Self-Portrait, 1949. Tatuapé, São Paulo

GALLERY Geraldo de Barros: Throwing the Dice Fernando Castro

4 Pictures Courtesy If we could only keep our happy or sad memories we “Speak normally, Geraldo. I cannot under- would go crazy. Fortunately, there are others. stand what you are trying to say,” she told of the Sicardi Gallery, GERALDO DE BARRO him one morning. He asked for a pen but when she gave it to him, his fi ngers could Houston. not hold on to it. Only after being hospital- Unbeknownst even to himself, in 1979, Geral- ized did the family fi nd out what had hap- do de Barros suffered his fi rst attack of cerebral pened to him. “Too much stress and too ischemia. He was fi fty-six years old. Up until much smoking,” the doctor said. He had to the Seventies, it had been a good decade for slow down. Geraldo. In 1972, Hobjeto, the furniture fac- Although physically diminished, Geraldo tory of which he was co-owner had reached remained as lucid as ever and was deter- its maximum expansion employing over seven mined to continue to be the artist he had al- hundred people. His furniture designs had re- ways been. He was able to sketch geometric ceived several awards thus fulfi lling his desire patterns like those he had done during the to socialize art by allowing as many people as fi fties when he was one of Brazil’s most re- possible to use it in their lives. The commer- nowned Concrete artists. With the help of cial success of the Hobjeto chain made him a his assistant José Suares, who executed the wealthy man. He was able to build a lofty new paintings from his sketches and instructions, home with a studio and travel to Europe with Geraldo produced an astounding new series his family. In 1975 his daughter Fabiana had of abstract Concrete works. The Brazilian art found photographic prints he had done twen- world re-discovered his works. In 1979 they ty-fi ve years before; this discovery renewed were selected to be shown at the XV Bienal his enthusiasm for photography. He also rees- Internacional de Arte de São Paulo. His rest- tablished contact with the artistic circle of his less creative mind overpowered his physical younger years. However, the economic crisis vicissitudes and he radicalized his idea of so- in Brazil was beginning to affect his furniture cializing art further by using industrial materi- business and Geraldo found himself under in- als instead of paint. Using Formica, Geraldo creasing stress. produced the series Jogos de Dados, a name It was his wife Electra who fi rst noticed that echoed Mallarmé’s seminal calligraphic L´ange, 1948 his impaired speech and motor coordination. poem Throw of the Dice. His newly created

46 4 LITERAL. LATIN AMERICAN VOICES • FALL, 2008 Abstraction, 1949. São Paulo Untitled, From the series Fotoforma, 1949 works gained him the honor to represent He took lessons in drawing and medium of photography. He employed sev- Brazil at the 1986 Venice Biennial. “After I eral techniques including straight photogra- got sick, I became better,” Geraldo said once painting with Clóvis Graciano, phy, pinhole photography, solarization, mul- with his characteristic sense of humor. tiple exposures and alteration of negatives by It was the life and honor that the young Colette Pujol, Takeshi Suzuki, and cutting, scratching and painting. Fortunately, Geraldo could have only dreamed of. He had the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo Assis Cha- begun his artistic voyage at the age of twenty the great Japanese master Yoshi- teaubriand, founded in 1947, had a new three by enrolling at the Associação Paulista Italian director, Pietro Maria Bardi, who did de Belas Artes. He took drawing and paint- ya Takaoka. With other artists he not believe in favoring one form of art over ing lessons with Clóvis Graciano, Colette Pu- another. Bardi asked Geraldo to organize a jol, Takeshi Suzuki, and the great Japanese formed Grupo 15 and developed photographic laboratory for the museum. master Yoshiya Takaoka. With other artists he It was there that in 1950, Geraldo held the formed Grupo 15 and developed an expres- an expressionistic way of painting. landmark photographic exhibit Fotoformas sionistic way of painting. Seeking to improve that brought together his photographic ex- his knowledge of art, Geraldo frequented Seeking to improve his knowl- periments. Aside from the impact this exhibit the Biblioteca Municipal de São Paulo. He had among artists and photographers at the discovered the Theory of Gestalt, the work of edge of art, Geraldo frequented time, the practical result of it was a grant Paul Klee, and the art of the Bauhaus. At that from the French government to study print- time, Geraldo also made friends with Athaíde the Biblioteca Municipal de São ing in France. de Barros and together they improvised a Although the two years Geraldo spent photographic laboratory. Fascinated by the Paulo. He discovered the Theory in Europe led to a forty-two year hiatus in his creative possibilities of the medium, Geraldo practice of photography as a fi ne art, they bought a 6x6 twin-lens Rolleifl ex camera. of Gestalt, the work of Paul Klee, also transformed his life. In Italy, he met Gior- Michel Favre, his most reliable biographer to gio Morandi; in Paris, Francois Morellet; in date, states that Geraldo “started frequent- and the art of the Bauhaus. Ulm, Otl Aicher; and in Zurich he visited Max ing the only place in Sao Paulo where pho- Bill, whom he had already met in São Paulo. tography lovers would meet, the Foto Cine Some writers have also mentioned a meet- Club Bandeirantes.” Nevertheless, “he was ing with Henri Cartier-Bresson. Undoubtedly, one of the youngest members and his ideas it was Max Bill who had the greatest impact did not tally with the only approach favored on Geraldo as he was the rector of the Hoch- by the club, pictorialism.” Geraldo’s main schule fur Gestaltung in Ulm and one of the premise about the medium boiled down to apostles of Concrete art both in Europe and what he spelled out as such: “For me pho- Brazil. When Geraldo returned to São Paulo, tography is a process of printing.” he became one of the founders of the Grupo From about 1948 to 1950, Geraldo be- Ruptura of Concrete art that also included gan a series of experiments unmatched in the Luis Sacilotto and Waldemar Cordeiro. It was

OTOÑO, 2008 • LITERAL. VOCES LATINOAMERICANAS 3 47 Some Concrete artists de-romanticized the role of the artist and regarded themselves as mere workers. They also saw their vi- sion of art as a timely one vis-à-vis Brazil’s ongoing modernization.

ligent” furnishings for the masses that the then start again like Duchamp used to stop Unilabor workers would produce. However, to play chess. by 1964, the cooperative was beset with Those years were the preamble to his fi nancial and managerial diffi culties; the ul- fi rst stroke. In 1988, Geraldo suffered a suc- tra-rightist military coup of March 31st made cession of new strokes that further incapaci- The Girl and The Shoe, 1949. Cemetery of Tatuapé, São Paulo the experiment politically suspect. Moreover, tated him and confi ned him to a wheel-chair. Unilabor’s management considered that he Nevertheless, he continued to sketch and was dispensable. Geraldo left Unilabor and plan new works. joined Aluisio Bioni in creating the Hobjeto In Geraldo’s story there is an important a movement that advocated an end to fi gu- privately-owned furniture factory. The name chapter where the main protagonist is his rative (representational) art and promoted an was a combination that Geraldo came up daughter Fabiana de Barros —an artist in her objective art that pointed only to itself. It was with: Hoje (today) and Objeto (object) = to- own right. She played a crucial role in the rec- also an art with the social mission of making day’s object. ognition of her father’s work. It was thanks to art accessible to people’s lives as designs for In 1960 Brazil inaugurated its new capi- Fabiana’s efforts that in 1993, the Musee de modern living. Some Concrete artists de-ro- tal, Brasilia. Around this time, Geraldo dis- L’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland brought to manticized the role of the artist and regarded covered Pop Art and returned to fi gurative Europe a major exhibition of his work: Ger- themselves as mere workers. They also saw painting. In 1966, together with the artists aldo de Barros: Peintre et Photographe. This their vision of art as a timely one vis-à-vis Nelson Leirner and Wesley Duke Lee, he exhibition opened the door to the interna- Brazil’s ongoing modernization. Geraldo be- opened Rex Gallery & Sons in the back room tional recognition of Geraldo’s work and the came a prominent member of the group and of one of the Hobjeto stores. Wesley Duke publication of several books about his work. participated in national and international ex- Lee remembered that they placed a large Curiously, this renewed interest in his oeuvre hibits of Concrete art. bronze plaque with the name of the gallery focused on his photography of four decades In 1954 received an artistic award that —like a British bank would—to show they earlier. Fotoformas, the series of works that was handed to him by the president of Brazil, meant serious business. The gallery was a propelled his career in 1950, were exhibited, Getulio Vargas himself. That same year his place of happenings and sponsored an eclec- written about, and understood anew forty- friend, Joana Cunha Bueno, introduced Ger- tic assortment of art that was different from something years after their fi rst showing. aldo to Frei João Batista Pereira dos Santos, the extremes that had been so common for Geraldo was not immune to this enthusiasm. a Dominican priest at the Chapel of Christ the last fi fteen years. According to his friend Once again, he put the dice on an assistant’s the Worker. The chapel congregated an im- Nelson Leirner, Geraldo confronted a new hand and threw more numbers. In the last portant group of artists, architects, and in- critical universe by appropriating “outdoors” two years of his life, Geraldo produced two tellectuals interested in providing workers (billboards?) he found in the street and modi- hundred fi fty new photographic works. He with tools for survival and cultural improve- fi ed them by painting them and making col- titled the series Sobras because they were ment. The chapel itself featured works by lages with them. “His concept was to bring made from photographs of his family and prominent artists like Alfredo Volpi. Geraldo elements from the street to the inside and travel albums that were never destined to and Frei João Batista established Unilabor, a from the inside back to the street.” However, anything but mementos. “A photograph be- worker-owned cooperative for making fur- Geraldo stopped his re-launched Pop artistic longs to the one who makes something out niture. Geraldo participated enthusiastically career in order to focus on Hobjeto. Leirner of it, not necessarily to the one who took it,” in this utopian experiment designing “intel- states that Geraldo was able to stop art and Geraldo once said.

48 4 LITERAL. LATIN AMERICAN VOICES • FALL, 2008 Hommage a Picasso, 1949

About the Artist Although physically Geraldo de Barros was born in Xavantes, São Paulo (1923-1998). He started his career as a traditional painter, but soon became closer to experimental art. diminished, Geraldo remained In the 1940s, when other photographers were doing straight documentary “as lucid as ever and was and portraiture photography, Geraldo de Barros was creating abstract photos which led him to become one of the main exponents in his country. He was determined to continue to

the founder of many and very important art movements like Grupo 15, be the artist he had always Galeria Rex, Grupo Ruptura or Grupo FormInform and the Hobjeto Industry, among others. In 1993, his entire photographic work was recovered and been. He was able to sketch

exhibited by the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland. This exhibition geometric patterns like those was shown in São Paulo in 1994 by the Museu da Imagem e do Som (MIS), and a catalogue was published (in Portuguese and French) with the 100 he had done during the fi fties“ pictures on display at the exhibition. when he was one of Brazil’s . most renowned Concrete artists. —FERNANDO CASTRO 4 Para leer sin costo alguno la versión en español de este texto, escriba a: [email protected]

OTOÑO, 2008 • LITERAL. VOCES LATINOAMERICANAS 3 49