This exhibition turns MASP’s attention to its surroundings, taking Avenida Paulista not only as the place where it stands, but also as an object of consideration and reflection. This is significant in the museum’s 70th anniversary (inaugurated in 1947, it was then centrally located at Rua 7 de Abril, only to be transferred to this building in 1968): the display represents a new regard to this iconic place in São Paulo, being at once one of the city’s postcards, as well as stage to clashes and disputes of different nature.
What are the themes passing through this avenue that has 2,800 meters and more than 120 years of history? Social and economic contrasts, financial capital and informal trade, symbolic capital and cultural institutions, political demonstrations and matters of sexuality (home to one of the world’s biggest LGBT pride parades). As a symbol of São Paulo, Avenida Paulista also bears the contradictions, frictions, and tensions of a rich, complex, unequal city.
The exhibition is split in two major segments. The first one, on the left and back walls of the first floor gallery, comprises representations of the avenue, with photographs, documents, paintings, records of performing actions, objects, and historical posters of 38 authors, ranging from 1891 to 2016, organized chronologically. The second segment is composed by14 new projects commissioned for the exhibition, which occupy the entrance hall, the center, and the right part of the first floor gallery (André Komatsu, Cinthia Marcelle, Graziela Kunsch, Ibã Huni Kuin with Bane and Mana Huni Kuin, Lais Myrrha, Marcelo Cidade, Mauro Restiffe, and Rochelle Costi with Renato Firmino), the basement gallery (Daniel de Paula), the sub-basement video room (Luiz Roque), the Free Span (Marcius Galan), and an intervention on the second floor gallery (Dora Longo Bahia), as well as unrealized projects by Ana Dias Batista and Renata Lucas which are reproduced in the exhibition’s catalogue.
As part of Avenida Paulista, there is a weekly program comprising 13 workshops and 8 movie screenings. The workshop conducted by theatre groups, collectives, architects, and artists take the avenue as stage and creative space, thus activating its history and memory spaces. The movie screenings, organized by the artist Dora Longo Bahia along with the study group Depois do Fim da Arte, take place in the museum’s small auditorium on the basement, and ponder about the artist’s place in the city.
It is important to think of this exhibition as an unfolding of the architectural and urbanistic vocation inherent to this building idealized by Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992), always taking into consideration its essential features transparency, permeability, copious use of glass, free plans, and the suspension of a major concrete volume, thus allowing the gaze and the city to pass through the museum. In this sense, to think about MASP means to lean over the city’s issues and, most importantly, the place where it is located since 1968.
ARTISTS
3NA“S3, Agostinho Batista de Freitas, Ana Dias Batista, André Komatsu, Antônio Moraes, Carlos Fadon, CIA de Foto, Cildo Meireles, Cinthia Marcelle, Claúdia Andujar, Cristiano Mascaro, Daniel de Paula, Dora Longo Bahia, Dulcinéia Aparecida Rocha, Edu Garcia, Eduardo Castanho, Enzo Ferrara, Ferreira Gullar, Graziela Kunsch, Guilherme Gaensly, Hans Gunter Flieg, Ibã Huni Kuin com Bane e Mana Huni Kuin, Ivan Grilo, Ivo Justino, Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa, Juca Martins, Jules Martin, Kleide Teixeira, Lais Myrrha, Lina Bo Bardi, Luis Carlos Santos, Luiz Hossaka, Luiz Paulo Baravelli, Luiz Roque, Marcelo Cidade, Márcia Alves, Marcius Galan, Maria Luiza Martinelli, Maurício Simonetti, Mauro Restiffe, Maximiliano Scola, Mick Carnicelli, Milton Cruz, Nair Benedicto, Nicolau Leite, Renata Lucas Roberto Winter, Rochelle Costi with Renato Firmino, Sérgio Bertoni, Sonia Guggisberg, Thomaz Farkas, unknown artists, Werner Haberkor and William Zadig
CURATED BY Adriano Pedrosa, artistic director, and Tomás Toledo, curator; with Camila Bechelany, Luiza Proença, Fernando Oliva, curators, MASP, and Amilton Mattos, Universidade Federal do Acre.
