and groups, 2, 8, 102–6, 129 Guevara, Ernesto “Che,” plate 3, 6, 18–19, 21, 106, 166n22 Guevara, vivo ou morto (Guevara, Dead or Alive, Tozzi), plate 3, 19 Guimarães, Luíz Alphonsus, xv, 92–93, 99, 180n97 Gullar, Ferreira, xiv, 14–15, 18, 112, 165n6, 165nn8–9, 166n20 Haacke, Hans, xiv, 7, 27–29 hackers, 129, 131 Happening para un jabalí defunto (Happening for a Dead Boar, 1966), 72 Happenings, 35, 54, 72, 106. See also performance art Heck, Carlos, 104 Herkenhoff, Paulo, 140, 166n15 “herói anti-­herói e o anti-­herói anônimo, O” (The Anti-­Hero Hero and the Anonymous Anti-­Hero, Oiticica), 96 I N D E X 203

Herzog, Vladimir, 140–41, 183n58 Holanda, Guy de, 158 Hollanda, Heloísa Buarque de, 163n3 Hopper, Edward, 165n10 House with an Ocean View, The (Abramović), 50 Howard Wise Gallery (New York), 28, 169n53 Hultén, Pontus, 27 Ianni, Otávio, 158 I-­Box (Morris), 48, 48–49 Ideological Conceptualist, 133 Ilha Grande penitentiary (Rio de Janeiro), 94 imagem da violência, A (The Image of Violence, Manuel), 65, 66 Imponderabilia (MoMA, Abramović, 1977), 171n24 Indiana, Robert, 15 Indians’ Rights Movement, 116 Information (MoMA, 1970), 8, 108–9, 123, 126–27, 142, 161 Inserções em circuitos antropológicos (Insertions into Anthropological Circuits, Meireles), 130–31, 131, 139 Inserções em circuitos ideológicos series (Insertions into Ideological Circuits, Meireles), 142, 146, 149; Projeto Cédula (Banknote Project), plate 15, 128, 130–32, 140–41, 141; Projeto Coca-­Cola (Coca-­Cola Project), plate 14, 127–30, 135, 139 International Association of Art Critics (aica), 31, 169n66 Introdução a uma nova crítica (Introduction to a New Criticism, Meireles), 123–26, 125, 146 Jackie (Warhol), 15 Jacoby, Roberto, 72–73, 174n63 Jaffe, Lee, 93 Jardim, Reynaldo, 165n6 Johnson, Lyndon B., 27

204 I N D E X

Jones, Amelia, 43 Jornal da Tarde (São Paulo), 17 Jornal do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro), xv, 11, 17, 33, 158 Jung, Carl, 96 Kaprow, Allan, 54, 139 Kennedy, Robert F., 6 Kepes, György, 7, 27–30, 168n51 Kiko (Marcos Lins Andrade), 67, 69 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 6 Kiss (Sehgal), 51, 172n26 Klintowitz, Jacob, 40, 112 Kosice, Gyula, 25 Kosuth, Joseph, 131–32, 139 Kounellis, Jannis, 101, 178n55 Kowalski, Piotr, 25 Kraô tribe, 142 Kristeva, Julia, 86 Laclete, Renato, 135–36 Lassaigne, Jacques, 31, 169n64 Lee, Wesley Duke, 163n4, 169n63 Lefèvre, Rodrigo, 104 Leirner, Nelson, xv, 19–20, 112, 163n4, 166n22, 169n63; O porco (The Pig), plate 4, 20, 40, 112 Leminsky, Paulo, 174n63 Le Monde (Paris), 17–18, 31 Le Parc, Julio, 25 Lerner, Jaime, 167n31, 167n33 Lichtenstein, Roy, 15 Lindner, Richard, 15 Lloyd, Tom, 28 Long, Rose-­Carol Washton, xiv Lopes, José Leite, 158 “Lo Scandalo di San Paolo—La Biennale rischia per la situazione politica del Brasile” (The Scandal of São Paulo— The Biennial Is at Risk because of the Political Situation in Brazil, Corriere della Sera), 25 Loucura & Cultura (Madness and Culture, Manuel), 75, 77, 175n69

Lúcia, Vera, 38 Luis, Edson, 5 Lute (marmita) (Fight—a Lunchbox, Zilio), plate 12, 104 Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age, The (MoMA, 1969), 29 Maciel, Luis Carlos, 163n3 Maciunas, George, 175n3 madness and art, 96–99, 111 Magalhães Pinto, José de, 23 Maiolino, Anna Maria, 44 Maja Desnuda (Goya), 41 Malasartes magazine (Rio de Janeiro), 138, 138–39, 183n54 Malcolm X, 93 Malevich, Kasimir, 67 Malraux, André, 92 mam/rj (Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro), 9, 30, 32 Mangueira Hill, 57 “Manifesto” (Barrio), 80, 82, 149 “Manifesto Antropofágico” (Anthropophagite Manifesto, Andrade), 100–101 “Manifesto e comentário” (Manifesto and Commentary, Ayala), 112 “Manifesto Neoconcreto” (Neoconcrete Manifesto, Gullar), 14, 165n6 Manthorne, Katherine, xiv Manuel, Antonio, xiv–xv, 59, 128, 166n15; Apocalipopótese (Rio de Janeiro, 1968) and, 55–57, 172n33; body art and, 7, 45–46, 78, 149; ephemeral art preservation and, 107, 149–50; influences on and training of, 41–42, 51–59, 67, 165n10; as marginalized, 100; media art and intervention and, 8, 64–78, 149; military dictatorship and, 4, 35–36, 65, 78, 148, 153, 184n7; on National Biennial of Bahia (1968), 21; at National Salon of Modern Art (mam/rj, 1970), 37–40, 44–46, 50; A Nova Crítica exhibition and, 137; sexual exhibitionism and, 40–41, 44; Youth Paris Biennial

(1969) and, 22–24, 157, 167n31; Tropicália movement and, 60 Manuel, Antonio, works by: A arma fálica (The Phallic Weapon), 67–68, 69; As armas do diálogo (The Weapons of Dialogue), 65, 66; O bode (The Goat), 74, 74–75, 121; Clandestinas (Clandestines), 70, 70–71; Corpobra (Bodywork), 46–51, 47, 107, 150; Exaltação (Exaltation), 62; Exposição de Antonio Manuel—De 0 à 24 Horas (Exhibition of Antonio Manuel— From 0 to 24 Hours, O Jornal, Rio de Janeiro), 75–76, 76, 161; Flans series, 65–67, 153; A imagem da violência (The Image of Violence), 65, 66; Isso é que é (This is it), 137; Loucura & Cultura (Madness and Culture), 75, 77, 175n69; On the Hand, plate 16, 153; Parangolé P22 capa 18 “Nirvana” (Parangole P22 Cape 18 “Nirvana”), 57, 58, 59; Repressão outra vez—Eis o saldo (Repression Again— Here is the Consequence), plate 2, 16, 22–24, 59, 167n37; Selva (Jungle), 62; Semi-­ótica (Semiotics), 77, 175n69; Soy loco por ti (I Am Crazy for You), plate 6, 60–64, 74; Untitled (Crayon on newspaper), 65; Urnas quentes (Hot Ballot Boxes), 55, 56, 57, 59; Wanted Rose Selavy, 68. See also corpo é a obra, O Manzoni, Piero, 87; Merda d’artista. no. 31 (Artist’s Shit, no. 31), 89 Marchán Fiz, Simón, 133 March of Humanity on Latin America (Siqueiros), 27 Marcuse, Herbert, 45–46, 71 “Marginália: arte e cultura na idade da pedrada” (Marginality: Art and Culture in the Stone-­throwing Age, O Cruzeiro), 59–60 marginality of artists, 59–60, 77, 93–96, 100 Marighella, Carlos, 102–3 Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present (MoMA, 2010), 49, 171–72n24 I N D E X 205

Martins, Maria, 30 Matarazzo, Ciccillo, 12, 25, 32–33 “Mau Gosto” (Bad Taste, Costa), 144–45 McShine, Kynaston, 108–9, 126, 179n77, 181n24 media-­based art, 3–4, 7–8, 36, 62, 64–78, 149 Médici, Emílio Garrastazú, 123, 137 Meireles, Apoena, 116 Meireles, Chico, 116 Meireles, Cildo, xiv–xv, 100, 114–20, 130– 31, 182n38; conceptual art and, 8, 131– 35, 149, 153; exhibitions and, 59, 92, 135, 161, 179n77, 180n9, 181n24; Malasartes magazine and, 138–39, 183n54; metaphor and, 145–46; military dictatorship and, 4, 35–36, 120–30, 148, 153, 184n9; Pop art and, 128; preservation and conservation and, 149–50; use of existing circulation systems by, 127–30 Meireles, Cildo, works by: Arte física: Caixas de Brasília/Clareira (Physical Art: Brasília Boxes/Clearing), 118, 119, 180n9; Arte física: Cordões/30 km de linha estendidos (Physical Art: Cords/30 km of Extended Line), 118–19, 120; Árvore do dinheiro (Money Tree), 142, 143; Cruzeiro do Sul (Southern Cross), 116, 116–17; Espaços virtuais: Cantos (Virtual Spaces: Corners), 117, 117; Fonômenos, 118; Inserções em circuitos antropológicos (Insertions into Anthropological Circuits), 130–31, 131, 139; Introdução a uma nova crítica (Introduction to a New Criticism), 123–26, 125, 146; Nowhere Is My Home I, II, and III, 117–18; O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux (The Sermon on the Mount: Fiat Lux, Rio de Janeiro, 1979), 35, 143–46, 144–45, 161; Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político (Tiradentes: Totem-­Monument to the Political Prisoner), 121, 121–26, 124, 135, 146; Zero cruzeiro, 142. See also Inserções em circuitos ideológicos series

206 I N D E X

Meninas, Las (Velázquez), 135 Merda d’artista (Artist’s Shit, Manzoni), 87, 89 Merz, Mario, 178n55 Mexican student demonstrations (1968), 6, 152–53 milagre econômico (economic miracle), 77 military dictatorship, 2, 150, 164nn5–6; amnesty and, 143, 178n55; artists and, 4–5, 8–9, 122, 147–49, 151–53, 164n5; brutality of and repression by, 16, 74, 78, 121, 135, 155–58. See also ai-­5; censorship; dops Minas Gerais, 123 Minimanual do guerrilheiro urbano (Mini-­ Manual of the Urban Guerrilla, Marighella), 102–3 miscegenation, 77 Mitchell, W. J. T., 48–49 Möbius strip, 12 Modern Art Salon of Brasilia (IV Salão de Arte Moderna de Brasília, 1967), 19–21, 37–38, 160, 166nn23–24 modernism, 15, 35, 41, 101, 115 Molotov cocktail, 129 MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York), 29, 51, 126–27 Mondrian, Piet, 67 Moniz, Edmundo, 158 Monteiro, Miriam, 172–73n33 Morais, Frederico, xiii, 7, 18, 82–83, 99–102, 105, 149; on Artur Barrio, 85, 94, 99, 112–13; “Contra a arte afluente: o corpo é o motor da obra” (Against Affluent Art: The Body is the Motor of the Work, Morais), 102; Cronologia das Artes Plásticas no Rio de Janeiro: 1816– 1994 (Chronology of the Visual Arts in Rio de Janeiro: 1816–1994), 18; Depoimento de uma geração, 1969–1970 (Testimony of a Generation, 1969–1970), 18; O pão e o sangue de cada um (The Bread the Blood of Each One), 180n97; salons

and exhibitions and, 20, 90, 92–93, 166n24, 174n51, 176n21, 176n25, 180n97 Morris, Robert, 48–49 Mosquera, Gerardo, 137, 149 Motta, Flávio, 19 mr-­8, 104 Museum of Images of the Unconscious (Rio de Janeiro), 96 Napalm (Guimarães), 93 Nasser, Frederico, 163n4 National Biennial of Bahia (II Bienal Nacional da Bahia, 1968), 21, 160, 167n28 National Commission of Fine Arts, 45 National Exhibition of Concrete Art (mam/sp, 1956), 165n5 National Salon of Modern Art (XIX Salão Nacional de Arte Moderna, mam/rj, 1970), 37–38, 45, 50, 98–99, 160, 170n1. See also corpo é a obra, O Nazis (Germany), 12, 91 Neoconcrete movement, 14–15, 51, 83, 111, 165n6 neo-­plasticism, 111 Neto, Torquato, 62, 70 New York Times, 31 Niemeyer, Oscar, 115 “Non à la Biennale de São Paulo,” 10–11, 11, 26, 28, 32, 155–58 “No Rush for Reservations” (Glueck), 29 Nouvel Observateur (Paris), 25–26, 31 Nova Crítica, A (The New Criticism, Petite Galerie, Rio de Janeiro, 1970), 135–37, 161, 180n97 Novaes, Washington, 75 Nova Figuração movement, 63 Nova Objetividade Brasileira (New Brazilian Objectivity, mam/rj, 1967), 160 Novello, Décio, 92 Nowhere Is My Home I, II, and III (Meireles), 117–18 “nu no ‘malfadado,’ O” (The Ill-­Fated Nude, Klintowitz), 40

Objeto e Participação (Object and Participation, Belo Horizonte, 1970), 176n20 Oiticica, Hélio, 14, 38, 67, 111, 131, 165n8, 172n28, 179n77, 180n2; aesthetic of, 8, 83–84; Antonio Manuel and, 51–59, 70, 77; exhibitions and, 62, 93, 174n51; marginality and criminality and, 94–96; X São Paulo Biennial boycott and, 30, 164n1, 169n63 Oiticica, Hélio, works by: Apocalipopótese (Rio de Janeiro, 1968), 54–57, 172n33; B33 Bólide caixa 18, Poema caixa 02—“Homenagem a Cara de Cavalo” (B33 Box Bolide 18, Box Poem 02—“Homage to Horse Face”), 95; “Brazil diarréia” (Brazil Diarrhea), 83–84; Caetano Veloso veste Parangolé P4 capa 1 (Caetano Veloso wears Parangole P4 Cape 1), plate 5; “Esquema geral da nova objetividade” (General Scheme of the New Objectivity), 8, 83; “O herói anti-­herói e o anti-­herói anônimo” (The Anti-­Hero Hero and the Anonymous Anti-­Hero), 96; Parangolé P4 capa 1 (Parangole P4 Cape 1), plate 5, 59–60; Parangolé P22 capa 18 “Nirvana” (Parangole P22 Cape 18 “Nirvana”), 57, 58, 59; “seja marginal, seja herói” (Be an Outlaw, Be a Hero), plate 11, 95–96; Tropicália, Penetráveis PN2, PN3 (Tropicália, Penetrables PN2 and PN3), 51–52, 53 Oldenburg, Claes, 15 Ondas paradas de probabilidade—Antigo Testamento, Livro dos Reis I, 19 (Still Waves of Probability—Old Testament, Book of Kings I, 19, Schendel), 34 One-­Dimensional Man (Marcuse), 45, 71 Onganía, Juan Carlos, 72 On the Hand (Manuel), plate 16, 153 Opinião 65 (Opinion 65, mam/rj, 1965), 159 Opinião 66 (Opinion 66, mam/rj, 1966), 159 Opius (magazine), 17 I N D E X 207

Orange Disaster #5 (Warhol), 15 Otra Figuración movement, 63, 159 Ouro Preto Salon (III Salão de Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, 1968), 160, 167n30 ovo, O (The Egg, Pape), 54, 55 Paiva, Cláudio, 98–99, 139 Palatnik, Abraham, 96, 169n63 Palmeira, Waldimir, 158 pão e o sangue de cada um, O (The Bread the Blood of Each One, Morais, 1970), 180n97 Pape, Lygia, 44, 51, 54–55, 67, 70, 77, 165n6, 172n33; O ovo (The Egg), 54, 55 Parangolé P4 capa 1 (Parangole P4 Cape 1, Oiticica), plate 5, 59–60 Parangolé P22 capa 18 “Nirvana” (Parangole P22 Cape 18 “Nirvana,” Oiticica and Manuel), 57, 58, 59 Para um jovem de brilhante futuro (For a Young Man of Brilliant Prospects, Zilio), 104, 105 Pare (Stop, G-­4 Gallery, Rio de Janeiro, 1966), 159 Passeata dos 100,000 (March of the 100,000, Rio de Janeiro, 1968), 5 Patrulhas Ideológicas (Ideological Patrols), 150–51 Paulista, 33 Pedro II Psychiatric Center (Rio de Janeiro), 96 Pedrosa, Mário, 7, 40, 78, 96–97; Antonio Manuel and, 44–45, 137, 171n14; exhibitions and, 20, 23, 174n51; exile of, 18, 31, 112; X São Paulo Biennial boycott and, 31–33 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 119 Penhor da igualdade (Pledge of Equality, Volpini), 104–5 Peralva, Osvaldo, 17, 158 performance art, 35, 42–46, 49–51, 54–55, 72, 106. See also specific works Petite Galerie (Rio de Janeiro), 63, 135–37 “Petite histoire d’une selection” (Short

208 I N D E X

Story of a Selection, Nouvel Observateur), 25–26 P . . . H . . . (Barrio), plate 8, 85, 108 phenomenology theory, 14 Pignatari, Décio, 174n51 Pinochet, Augusto, 152 Pistoletto, Michelangelo, 101, 178n55 Plaza, Júlio, 172–73n33 Poem/Process group, 172–73n33 Pop art, 15–16, 24, 34, 63, 128, 165n11 porco, O (The Pig, Leirner), plate 4, 20, 40, 112 Portinari, Cândido, 63 Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (Foucault), 129 Pradilla, Ileana, 21 Prado, Caio, Jr., 158 Pre-­Paris Biennial (Pré-­Bienal de Paris, mam/rj, 1969), 22–24, 59, 117, 160, 167n31 preservation and conservation, 106–9, 149–50 prison, artists in, 104, 177n35 4 Dias 4 Noites (4 Days 4 Nights, Barrio), 97–99 queda do motociclista da FAB, A (The Fall of the FAB Motorcyclist, Teixeira), 22 Quentin, Bernard, 25 querela do Brasil, A (The Quarrel of Brazil, Zilio), 139 Ramirez, Mari Carmen, 133 Rangel, Gabriela, 184n7 Rauschenberg, Robert, 15 Raysse, Martial, 25 readymades, 3, 20, 67, 104, 128, 132 Red Race Riot (Warhol), plate 1, 16 registro-­photo, 86–88, 90, 108 Relevo Gallery (Rio de Janeiro), 63 Repressão outra vez—Eis o saldo (Repression Again—Here is the Consequence, Manuel), plate 2, 16, 22–24, 59, 167n37

Resende, José, 163n4, 169n63, 183n54 Restany, Pierre, 7, 25 Ribeiro, Jackson, 137, 172n33 Ridenti, Marcelo, 103 Rio de Janeiro, 33 Ripley, Sidney Dillon, 30 Roberto, Maurício, 23–24 Rocha, Glauber, 80, 82 Rolnik, Suely, 133 Romero Brest, Jorge, 33 Rosenberg, Harold, 30 Rosenquist, James, 15 Ross, Charles, 28 Ruptura exhibition (mam/sp, 1952), 165n4 Ruscha, Edward, 15 Salão da Bússola (Compass Salon, mam/ rj, 1969), 35, 61–62, 118–19, 133–35, 160 Salão de Verão (II Summer Salon, mam/ rj, 1970), 111–12 Salão Global de Inverno (Global Winter Salon, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, 1973), 161 Saldanha, Ione, 169n63, 172–73n33 Saldanha, Luiz Carlos, 77 Salon of the City Hall Art Museum of Belo Horizonte (I Salão do Museu de Arte da Prefeitura de Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, 1969), 157, 160, 167n30 São Paulo, 33 São Paulo Biennial Foundation, 32 São Paulo biennials, 14, 17; I São Paulo Biennial (1951), 12–13; IX São Paulo Biennial (1967), 15–16, 24, 128, 165n10, 166n15; X São Paulo Biennial (1969), 8, 10–12, 24–30, 32–33, 35, 61–62, 126, 155–58, 160 “São Paulo Show Loses U.S. Entry” (Ripley), 30 Schenberg, Mário, 158 Schendel, Mira, 34, 44, 169n63 School of Paris, 26

Schwarz, Roberto, xiv, 4, 151, 164n5 Segal, George, 15 Sehgal, Tino, 51 “seja marginal, seja herói” (Be an Outlaw, Be a Hero, Oiticica), plate 11, 95–96 self-­immolation, 123, 137 Selva (Jungle, Manuel), 62 Semi-­ótica (Semiotics, Manuel), 77, 175n69 Senie, Harriet F., xiv Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux, O (The Sermon on the Mount: Fiat Lux, Rio de Janeiro, Meireles, 1979), 35, 143–46, 144–45, 161 Serpa, Ivan, 13, 41–42, 70, 96, 169n63 Seven Easy Pieces (Abramović, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2005), 172n25 sexuality and gender, 40–49 Sharp, Willoughby, 42 Silva, Alcir Figueira da, 96 Silveira, Nise da, 96–97 Silveira, Regina, 44 Simões, Thereza, 92–93, 99, 135–37, 160– 61 Siqueiros, David Alfaro, 27 Sister, Sérgio, 104 Situação . . . ORHHH . . . ou . . . 5.000 . . . T.E . . . EM . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969 (Situation . . . ORHHH . . . or . . . 5,000 . . . T.E . . . IN . . . N.Y . . . City . . . 1969, Barrio), plate 7, plate 13, 84–85, 86–87, 108 Situação. . . . . . . T/T1. . . . . . . (Situation. . . . . . . T/T1. . . . . . . , Barrio), plates 9–10, 90, 90–92 Situationist International, 98, 177n44 Smithson, Robert, 28, 110 Smithsonian Institution (Washington), 30 Sobel, Henri, 140 Souza, César Montagna de, 23 Soviet Union, 6 Soy loco por ti (I Am Crazy for You, Manuel), plate 6, 60–64, 74 Soy loco por ti, América (I Am Crazy for You, America, Gil and Capinan), 60 I N D E X 209

Spiral Jetty (Smithson), 110, 110 Spolaor, Lincoln Volpini, 104–5 student movement and demonstrations, xiii, 5–6, 9, 22, 25, 129, 152–53, 157, 177n44 Sullivan, Edward J., xiv Supermercado 66 (Supermarket 66, Relevo Gallery, Rio de Janeiro, 1966), 159 surrealism, 111 Taillandier, Yvon, 26 Takaoka, Carlos, 104 Takis, Vassilakis, 7, 25, 28–29; Tele-­ sculpture, 29 Teixeira, Evandro, 157, 167n31; A queda do motociclista da FAB (The Fall of the FAB Motorcyclist), 22 “Teoria do não-­objeto” (Theory of the Non-­Object, Gullar), 14–15 Terra em Transe (Land in Anguish, Rocha), 82 Tête d’otage no. 21 (Hostage Head no. 21, Fautrier), 91, 91–92 Tiemme, Jaime, 158 Tiradentes (Joaquim José da Silva Xavier), 122–23 Tiradentes prison (São Paulo), 104 Tiradentes: Totem-­monumento ao preso político (Tiradentes: Totem-­Monument to the Political Prisoner, Meireles), 121, 121–26, 124, 135, 146 Toledo, Amélia, 30, 169n63 Tovish, Harold, 28 Tozzi, Cláudio, xv, 19, 166n22; Guevara, vivo ou morto (Guevara, Dead or Alive), plate 3, 19 tranca-­ruas, 100 Tristão, Mari’Stella, 176n25 Tropicália, Penetráveis PN2, PN3 (Tropicália, Penetrables PN2 and PN3, Oiticica), 51–52, 53 Tropicália movement, 59–60, 163n3, 172n32

210 I N D E X

trouxas ensanguentadas (bloody bundles, Barrio), 8, 89–92, 99–100, 106–9, 120–21, 149 Trouxas protótipo (Prototype Bundles, Barrio), 106–9, 107 Tucumán Arde (Argentina), 72–73, 152, 160, 174n63, 175n65 Tunga (Antonio José de Barros Carvalho e Mello Mourão), xiv, 139 Tupamaros (Uruguay), 106 Ulm School of Design (Germany), 12 Umbanda religion, 100, 121 Unidade Tripartite (Bill), 12–13, 13 United States, 6, 150 Untitled (Crayon on newspaper, Manuel), 65 Urnas quentes (Hot Ballot Boxes, Manuel), 55, 56, 57, 59 Vandré, Geraldo, 10, 158 van Gogh, Vincent, 99 Vardea-­Mavromichaeli, Chryssa, 30 Vaz, Guilherme Magalhães, 100, 135, 139, 161, 179n77, 180n9 vazio cultural (cultural emptiness), 34–35, 151 Velázquez, Diego, 135 Veloso, Caetano, 10, 59, 77, 158, 177n35 Venancio Filho, Paulo, xiv, 22 Venice Biennial, 12, 32 Ventura, Zuenir, 34–35, 163n3 Vergara, Carlos, xiv, 167n31, 169n63, 183n54 Vianna Filho, Luiz, 21 Vietnam War, 6, 28–29, 42, 104, 123, 126, 137 viewer participation, 16, 46–49, 51–59 Vilhena, Bernardo, 183n54 Wanted Rose Selavy (Manuel), 68 Warhol, Andy, 20, 128; Death and Disaster series, 15–16; Jackie, 15; Orange Disaster

#5, 15; Red Race Riot, plate 1, 16; Saturday Disaster, 15 Weissman, Franz, 165n6, 169n63 Wesselmann, Tom, 15 Wilde, Eduard de, 24, 168n40 Womack, John, xiv, 164n11 World Cup victory (1970), 77 Xavier, Joaquim José da Silva, 122–23 Yeda Linhares, Maria, 158 Youth Paris Biennial (VI Biennale de Jeunes Artistes de Paris, Paris City Mu-

seum of Modern Art, 1969), 16, 22–23, 32, 59, 157, 160, 167n31, 167n33 Zaluar, Abelardo, 158 Zero cruzeiro (Meireles), 142 Zilio, Carlos, xiv–xv, 104–5, 139, 178n55, 183n54; Lute (marmita) (Fight—a Lunchbox), plate 12, 104; Para um jovem de brilhante futuro (For a Young Man of Brilliant Prospects), 104, 105; A querela do Brasil (The Quarrel of Brazil), 139 Ziraldo, 62, 174n51 Zorio, Gilberto, 178n55

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Claudia Calirman is assistant professor of art history at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Calirman, Claudia. Brazilian art under dictatorship : Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles / Claudia Calirman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8223-5139-9 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-8223-5153-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Meireles, Cildo, 1948– 2. Lopes, Artur Alípio Barrio de Sousa, 1945– 3. Manuel, Antonio. 4. Art, Brazilian— History—20th century. 5. Dictatorship—Brazil— History—20th century. 6. Brazil—History—1964–1985. 7. Art and state—Brazil—History. I. Title. n6655.c2485 2012 709.81′09046—dc23 2011041897