Day 7 - Museu de Arte Contempranea de Niteroi (MAC)

Day 7 Sun. June 1


8:45am Group convenes in hostel lobby and boards van
9:00 am to 6:00 pm van leaves for Niteroi for all day program at Museum de Arte Contemporanea de Niteroi, with Director, Gilherme Vagara

Today we spent the whole day with Gilherme Vagara. He is the director of MAC de Niteroi. He starts off with a formal lecture about the history of Brazilian Art movements and contextualizes the Modern Era and the Neo Concrete. He also talked about the philosophy of Paulo Freire and the architectural achievements of Oscar Niemeyer and many of the pioneer architects that have revolutionized the aesthetic design of Brazil with their structures. Niemeyer created the architectural design of the museum. Which is a site to see as a tourist attraction in itself. It reminded me of the Guggenheim museum in New York. But when Gilleme started to explain the purpose of the shape of the musuem and how its circular format and double helix walking paths through the space represents infinity, nature, also its makes the viewer observe the beautiful landscape around from every angle. What is interesting about the lecture was his pedagogical approach to the group. I feel like so far out of all of the professors, professionals, and philosophers we've met, I've really understood the pedagogy of Freirean thought by witnessing Gilleme's use of the problem posing method to museum curriculum, activities and even the way he addressed the group in terms of keeping us all engaged.

The museum has only been around since 1996 and because of this newness there are challenges I see in terms of how to curate in a space that's architecturally so dynamic and hard to ignore. The attention to the building itself upstages the art work in it. He addresses this issue with the idea behind Niemeyer's motivation as seeing the contradiction in the Neo concrete by making the museum a contradiction. His architecture was to draw all people to this space and engage with it regardless if they enter or not. To appreciate it with out the marginalization of language. Even during his lecturing I found myself wanting to shift my focus out the window a little longer because of the breath taking views.

In the museum we had a chance to do an exercise with fabric relating to the juxtaposition of color and form that mimics the paintings from the show which the title of the show was called, "Poets of Color." Which in the U.S. that would have an entirely different meaning. But in this case they mean poetic in the composition of the colors on a painting.

The fabric exercise was interesting this the poem I wrote in response to the exercise.

Wrapped in cloth

Wrapped in cloth
tied execution style
I mimic the political prisoners stories
Forgotten and remembered
experienced
of the known
and unknown

I felt a glimpse of their pain
in a single action.
As the cloth covered me
by anonymous and familiar

Those choosing different parts of the body
to restrain me
One said, "I want to tie around her neck."
One said, "Don't do it too tight."
At the beginning
the cloth I put on myself I could see through
But after time they covered my eyes.
And my whole body.
One covered my feet so you couldn't see my brown toes
Someone asked who is in there?
One answered
I don't know as they continued to restrain me.

I'm in kneeling pose, execution style.
Hands tied behind my back.
The footsteps leave to a more exciting pose with fabrics
Its hot under here
I'm silent

My friend asked me
do you want to be free?

First time I said nothing.
The second time she asked I said yes.
She pulled off the layers and untied the knots
She was amazed by the layers of restraints

A little boy wanted to play the game and tie me again.
(He must have been watching)

I came up for air and Daylight
I said I don't want to play anymore.




Curriculum ideas

Develop curriculum relating the experiences in Brazil and comparing it to life in the United States.
Taking the comparison of the Favela: Votre in Rio De Janeiro and compare and contrast to the projects of Chicago Southside.

Lesson Plan will be inspired from project Morrinho building a city from its enviornment. Students will analyze there own neighborhood and reconstruct a replica of it using found materials relevant to their community and neighborhood

Unit Plan

1. Construct your community
2. Find out what is missing in your community with a treasure hunt photo journey. Or sketches of ideas.
3. Take examples of structures from Brazil for innovations to create dynamic Architectural structures to build the newly renovated environment.
4. Take the experiences of building your community with its revisions and see in real life how we can change it and make or request to city government. Research project
5. Taking all the individual communities that have been built how do we as a class bring them together to make a city? Looking at the resources of other cities like the car garage in Rio de Janeiro and taking structures for facilities in your local city and other cities to build the environment.
6. Proposing the ideas for a new improvements to the city to the mayor city planning committee.

Sunday June 1, 2008

Notes from
Director Gilherme Vagara lecture

Continuing antropophagy passages from modern to grassroots utopias

"Only antropophagy unites us. socially. economically. philosophically." -Oswald de Andrade

Rethinking Paulo Freire for the 1998 Brazilian Bi-Annual
Bi Annual become a territory for Globalization
Extravagant and Admiration
Existentialist is a Paulo Freire expression
Accusation of language. Connecting with aesthetic experience of allienation. Freire: learning language is a political action. The first step of learning is facing what you don't know.

The museum is filled with contradictions
Brazilian thinkers: Sergio Buarque de Holanda and Oswald de Andrade, expressed the complex nature of the Brazilian anthropophagic utopia, each respectively refering to the open-ended tension between what they called "new world and old civilization," and "jungle and school," the ever-green paradise and European culture- a parallel also found in our institutions.

This Museum is aligned with the modernists. The post-modern utopia is the grassroots.

Montaigne: These who will read of such hrrendos things that are practiced daily..

Image XIX
Pedro Amerio : Map of Brazil

Tarsila do Amoral - A negra (The Negress) 1923

Antropophagy - Tarsila do Amaral

-Curriculum note -
The amount of windows show the wealth in Brazil in the early 1900. The windows were for the ladies to come to the balcony and that shows off the family.

Architect: Niemeyer
MG, 1943 - Panpulha, MG
Casa de Banc, MG 1942
Ministerio de Educacao e Saude,1937-1943.
Consultar- le Corbuster

Brazilian Architects: Lucio Costa, Marcelo e Milton Roberto, ABI: Brazilian Press Association, 1936 Jore Moreira, Affonso Reidy, Carlos Leao e Ernami Vasconcelos

The leftovers from the modern project people took to make the favelas windows and open areas is to remind you of appreciating the world around us.

Niemeyer: statement paraphrased by Curator: Msueum with out walls the invisible msueum to see the beautiful landscape around us.

Affonso Reidy: Conjunto Habitacional do Pedregulho, sa cristovao RJ. 1947 -1952

The Architecture in Brazil is part of the New Concrete movement. Mixed with the constructivist movement.

Max Burle -1945 Mathematician
Most of the intellectuals and artist were communist and part of the socialist movement of that time.

Bauhaus and the Russian AvantGarde
Brazilian Architect were not western or nealist or decadant like the NY Ameriacan Artist.

The Poet is seen traditionally is to see things metaphyiscally and translate the poetry of god.

Neo concrete movement

Helio Oiticica - Programa de invencoes do espaco
El lissitsky - De stijl

The extensional phenomenology is the foundation of the Neo Concrete.
Magic Box - Derived from the El Lissitsky sketch that was constructed in a space in nature.

Max Bill - Art Concrete
Lygia Clark - Modern Artist and Patterns and Geometry

Poetic Shelter 1964 Poet's house

Functionalist Behavior - Brings the concepts of Portuguese utopia

The idea to take to shape of the form and function of the environment

The Anglo saxsonic - language
is very planned. We must plan, before we speak

Example: The beautiful tree.

But in Portuguese - Is more improvisational, more intuitive because not knowing what is coming next.
Example: The tree, beautiful...

Community Project . Family doctor Socio - culture agents

5 subjects Art, Geography, health, artist, history, community health in the favela to prevent teenage pregnacy. Public Art that includes sustainability and continuity in building relationships. Artist may come and go but leave them with communtiy of a sustainable relationship for the memembers of the favela community. Fidel castro inaguated the community school(?) Or Center?

Niemeyer designed new space for the community center on top of the favela.
Curator quote "A place of hope, but a concrete hope."

Jean Batista Nico

Museum's have been known as a place of alienation. "Dis-alienation is our challenge." He was a civil engineer as his first career. A utopia will be when the people form the bottom come up to the peoople on the top to work in the favela. Its neccesarry for the future.

Internships - Letters of proposal