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organs, located on opposite sides of the lecture hall. The artist also presents a work about the VLADO HERZOG was 38 years old when he was killed, under torture, at Doi–Codi’s
educator Anísio Teixeira, who died in 1971 after being arrested by agents of the dictatorship. premises in 1975 in São Paulo. At the time, he was editor of TV Cultura’s Hora
In two large knitting installations, Texto–Tecido–Teia, O Grupo Inteiro uses words found da Notícia, and had voluntarily gone to give his testimony. From then on, a farce
in the training handouts of National Information Service (SNI) agents. The manuals, was set up in an attempt to cover up the murder by turning it into suicide, and a
which served to guide repression of leftist organizations, included slang dictionaries fierce struggle began for the truth to surface, turning the journalist into a kind
and expressions that might be needed in interrogation and torture sessions. Right of symbol against oppression and in defense of democracy. , whose last chapter
next door is a video by artist Ana Vaz entitled Apiyemiyekî? [Por quê?] addresses the was the condemnation of the Brazilian State by the OAS Inter–American Court of
genocide of the Waimiri–Atroari people during their march to the Midwest in the 1970s, Human Rights, in 2018. It is to him that Itaú Cultural dedicates the 46th edition
when indigenous lands were invaded for the construction of BR–174 and the installation of the Occupation project, which has been revisiting the work and biography of
of a mining company. Illustrations created by the indigenous about the period reveal the major figures of Brazilian culture. The exhibition rightly goes beyond the political
traumatic history lived by the population, referring us to the present day. drama of the biographer. The starting point is not the dramatic end, but a streak
Finally, Mabe Bethonica researches the relationship of mining companies with the military of references to his public and private life, a route that somehow explains why
dictatorship from a doctoral project he discovered on the subject. The artist invited the he was brutally treated as an enemy of the regime. It recovers the story of a
author of the research, Ana Carolina Reginatto, to teach her on the subject and recorded multifaceted figure, deeply interested in the course of the country at a particularly
the process in videos. The final work, entitled Elite Mineral [Gabinete de Aprendizado] is violent moment in its history and who saw in art, especially in cinema – the field
another that, according to the curator, brings us directly to recent events in the country. of his greatest interest – a path of action and reflection.
“With Mabe’s work, it is clear what is happening in Brumadinho. When you look at Ana Early on, visitors came across a careful selection of the photographs he was
Vaz’s work, you better understand what is happening on the indigenous issue. So we are obsessively and rigorously taking. In the family holdings, more than 70 carefully
making calls that we don’t seem to make in Brazil”, says Pato. identified slide boxes were found, containing images ranging from personal travel
records to experiments of great formal richness, compositions marked by a keen
REVISIONISM AND LEARNING eye, and the use of unusual angles and framings, such as that. which shows his
If the work group created by Ana Pato with the artists to research the memory of son André, as a baby, in the middle of an intense red rose garden. The woman
dictatorship emerged in 2018, it was from the beginning of this year, after the inauguration holding him, probably his wife Clarisse, practically leaves the scene to make the
of Jair Bolsonaro, that the process of production of the works intensified. The theme image more intense and disturbing.
went further into the agenda in a context in which the President of the Republic defends This first core, called Vlado Multimedia, also features a series of documents,
the military regime, praises torturers and encourages the commemoration of the date testimonials from friends and fellow travelers, as well as Herzog’s own writings on
of the 1964 coup. “We are living a moment of revisionism of our official history. Because cinema, witnessing both real action in this field and journalistic interest in defense.
the military dictatorship is in our official history, it did not seem to be a narrative we had of a social use of language. Unfortunately, he was only able to direct a short film
exactly to prove. But things have changed”, says the curator. entitled Marimbimbas, but was already preparing to make a documentary about
“The impression I have is that we are kind of disconnected from who we are, from Canudos. Both photos taken during his field research in Bahia and Marimbás are
our nation building. So to understand what we are living, nothing better than looking part of the show. The catalog is also dedicated exclusively to his relationship
back, learning from history to be more aware of the present”, she says, reinforcing with the cinema.
Meta–Arquivo’s pedagogical role – especially in times of denial of historical facts. and Her personal life, journalistic work and permanence as a symbol of the struggle
dissemination of false information. No wonder, explains Pato, the show has the subtitle against oppression (represented in works such as the action of Cildo Meireles, which
Listening Space and Reading of Dictatorship Histories. “I think the exhibition is a place stamps money with the question: “Who killed Herzog?”) Constitute the other nuclei
of learning. It seems to me that if we need to get back to reality, somehow the artist of show. Over two years of research, which involved a team of eight researchers, in
can be this way of the symbolic so that we look back at the real. ” addition to the staff of Itaú Cultural and the Vladimir Herzog Institute – partners
By making undisclosed stories public, there is also the possibility of some reparation or at in the production of the show – thousands of data and documents were collected.
least dealing with past wounds. “In Brazil, we did not recognize our debts, our traumatic Scattered throughout the exhibition space, the visitor comes across a wealth of
history. And the genocides of the black, indigenous population, that remains. It’s the very rich elements such as facsimiles of his articles for various vehicles, posters and
concept of trauma, the past that doesn’t want to go through, what is always coming back”, posthumous books honoring him, important documents relating to the Herzog Case
says Pato. In this sense, the curator refers to a story that begins long before the military such as the decision of Judge Márcio José de Moraes, who, in 1978, reversed the
dictatorship, with deep roots that come from the arrival of the colonizers and the period official version of suicide amid symbolic objects such as his typewriter and camera.
of slavery. For her, it is only from this historical complexity that one can understand the Especially touching are items such as the Herzog family’s entry into Brazil in 1946
current “dualism and split of Brazilian society”. and a letter his father wrote to him narrating the family’s life during World War
In a large shed of Sesc Belenzinho, the show presents itself as a space for dialogue between II, when they took refuge in Italy fleeing Yugoslavia and anti–Semitism. . Or the
the works, mounted between apparent metal structures and small wooden surfaces, photograph of the newsroom of the State of S. Paulo, completely empty, on the
allowing the overlapping of the stories presented. About Anna Ferrari’s expographic day of his burial. A visual testimony to the enormous solidarity and commotion

project, the curator explains: “It also has to do with the idea of archiving, to pervert the caused by his assassination by the military regime.

very idea of boxes. I wish I could see any work from any angle. But the point is this: you “It was a real gold digger. What we see here is just the surface”, says Luis Ludmer
will never have the perfect angle, you will always have the other side”. of the Herzog Institute and co–curator of the show along with Claudiney Ferreira,
manager of the Audiovisual and Literature Center at Itaú Cultural. The idea is
EXHIBITION SÃO PAULO | PAGES 58 AND 60 that all this material will serve as a basis for the construction of a website in the
HERZOG OCCUPATION: GOING future, making access to all this volume of material permanent, which tends to
become even wider with disclosures such as this one whose function is to It is
BEYOND THE POLITICAL DRAMA not only about remembering the past and rescuing the figure of the engaged

ITAÚ CULTURAL DEDICATES 46TH EDITION OF OCCUPATION PROJECT, intellectual, so that he is never forgotten, but also building a model of resistance
that is important in times of human rights retreat such as we are experiencing
PORTRAITING GREAT FIGURES OF BRAZILIAN CULTURE, TO VLADIMIR HERZOG today. “We didn’t want anything funeral”, the curators say. Hence the option for
JOURNAL KILLED BY MILITARY DIETRICAN IN 1975 an open museography, with the various nuclei in dialogue, marked by a certain
lightness and rusticity.
BY MARIA HIRSZMAN

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