University of São Paulo Showcases Landscapes of Cidade Tiradentes at MariAntonia Center

The exhibition Ar Livre: contemporary landscape in Cidade Tiradentes , on display at Centro MariAntonia until September 29, features more than 100 works painted by 35 artists from the collective ali:leste (travelling free art). The paintings in oil paint on canvas were made during the group’s outdoor meetings and depict various places in the neighborhood, ranging from parks to housing complexes and urban occupations. Curator Marina Frúgoli and visual artist Rodrigo Andrade curated the exhibition.

The paintings are the result of three years of outdoor painting meetings, coordinated by Rodrigo Andrade and the artists from Cidade Tiradentes Link Museu and Evandro César. There are 20 artists with a constant presence and a number of occasional participants who meet regularly in places around the neighborhood to paint together. “There is a principle of exchange between people in the group, but also cultural exchange between the center and the periphery”, explains Rodrigo Andrade. The meetings break down geographic barriers (center and periphery), social, age, economic barriers, and different artistic backgrounds (from graffiti and slam poetry to more commercial art circuits).

Artists use different frames and languages ​​when portraying the same scenario, resulting in varied expressiveness. “Some go for abstract trends, with textures and stains; others work with paint build-up; or realism, but with color distortion”, says Marina Frúgoli.

The degree of direct relationship with the appearance of the landscape also varies from artist to artist. “There are some who take basic strokes and create a painting based on that. They pay attention to the screen itself, creating details and nuances. Others stick to what is being seen and reality”, points out Rodrigo Andrade. “But, at the same time, the group has a lot in common, because they look at each other’s work while painting. There is feedback.”

Putting Tiradentes City on the map
Cidade Tiradentes was chosen when the ali:leste collective was founded in 2019. The neighborhood-district, located in the extreme east of the city of São Paulo, has a high population concentration, with around 280 thousand inhabitants in an area of ​​15 km2, and it houses the largest complex of housing complexes in Latin America (around 40 thousand units). The original idea was to change the host neighborhood after two years, but Ali put down roots in the neighborhood after its members became attached to the territory and people. Due to its distance from the center, its status as a “dorm town” and high crime rates, people don’t usually know about the neighborhood. With the landscapes in the exhibition, the artists and curators seek to give more recognition to Cidade Tiradentes.

The chosen landscapes are in the neighborhood-district and surrounding areas, such as Guaianases, Itaquera and others. The exhibition was organized based on the places portrayed, emphasizing the vision of each artist from the location. The landscapes bring urban elements, as well as nature: a Cohab, parks with flora from the Atlantic Forest, a quarry, an incipient occupation and a more consolidated one, among others, enabling a reading of the city. Marina got involved with the project when she participated in a meeting and was well received. “The artists are proud to exhibit Cidade Tiradentes in the center of São Paulo.” The curator, whose background comes from Architecture and Urbanism, seeks to understand the relationship between the periphery and the center and how the arts system can be a gateway to talking about other issues in the neighborhood. “It’s a neighborhood with a lot of cultural effervescence, and it comes to add to it, bringing other materialities, references and techniques,” she explains.

Rodrigo Andrade, who created the meetings, has been painting outdoors for over 30 years. “It’s an object relationship with the subject, where you are part of the landscape. The issue of correspondence with the external object ends up putting tension on the autonomy of the painting”, he explains. In this modality, it is up to the artist to organize the elements and transpose them to the canvas, transforming the “visual chaos” into something orderly and graceful, quickly, favoring instinctive solutions for the work. In the paintings depicting Cidade Tiradentes, peculiarities of the urbanization of Greater São Paulo are highlighted. “The landscapes portray a phenomenon where the urban fabric mixes with the rural. This appears a lot and is characteristic of this extreme periphery of São Paulo”, points out the artist.

An artistic creation laboratory for everyone
The exhibition featured works made in meetings until January 2024, but the outdoor painting group remains active. Now, in addition to Cidade Tiradentes, they make forays into other outskirts and stops, interspersing meetings in Cidade Tiradentes. The project is open to everyone, and no prior artistic knowledge is necessary; according to Marina, the group “does not judge or differentiate”, and gave some residents of the neighborhood their first interaction with painting. Link Museu, Evandro César and Tito Terapia already had the artistic background of graffiti and graffiti, but they started painting with ali:leste. Today, they have Ateliê da Rapa , which displays, on the first wall of the exhibition, a series of imagined landscapes. The works are made with earth collected in Cidade Tiradentes. “They develop pigment from the earth collected from this scenario of constant construction and reconstruction of the landscape, with new condominiums and residences, which leave this land turned upside down”, explains Marina. “It’s an imaginary landscape, but also very rooted in Cidade Tiradentes.”

Ateliê da Rapa’s artistic research consists of creating pigments from earth collected by the neighborhood and, thus, creating landscapes – Photo: Marcos Santos/USP Imagens
The exhibition is located on the first floor of the Joaquim Rui Barbosa Building – Photo: Marcos Santos/USP Imagens
The exhibition curation process took place in dialogue with the artists involved. According to Marina, one of the main criteria adopted was transparency: “Everyone who participated in at least one meeting was able to participate in the exhibition”. There were no discriminatory selection criteria; Some artists have just one painting in the exhibition, while others, who participated assiduously in dozens of meetings, have more works on display.