Murilo Mendes, critical poet: the intimate infinite
Curated by Maria Betânia Amoroso, Lorenzo Mammì and Taisa Palhares
View of the exhibition "Murilo Mendes, Poet Critic: The Intimate Infinite" at MAM São Paulo (2023)Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM São Paulo
Since your meeting with Ismael Nery, in 1921, until his death in 1975, Murilo Mendes He was one of the most influential figures in Brazilian artistic life. He was an art critic, collector, exhibition organizer, as well as a poet.
He played a decisive role in the formation of an entire generation of critics, Mario Pedrosa to Antônio Bento e Rubens Navarra and was interlocutor of Mario de Andrade with regard to Rio de Janeiro art. This importance, however, is rarely recognized.
View of the exhibition "Murilo Mendes, Poet Critic: The Intimate Infinite" at MAM São Paulo (2023)Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM São Paulo
His critical thinking is found in newspapers and magazines, in many poems and poetic prose, however, it was only towards the end of his life that Murilo organized part of his critical texts into a posthumously published volume, The Invention of the Finite.
In 1994, his art collection was acquired by the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, which created the Murilo Mendes Art Museum (MAMM) and has since organized exhibitions and publications about the collection. This exhibition would have been impossible without the rigorous work that MAM has been developing for decades.
View of the exhibition "Murilo Mendes, Poet Critic: The Intimate Infinite" at MAM São Paulo (2023)Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM São Paulo
The exhibition is divided into three blocks: the first addresses the circle of Murilo Mendes and Ismael Nery in Rio de Janeiro in the 1920s and 1930s, with some developments in the following decade.
At this stage, Murilo supports a group of artists like himself Nery, Cicero Dias, Alberto da Veiga Guignard e Jorge de Lima, which cultivate a close relationship between visual arts and poetry, close to surrealist and metaphysical poetics, but with divergences. On the other hand, it opposes the dominant trends at the time, which were realistic and advocated a return to the métier, in the service of nationalism and social engagement. It’s Murilo’s “rebellious” phase.
View of the exhibition "Murilo Mendes, Poet Critic: The Intimate Infinite" at MAM São Paulo (2023)Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM São Paulo
The second block of the exhibition covers the mid-1930s until its move to Italy in 1957. Mendes He is already a famous poet and an influential critic.
Your range of interests expands: Lasar Segall, Bruno Giorgi, Mary Martins, Alberto Magnelli. He began to build an art collection that brought together several works acquired on his trips to Europe.
View of the exhibition "Murilo Mendes, Poet Critic: The Intimate Infinite" at MAM São Paulo (2023)Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM São Paulo
Of great importance, at this stage, is the coexistence with artists who arrived in Rio de Janeiro from Europe fleeing Nazism, in particular with the couple Maria Helena Vieira da Silva e Arpad Szenes.
The third block covers the period in which Murilo He lived in Rome from 1957 onwards, where he teaches Brazilian literature at the university. There he approaches the art critic Giulio Carlo Argan, with whom he shares an interest in Italian artists who practiced non-geometric abstractionism, without completely adhering to informalism.
View of the exhibition "Murilo Mendes, Poet Critic: The Intimate Infinite" at MAM São Paulo (2023)Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo - MAM São Paulo
He is interested in optical and kinetic art and collaborates with artists such as Alberto Magnelli, Lucio Fontana e Copse in exhibitions and publications.
The culmination of this last phase was perhaps the curation of Brazilian representation at the 1964 Venice Biennale, the first in which Brazil had its own pavilion. With this exhibition, it is hoped that the space reserved for art critic and collector Murilo Mendes, both in his biography and in the history of Brazilian criticism, will be affirmed and expanded.
Lorenzo Mammí
Maria Betânia Amoroso
Taisa Palhares
curators
You are all set!
Your first Culture Weekly will arrive this week.