Page 115 - ARTE!Brasileiros #40

museums are being built today and I bet they will all be handed arts. Americans and Brazilians like Hélio Oiticica, who lived there
out to marketers. Why building new museums in Rio, if there is, and even hosted me for eight months.
for instance, the Museum of Modern Art, which is attempting to In that period you made a series of Super 8 movies that were
rebuild itself after a fire and simple can’t? More museums for what? lost in a fire. How many were there?
Of course, because they want to erect monuments to be able to In New York I shot eight Super 8 movies, but I lost all of them in
say “I did it!,” but they will clog these museums with nonsense, that fire. They were movies made from situations that I created
like creating courses to teach people how to make art. Ok, this is and others that were shot in real life. One of them, three-minutes-
valid, but they do not even suspect that art is not something that long, which featured gloves I found in the winter in the city, and
necessarily needs to be taught in a course. “How-to” recipes can fit set them on fire. Another one, which I did when I lived on 3rd
into cooking, not art courses. You can’t give courses solely to teach Street, on top of a Hell Angels headquarters. I lived with my friend
someone to be inserted into a market that will not accommodate Patricia Nolan, who is also a photographer, and one night she was
so many people with a degree just for that. sitting at the window, kind of languorous. Down below, a hell angel
Can this mindset drive the market to exhaustion? tried to ride his motorcycle to impress her, but the bike would not
I think there is a massive dose of opportunism. And who makes more start. A three-minute film, but which said a lot about machismo
money are the producers, cultural agitators and intermediaries and impotence. This film was beautiful, it was called Waiting for
who are there just to profit and have more and more power. The Man, which was a Lou Reed song.
According to the Rouanet Law, the artist makes a book and can’t Composed by him in the times of Velvet Underground...
make money with his work, because the counterpart is promotion. Yes, from the Velvet Underground phase. In fact, I don’t know
The artist is always “promoting” his work and who earns more is all of Warhol’s work, but I suspect that the best thing he did was
the producer and the intermediary. launching the Velvet Underground, because the films he produced,
And what do you think about the photojournalism practiced you just can’t watch. Neither then nor today. It was a time when
today? body art was also emerging. Today, body artist are taking those
Today, anyone who has a cell phone with a camera can be a images, works that were not meant to be commercialized, and
photojournalist. As this is also fully controlled, what comes out they are selling everything. Simply ludicrous! For example, my film
on television is the same thing that is publish in the newspapers. I Nada Levarei Quando Morrer, Aqueles Que me Devem, Cobrarei
never thought I was doing photojournalism. To me, what I did was no Inferno [I will Take Nothing When I Die, Those Who Owe me, I
more a kind of “photodocumentary” with a poetic interpretation, will Charge in Hell] is not marketable, but more than one gallery
a different construction, as in an exhibition I held at Parque Lage owner proposed to transform it into a limited series. I refuse. I just
in 1978, called Negativo Sujo [Dirty Negative], which was already can’t see why. The whole world only thinks of money and this is
this. I worked for National Geographic in 1979, in a work about going to go sour. In fact, a lot of shit has already been going on,
abandoned children that later led me to Pelourinho and to the and that’s why I think this is the best time to think about all these
work with the prostitutes. I was living in Salvador, married to things. One of the best protections that there still exists, in my
Mário Cravo’s sister–with whom I have a son, who is a musician opinion, is to stay out of the cities, to return to nature and take
and is 33 years old, Gerônimo Cravo Rio Branco, he is a drummer, a peaceful stance, because we will not get anywhere. That’s why
he lived in Bahia and eleven months ago he went to Canada. I I chose to live here... This place is good for me to try and calm
never really did photojournalism. There was a woman, who was a myself down a bit.
journalist and today has become a respected curator, who once
called me a “photoreporter.” Photoreporter my foot! I’ve never 1 | THE ARTIST IN HIS HOUSE AND STUDIO IN ARARAS, RIO DE JANEIRO
done photoreport. If the person can’t see it, how can she become
a curator? 2 | PHOTOS BY MIGUEL RIO BRANCO, UNTITLED, FROM THE SERIES MACIEL, 1979
The dividing line between advertising photography and
photojournalism for newspapers and weekly magazines, some 3 | MIGUEL RIO BRANCO, UNTITLED, FROM THE SERIES MACIEL, 1979
critics claim, seem to be increasingly tenuous. Do you agree?
I agree and add: these things have been mixing for a long time. INSTITUTION IMS | PAGES 72 TO 74
It also comes from the publishing of American magazines, which
the American Playboy, you will see that everything was mixed up CULTURAL CENTER WITH
has always been like this. If you look at one of the first editions of
in the middle with the playmate poster. My photographic culture MULTIPLE VOCATIONS
then. Of course, the only thing that was not mixed was that folder
came from magazines such as Playboy, Timelife, Elle. It was what I
saw in photography. I only heard of Cartier Bresson, for instance, AIMING AT THE LARGE AUDIENCE, THE NEW MOREIRA SALLES INSTITUTE
around 1979, 1980, through friends in São Paulo. My first contact HEADQUARTERS, IN SÃO PAULO, BRINGS A FULL CULTURAL AGENDA
with Magnum was in 1972. I did a job for them in 1973, but no one
knows that, because it was a fleeting contact. I was coming back BY MARIA HIRSZMAN
from New York and took a portfolio to Magnum, several people
saw my work, and Charlie Harbutt–I don’t know if he was president WITH THE INAUGURATION of its new headquarters in São Paulo
at the time, I don’t remember–he really liked what he saw. But I on 9/20, the Moreira Salles Institute (IMS) begins a new phase.
did not make it to Magnum on that occasion, even though they The building has over 1,000 square meters of exhibition space
commissioned a work, more directed at a visual anthropology divided into three large galleries with double high ceiling. Designed
that I made in 1973 in São Fidélis, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. by Andrade Morettin Arquitetos, it has ample spaces for a library
For one year, I recorded the life of a family. I went there every specialized in photography for over 30,000 publications (at the
two months and spent 15 days with them. I studied photography moment it houses 7,000 books), rooms for workshops, music
in New York for only a month–enough time for me–and during this concerts, film sessions, restaurant and bookshop. Located at
time that I lived there, from 1970 to 1972, I had no contact with Paulista Avenue, near Consolação Street and served by two metro
photography professionals. My contact was with people in visual stations, the venue should promote an exponential growth in the

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