Museu de Arte Moderna de Sso Paulo presents P33_Unique Forms of Continuity in Space 33rd Panorama da Arte Brasileira (33rd Panorama of Brazilian Art) open 5 October–15 December 2013.
The 33rd edition of the Panorama of MAM São Paulo, curated by Lisette Lagnado, explores the improvised reality of modernity by showcasing the history of the museum itself. Founded in 1948, MAM has occupied six different buildings and only settled down in 1969, under the Ibirapuera Marquee, projected by Oscar Niemeyer. When he designed a marquee approximately 620 meters long to connect his buildings in Ibirapuera Park, Niemeyer created the essential void of a modern urbanity, on the occasion of the celebrations for the IV Centennial of São Paulo, in 1954. The idea was for nothing to be constructed under it, thereby ensuring the free circulation of the public in sports and leisure activities.
The 33rd Panorama (P33) brings into the present the memory of a sculpture by Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 100 years after its creation in 1913. Retrofuturistic attributes allow the sculpture’s form—which suggests a “struggle against an invisible force”—to be associated with the museum’s destiny. Boccioni’s title celebrates an ambiguous “continuity.” Despite the loss of its original collection (donated by its founder, Ciccillo Matarazzo, to the Universidade de São Paulo) and not having a building created specifically for it, MAM ultimately endured and remained in the city.
Besides the architects, who are participating for the first time in an edition of Panorama, Lagnado and adjunct curator Ana Maria Maia have invited Brazilian and international artists to present new works. Even though MAM does not have the intention to leave its building, the exhibition will gather alternative, somewhat utopian and also propositive views of its perspectives for the future. For the spbr architectural firm, the alternative should be a three-kilometer corridor suspended over Ibirapuera Park, in a way that the museum would pass over and provide a view of Oscar Niemeyer’s five original buildings and Burle Marx’s landscape.
Together with historical documents that elucidate MAM’s history—like those that refer to the exhibition Bahia no Ibirapuera—Panorama is highlighting other contexts of modernity throughout Brazil (in Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, Belo Horizonte and Brasília) and the world. The exhibition layout—by Alvaro Razuk and Isa Gebara—has reinstated Lina’s circulation design (with the main entrance facing the Bienal Pavilion), as well as the original colours of the door and walls, while also eliminating the presence of the upright panels that divide the space. But the reality is now another: the city of São Paulo received Ibirapuera Park for its IV Centennial in 1954; what sort of gift would be in keeping with the spirit of a V Centennial?
On 19 October, the exhibition presents other commissioned proposals, inserting MAM back into the city’s downtown, where it was first created, close to the urban infrastructure and to the region where São Paulo modernism began with the events related to the Week of ’22.
Lisette Lagnado, curator
Art critic and Lisette Lagnado holds a PhD in philosophy from the Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Involved with the construction of archives, in 1993 she founded the Projeto Leonilson and, in 1999, she organized the manuscripts of Hélio Oiticica on a website for Itaú Cultural. She served as curator of the 27th Bienal de São Paulo (2006) as well as the exhibition Drifts and Derivations (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 2010), and events. From 2001 to 2010, she coedited the magazine Trópico. Together with Prof. Mirtes Marins de Oliveira, she coordinates the Curatorship Course of Escola São Paulo. She is the author of the book Laura Lima on_off (Cobogó publishers, in press).
Ana Maria Maia, adjunct curator
Ana Maria Maia earned her MA in history, criticism and curatorial thought from FASM with a dissertation on Flavio de Carvalho. She served as a member of the Research and Curatorship Center of Instituto Tomie Ohtake (2011–2013), as curator of Itaú Cultural’s Rumos Artes Visuais (2011–2012), and as an assistant curator of the 29th Bienal de São Paulo (2009–2010). She teaches at Escola São Paulo.
Artists and architects
Affonso E. Reidy, Andrade E Morettin, Arto Lindsay, Bárbara Wagner And Benjamin De Búrca, Beto Shwafaty, Clara Ianni, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Deyson Gilbert, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (with Sérgio Bernardes and Décio Pignatari), Federico Herrero, Fernanda Gomes and Pat Kilgore, Francisco Du Bocage, Gruposp, Lina Bo Bardi, Marcel Gautherot, Mauro Restiffe, Michel Aertsens, Montez Magno, Oscar Niemeyer, Pablo León De La Barra (in collaboration with Leandro Nerefuh and Yona Friedman), Pablo Uribe, Per Hüttner (with Öyvind Fahlström and Mira Schendel), Philippe Rahm, Porfírio Valladares, spbr, Subdv, Tacoa, Usina, Vitor Cesar, Vivian Caccuri, Y Arquitectura (with Ferreira Gullar), Yuri Firmeza and Amanda Melo Da Mota
MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo
Ibirapuera Park, gate 3
São Paulo, Brazil
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm
www.mam.org.br
