Political and Social

Largely formed by artists who has a contemporary artistic practice, many artworks of this exhibition were acquired by MAMAM around the 2,000s and together they connect narratives between artists of different generations which share the same interest in discussing society's cracks.

When did you stop loving me?

In Georgien (2001) and Israel (2001), works part of the series Body Builders - name taken from a nutritional supplement used by people pursuing a sculptural body -, Alex Fleming stress the human fragility when facing the problem of the conflict political areas and its relationships with religious systems.

Using bills as a medium (fake and real ones) Cildo Meireles questioned the value of art, of the Brazilian Dictatorship and of the situation of marginalized people in society. Still under the Military Regime, in the 70s, the artist stamped bills in circulation in the country as a way to question the journalist's murder and militant of PCB Vladimir Herzog.

After the voluntary surrender of Herzog to the army in São Paulo, the military that tortured and killed him tried to forge it as a possible suicide of the journalist.

That work entitled Inserts in ideological circuits: project bill (um cruzeiro ) put in evidence also the discussion about art's authorship, once the artist -- before the dictatorial period -- didn't claimed authorship and stimulated the society's participation in it.

In Zero Cruzeiro, Cildo adulterated bills redefining the value of it to "zero cruzeiro" and substituted the effigies in it for the image of an Indian.

MAMAM's collection also holds the work Inserts in ideological circuits: project coke, a series which the artist stamped sentences against the political regime in returnable bottles of Coke.

Since the texts were stamped in white letters, Cildo's call to action phrases were only readable after the new refillment of the bottle with its dark (the Coke) liquid.