Cinquenta 50

“Cinquenta 50” presents works from the MAM collection that were produced in the 1950s. The exhibition shows the variety of artistic production during the period and provides a broader view of an era which was not only notable for the work of the concretists.

On Thursday 16th December, 2004 the São Paulo Museum of Art (MAM) opens to the public the exhibition “Cinqüenta 50” curated by Felipe Chaimovich. The show comprises 75 works from the gallery’s collection: photographs, sculptures, drawings, paintings and prints by 38 artists. The gallery has also organised a series of films to be shown in the Cinemam, starting from the 23rd January, 2005.

According to the Curator, one of the aims of “Cinqüenta 50” is to do away with the out-dated idea of the importance of the concretists. “This idea was developed recently, mainly in the 1990s, in an attempt to claim that modern Brazilian art springs from a single post-war source, which is not true,” says Chaimovich.

For this reason the exibition presents works representing the different artistic styles within the MAM collection: Guignard and Ceschiatti’s modernist figurative work, German Lorca’s urban photography, José Antonio da Silva’s primitivism, the concretism of Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape, Lygia Clark, Anatol Wladislaw and Ivan Serpa, and Antonio Henrique Amaral’s surrealism.

The theme of the exhibition is the historic question posed in the São Paulo magazine Habitat. In edition No. 7 the question is asked: “What is the future of the arts in Brazil?” Several artists replied to the question, among them Djanira, Heitor dos Prazeres, Antonio Bandeira, Ivan Serpa and Iberê Camargo. “The diversity of the answers shows that the concretists were not all-powerful at that time and were represented in that article only by the views of Ivan Serpa”, comments the Curator.

For Felipe Chaimovich, “Brazilian production in the 1950s is pluralistic and showed the way to several future trends. This diversity instigated a modernity that was also pluralistic. The São Paulo Museum of Modern Art believed in strengthening Brazilian art as a universal language and thus created the São Paulo Biennal in 1951. The result is the quality of modern Brazilian art”. The exhibition is accompanied by a timeline showing the political and cultural events of the 1950s.

The exhibition does not intend to show an exhaustive overview of what was produced in the 1950s, it is rather a production based on the gallery’s collection, which was started in 1948. The curator is a member of the MAM’s Consultative Council on the Arts.

The event includes works by Abraham Palatnik, Ademar, Alberto da Veiga Guignard, Aldemir Martins, Alfredo Ceschiatti, Almir Mavignier, Anatol Wladyslaw, Antonio Henrique Amaral, Arnaldo Barbosa, Arnaldo Pedroso D’Horta, Arthur Luiz Piza, Carlos Prado, Darcy Penteado, Flávio-Shiró, Franz Weissmann, Geraldo de Barros, Gerda Bretani, German Lorca, Hansen-Bahia, Heinz Kühn, Hélio Oiticica, Hércules Barsotti, Hermelindo Fiaminghi, Ivan Serpa, José Antonio da Silva, Lívio Abramo, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Marcelo Grassmann, Marina Caram, Mário Zanini, Odilla Mestriner, Rasmus Skov, Samson Flexor, Sérvulo Esmeraldo, Sonia Ebling, Thomaz Farkas and Vitoria Kossowski.

Pressetext

Cinquenta 50
The Artistic Production of the 1950s is Reviewed by the MAM
kuratiert von Felipe Chaimovich

mit Abraham Palatnik, Alberto da Veiga Guignard, Aldemir Martins, Alfredo Ceschiatti, Almir Mavignier, Anatol Wladyslaw, Antonio Henrique Amaral, Arnaldo Barbosa, Arnaldo Pedroso D´Horta, Arthur Luiz Piza, Carlos Prado, Darcy Penteado, Flavio-Shiro, Franz Weissmann, Geraldo de Barros, Gerda Bretani, German Lorca, Hansen-Bahia, Heinz Kühn, Hélio Oiticica, Hercules Barsotti, Hermelindo Fiaminghi, Ivan Serpa, Jose Antonio da Silva, Livio Abramo, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Marcelo Grassmann, Marina Caram, Mario Zanini, Odilla Mestriner, Rasmus Skov, Samson Flexor, Servulo Esmeraldo, Sonia Ebling, Thomaz Farkas, Vitoria Kossowski