Page 111 - ARTE!Brasileiros #56

not perpetuate watertight views and consolidated revealing the constructed character of this history the museum will reuse rainwater to maintain the
discourses of power. will be carried out through a series of multimedia garden. This, in turn, has landscaping signed by
From an architectural point of view, the museum interventions. The temporary exhibition will also the Burle Marx Office, with thousands of trees of 73
gains double the built-up area, new support seek to relativize this “Paulistocentric” vision of native Brazilian species.
spaces, greater integration with the surrounding independence, by showing the plural character of
garden, modern installations such as elevators, the various independence movements that erupted the storY
escalators, bathrooms on all floors and a careful throughout the 19th century in the country. Even if expanded in the current context, the concern
adaptation of its space to serve all types of public, Both in these interventions and in other exhibitions with environmental issues is nothing new for the
with 100% accessibility for people with disabilities. that problematize this tense relationship between Museu Casa do Pontal, as the directors Angela
The expectation is that these changes will make it memory and ideology, the important thing is - Mascelani and Lucas Van de Beuque explain. Created
possible to go from 300,000 annual visitors (at the according to the curators - to teach the public in 1976 by artist and designer Jacques Van de Beuque
time of closing) to 700,000 or one million. to question the images, not accept a frozen, (1922-2000), the institution brought together the vast
One of the highlights of the project developed unidirectional view of history or consider the collection brought by him from his travels through
by the H + F architectural firm - which won the constructed images as a double to what is real. Brazil, where he had established himself decades
competition held in 2017 - is the search for a more Images are magnetized with symbolic values, which before. The collection was improved over time both
generous look, trying to reveal more external and strongly contributed to the silencing of blacks and under Guy Van de Beuque (1951-2004) and under
internal aspects of the institution. It proposes greater Indians and to a false “peaceful” vision of our social Angela - who now shares the position with Lucas,
visibility of the surroundings (with the installation of a relations - as was evident in the recent debate about Jacques’ grandson. “Since my grandfather, who
large panoramic window, facing the French Garden) the statue of Borba Gato. After all, as Garcez explains, had his first work in Brazil alongside Burle Marx,
and reveals elements of the building’s own framework, what is often revealed is “an appeasing, racist, sexist the museum has had a very strong relationship with
displaying part of the original juçara wall. And it and elitist narrative, as the characters are also almost nature. No wonder the house was located next to an
creates the possibility of seeing from above - from all drawn from the country’s elites. So, we have to environmental reserve”, says Lucas. “And now we
the mezzanine installed on the top floor - the entire somehow face these issues with the public”. “We wanted to maintain this relationship between art
constructive structure. think of the museum as an intellectual, educational and nature, also including this large, democratic
In a way, this expansion of visibility to the different laboratory, but also a laboratory of citizenship”, he square, in a place that does not have this tradition
structural layers, present in the architectural concludes. of squares, which is Barra”.
project, also reverberates in the broad process But what impresses the most about the Casa do
of reconfiguration of the museological project institutions casa do pontal musEum [paGEs 32 to 35] Pontal Museum, in fact, is its collection of popular
itself, which is articulated around a clear attempt art that features a production made from the 1930s to
to illuminate the various historical, social and A SAFE HOUSE FOR the present day. The more than 9,000 works by 300
cultural dimensions that intertwine in this more artists from the most varied regions of the country
than century-old institution. From the monument- BRAZILIAN FOLK ART include names such as Adalton, Mestre Vitalino,
building, designed in the late 19th century, to the Noemisa Batista, Nhô Caboclo, Gto, Mestre Didi,
current configuration of a modern history museum, After a decade of problems with flooding, Ciça, Dona Isabel, Louco, J. Freitas, Manuel Eudócio,
based on the study of material culture, many layers Casa do Pontal Museum transfers its Nino, Solon, Sauba, Zé Caboclo and Maria Amélia.
overlap. In a joint effort from the five professors grandiose collection of popular art to its With more exhibition space, the new headquarters
responsible for the institution’s curatorship and a new headquarters in the Barra da Tijuca will present a greater number of works by these and
broad team of researchers, technicians, educators neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro other artists, sometimes in monographic sectors,
and students, a new format for the exhibitions was sometimes in thematic areas.
structured. There will be 11 permanent exhibitions, By marcos Grinspum fErraZ At first, rooms are highlighted with the titles:
a large temporary exhibition and a series of parallel “Mundo Brincante”, with interactive and kinetic
activities to be selected through public notices, called “rain in rio FlooDs the casa Do pontal museum works, puppet theater and digital games; “Vale do
“counterpoints”, to dialogue with the collection. anD DamaGes works”, printed the Folha de S.Paulo Jequitinhonha, Minas - the force of the earth”, with
“We think that the museum is a privileged place website in April 2010; “Flooded by the rains, Casa do debates on the material dimension of works and
to study the material dimension of society. As this Pontal Museum will be closed for a week”, reported on the term “tradition”; “Sea, River, Fire and Air”,
materiality helps to build things, our relationships”, Estadão in 2016; “Storm results in the worst flooding where anthological clay sculptures, boats from
explains Vânia Carneiro de Carvalho, coordinator of in the history of museums in Recreio”, stated Rio the São Francisco River, mythological beings and
the new exhibition plan, recalling that the museum Notícias in 2019; “Casa do Pontal Museum is flooded wind works appear; and, finally, “Unusual art and the
left aside the historiography based on the great for the eighth time”, said the newspaper O Globo, networks of passionate about popular art”, which
personalities a long time ago. “We sought to work the in 2020. It was not in this type of news, of tragedies puts into a dialogue works from Jacques’ original
museum as a place for exercises, for challenging the or accidents, that the institution with the largest collection with collections donated or loaned to
images and memories they would have to represent”, collection of popular art in Brazil would like to be the museum, enabling the expansion of the public’s
adds Paulo Garcez Marins, the current head of the present , but that was the case for about a decade. But appreciation. Throughout the visit there are also
Collection and Curatorship Department. the headlines of news and articles that are read now, videos and testimonials from personalities such
in 2021, demonstrate that the Casa do Pontal Museum as Gilberto Gil, Ailton Krenak and José Saramago.
the exhibitions is returning to the place it should not have left: the But, more importantly, the testimonies of the
The long-term exhibitions will be articulated culture and art pages of newspapers, magazines, artists themselves are present, in line with the Casa
around two axes: “To understand Society” and “To websites and blogs. do Pontal Museum’s search for the appreciation
understand the Museum”, looking at important The observation made above does not mean that of these creators, who were often framed only as
aspects of everyday life, such as the world of the Rio museum has also not been able to receive representatives of the production of regions and
labor, consumption habits and complex history of a large audience, set up exhibitions and take care social contexts, having their names relegated to
the institution. In this nucleus more connected to of its collection - more than 9,000 pieces - from second plan. “Because Brazilian popular art, due
everyday life is, for example, the exhibition Casas 2010 to the present day, but rather that the risk of to the limitations of understanding it, is rarely
e Coisas, which derives from Vânia’s doctoral flooding has permeated without pauses the recent understood as art. And for 20 years we’ve been
research and investigates how objects help to build history of the institution. This telenovela finally ends, discussing this issue of denying the ‘art’ category
gender identity and often hide deep-rooted forms of definitively, with the opening on October 2nd of the to these people, as if they didn’t deserve it,” says
prejudice. Or the exhibition Territórios em Disputa, new headquarters of the Casa do Pontal Museum, Angela. “Precisely because the field of plastic arts,
which will try to show how the Portuguese concept in the Barra da Tijuca neighborhood. Historically among all cultural fields, is the most closed and elite
of possession of territory conflicts with the notion of located in a large house in remote Recreio dos stronghold. And as we live in an extremely classy
territory of the indigenous peoples who were here. Bandeirantes, with a land of 5 thousand square and hierarchical country, the view that one has on
The dive in search of a greater understanding meters, the museum walks a few kilometers towards this production is very filtered by stereotypes, that
of the history and role of the museum, on the other the center - approaching a larger audience - on a plot it would only be handicraft, something made for
hand, points out two lines: showing the public the of 14 thousand square meters, which includes a vast commercialization”.
work done by the institution, its role as a research area green and an open square.
and education center belonging to usp since 1963; Designed by Arquitetos Associados from Minas popular anD aCCessible
and help to reveal, make more transparent, the strong Gerais - authors of a series of pavilions in Inhotim Popular in its content, the new Casa do Pontal
ideological strategy presented in the base project of such as Cosmococa, Galeria Claudia Andujar, Galeria Museum intends to be popular with the visiting public
the museum, inaugurated 100 years ago by Affonso Miguel Rio Branco and the Burle Marx Educational as well. In addition to the open square, payment of
d’Escragnolle Taunay. He conceived and led - with an Center - the new Pontal Museum features a admission will be suggested, but not mandatory,
iron fist - a museological project to reinforce the idea building with straight lines, ample lighting natural and the institution intends to have its economic

of São Paulo’s protagonism in the country’s formation, ventilation and ventilation that eliminates the need sustainability based more on the idea of engagement

raising the Bandeiras as a founding moment and a for air conditioning. With several exhibition halls, than on the box office. If it sounds utopian, that’s
dynamizing element of national progress - embodied the space also gains technical reserve and an area how the museum managed to rebuild itself in its old
in the monumental axis. As this nucleus is listed as an for maintenance and restoration that it needs - after headquarters and finish the works for the inauguration
intangible heritage by the three spheres - municipal, years of flooding, the focus on this sector had to be of the new space. According to Lucas, in addition to
state and federal -, this exercise of revisiting and ever greater. Perhaps also a result of recent tragedies, the support of private and state-owned companies,
111