Rodoviária de Brumadinho

John Ahearn’s sculptural murals are far more than simply realist sculptures; they are challenges to the very nature of representation, of who gets to represent whom. They result from an extensive process whereby the artist and his frequent collaborator, Rigoberto Torres, immerse themselves in a community and get to know its people, their character, values, and vitality in order to portray them – the workers who are the backbone of a society, yet uncommon subjects of portraiture, or when they are, who rarely have a say in how they are portrayed. In the case of the two murals here, Ahearn and Torres have chosen as their subjects the citizens of Inhotim’s surrounding region of Brumadinho, a number of them employees at Inhotim. Rodoviária de Brumadinho [The Bus Station of Brumadinho, 2005], depicts the bus station of Brumadinho and the people who move through it, a place that is not only a center of transport, but of social life as well, as it is also home to popular dances.