黑料不打烊

As from when Murilo Mendes first met Ismael Nery, in 1921, until the poet鈥檚 death in 1975, Mendes was one of the most influential figures in the Brazilian art world. As art critic, collector, and organizer of exhibitions, as well as poet, Mendes played a vital role in the development of a whole generation of critics, from Mario Pedrosa to Ant么nio Bento and Rubens Navarra, and discussed art from Rio de Janeiro with M谩rio de Andrade. Mendes鈥檚 importance, however, has largely gone unacknowledged.

Mendes鈥� work as a critic can be found in various articles in newspapers and magazines, as well as in many of his writings in poetry and prose. However, it was only towards the end of his life that Mendes gathered his critical texts together into a volume that was published posthumously, The Invention of the Finite. In 1993, his art collection was acquired by the Federal University of Juiz de Fora for its newly created Murilo Mendes Art Museum (MAMM), which, since then, has staged exhibitions and put together publications based on the collection. This exhibition would not have been possible without the outstanding work done by the MAMM over many years.

The exhibition is divided into three blocks: the first deals with the circle surrounding Murilo Mendes and Ismael Nery in Rio de Janeiro in the 1920s and 1930s, and the developments of the subsequent decade. In this phase, Mendes supported a group of artists, including Nery himself, C铆cero Dias, Alberto da Veiga Guignard and Jorge de Lima, all of whom fostered a close relationship between the fine arts and poetry and were strongly drawn to surrealist and metaphysical poetics, albeit with divergences. He was opposed, however, to the dominant realism of the time that defended a return to art as a craft in the service of nation-building and social engagement. This was Mendes鈥� 鈥渞ebellious鈥� phase.

The second block covers the period from the mid-1930s to Mendes鈥� move to Italy in 1957. He was by now a famous poet and influential critic. His range of interests broadened to include the work of Lasar Segall, Bruno Giorgi, Maria Martins, and Alberto Magnelli and he began to put together a collection of the various artworks he had acquired during his trips to Europe.

During this phase, Mendes鈥� involvement with artists who arrived in Rio de Janeiro from Europe, fleeing Nazism 鈥� in particular Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and her husband Arpad Szenes 鈥� was crucially important. The circle that formed around these artists included Milton Dacosta, Djanira, Ione Saldanha, Almir Mavignier, Carlos Scliar, Fayga Ostrower, and others. Mendes became interested in abstract but not concrete art.

The third block covers the period from 1957 onwards, during which Mendes lived in Rome and lectured on Brazilian Literature. He developed a close relationship with the art critic Giulio Carlo Argan, with whom he shared an interest in Italian artists who practiced non-geometric abstraction, without fully adhering to informalism. The poet was also interested in optical and kinetic art and collaborated with artists such as Alberto Magnelli, Lucio Fontana and Soto in producing exhibitions and publications. He staged shows of contemporary Brazilian artists at the Brazilian Embassy鈥檚 gallery in Rome, featuring artists such as Volpi, Goeldi, Weissmann, Mavignier and others. The apex of this final phase may have been Mendes鈥� work as curator of the Brazilian representation at the Venice Biennale in 1964, the first one where Brazil had its own pavilion. We hope that the present exhibition will go some way towards consolidating and further promoting Murilo Mendes鈥檚 reputation as a collector and art critic, revealing his marked influence on the history of art criticism in Brazil.