VISIONS OF ART IN THE COLLECTION OF MAC USP 1900-2000

The exhibition [Vision of Art in the Collection of MAC USP 1900-2000] presents the art of the 20th century through the collection gathered by this museum. It is divided into two segments distributed between the seventh and sixth floors of this building, covering the periods of 1900- 1950 and 1950-2000, respectively. The chronological boundaries are not rigid, but they were set to guide the visit to the exhibition, which aims at questioning groups of artworks able to bring up some specificity of Brazilian art and culture when they interact with international art. The seventh floor presents aspects of visual arts from the first half of the 20th century, in the following sections: The Establishment of the Modern; The Circulation of Modern Art; Avant garde and Politics: Expressionism at Stake; Realisms; Abstracionisms, besides setting the relation between Bienal de São Paulo and MAC USP. In the sixth floor, the sections Figurations; Political Art; Art as an Idea; and Towards Global Art: Contemporary Art in the Turn of the 21st Century seek to present how the museum collection can indicate the transformations of artistic experiences in the second half of the 20th century. The exhibition project was meant to articulate both floors, positioning two squares in the center of each of the them. In the seventh floor, the square links the museum collection to Parque Ibirapuera, while belonging to the wider project of modernity to Brazil in the 1950s. This modernity has a reflection in the square of the sixth floor with MAC USP history inside the university, which is also expressed by the most important architectural projects conceived for its headquarters, respectively inside and outside the campus, signed by two of the main Brazilian architects in the 20th century: Oscar Niemeyer and Paulo Mendes da In order to reflect about the relation of modern architecture and MAC USP, we counted on the collaborations of professor Rodrigo Queiroz and Marta Bogéa, from FAU USP Design Department. Queiroz studies the reinterpretation of the modern architecture narrative among us; Marta Bogéa focuses her research in the relations between architecture and exhibition devices and exhibition spaces. The collaboration of professors from other USP faculties coincides with MAC USP university profile, which seeks to indicate investigation paths within its collection, from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Ana Magalhães, Carmen Aranha, Helouise Costa curators