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GAZETTE STAFF / NEW YORK CITY
by Ernest Barteldes
Brazil Shows Its Art
at
The Guggenheim
Brazil Body and Soul
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Avenue(At 89th Street)
New York, NY
Information: 212 423-3500
 his writer has been
in New York for a year, and it's always a pleasure to have an opportunity
to revisit something that is related to the land where I spent the greater
part of my years.
Brazil: Body and Soul is the name of the exhibit that opened at the
Guggenheim Museum last Oct. 19.
The first contact we have with Brazilian art is an impressive 17th
Century Altar that was brought in from the state of Pernambuco, Brazil As
I saw the structure, I recalled when I saw that same altar where it
originally stood - inside the São Bento monastery in the historical city
of Olinda(not far from Recife, Pernambuco's state capital),in the
northeastern area of Brazil.
It is quite impressive how they took the enormous structure( which
reaches the museum's third floor) apart to bring it over to New York.
Seeing the sacred structure inside the museum gave me mixed emotions,
which I will get back to later in the article.
On we went up the Guggenheim's Rotundas to admire, remember and learn
more about the history of Brazilian art.
The first part begins with visions of Brazil by foreign artists. For
example, there are paintings by Frans Post and Albert Eckhout that made
paintings from life during the short-lived Dutch colonization of the
Northeastern part of the country(mainly Recife).
The works basically depict life in the colony, with its natives,
Africans and colonizers.
The exhibit then moves on to the Baroque period. A lot of
three-dimensional wooden and stone sculptures of deep religious influence,
such as those made by Antonio Francisco de Lisboa, who was better known as
O Aleijadinho(The Little Cripple) , who was the most prominent artist of
that era.
The 19th Century is represented by the Afro Art, rich with symbols of
the Candomble, which is the African religion that was taken to Brazil by
the enslaved blacks, who mostly resisted the Christian education that the
Portuguese attempted to impose on them.
Today, Candomble(despite the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church)is
present in every place in Brazil, although its influence is mostly felt in
the northeastern state of Bahia and in Rio de Janeiro,where the
concentration of African-Brazilians is higher than in other states.
The second decade of the 20th Century is represented by the
Picasso-influenced modern wave that began during the Modern Art Week of
1922 in São Paulo. Paintings by Di Cavalcanti, Tarsila do Amaral and
others are well represented, such as the historical Anthropofagy, by
Tarsila, as she is known in Brazil.
Tarsila do Amaral spent several years in Paris,and she took home the
influences she received from Cubism, Purism and other emerging European
art tendencies. Later in life, she turned to social realism, responding to
her admiration for Soviet art and culture.
The 1930s are represented by the art that was developed under the
dictatorship of President Getulio Vargas(1930-1945 and elected back into
office in 1950, where he remained until his infamous suicide in August
1954). Landscapes mark that era, and the best known artist of those times
was Candido Portinari.
Other eras are also well represented, but a description of them would
make this article too long.
Between phases there are several video showcases that are screened on
the walls between floors.
One of the screenings is O Pagador
De Promessas, the 1961 movie that depicts the sad story of Ze do Burro,
who promised St. Barbara - on a Candomblé ritual - to take a cross to a
church in Salvador, Bahia. The priest denies his entrance as he approaches
the church, and his presence, day after day, in front of the church,
raises a media havoc that ends in tragedy.
Another one is It's All True, the unfinished Orson Welles movie that
tells the true story of three fishermen from Fortaleza,Brazil who sail
2,000 miles to Rio de Janeiro(then the nation's capital) in protest againt
the harsh condition that their profession, the jangadeiros, faced every
day, and to ask the nation's president for help.
Welles was impressed with the story, and traveled to Brazil in order to
document how the story happened by doing it all over again, but this time
on film.
The shoot ended in tragedy with the death of one of the fishermen, and
Welles abandoned the project, which was only posthumously released almost
50 years later - edited by two Brazilian film makers.
One of the last video screenings is Carnaval - basically a video of the
parade performed by the Samba Schools in Rio every year during Mardi Gras,
which is one of the lowest points of Brazil Body and Soul. Sadly, the
video depicts only the exhibition of flesh that is common during those
parades - models and wannabes who display their enhanced bodies in order
to either get their "fifteen minutes" or a contract with Playboy.
Carnaval is not that.
The celebration, which used to mark the four days of free partying
before the period of Holy Lent is one of the trademarks of Brazilian
culture, and it is a nationwide holiday where people dance, have fun and
perform certain "excesses". The displays of nudity are part of the parades
in São Paulo and Rio, but that is not true in the rest of the country,
although that is the image that most foreigners - especially Americans -
get.
Another low point to this writer is one of the most stunning parts of
the show - the already mentioned altar from the São Bento Monastery in
Olinda.
It is hard to understand how the Brazilian authorities(not to mention
the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil itself) allowed a historical altar,
which stood for more than 200 years inside church of historical importance
to the country, to be taken apart and included in a commercial exhibit in
foreign lands.
Such a desecration would be comparable to taking an American Symbol
apart(say, the Washington Memorial) and taking it somewhere around the
world to be put into display for cash.
Of course, some might argue, Brazil is a third-world empoverished
country, but some things should not be allowed to be done. Taking apart a
two-and-a-half century-old altar is definitely one of them.
Brazil Body and Soul is, despite its low points, a worthwhile
experience for anyone interested in art - from a country that has given a
significant contribution to it on a very global basis.
Visit the Guggenheim online at
http://www.guggenheim.org
Ernest Barteldes is an ESL and Portuguese teacher. In addition to that,
he is a freelance writer whose work has been published by The Greenwich
Village Gazette, The Staten Island Advance, The Staten Island Register,
The SI Muse, Brazzil magazine,The Villager , GLSSite, Entertainment Today
and other publications. He lives in Staten Island, NY. He can be reached
at ebarteldes@nycny.net
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