Nessa entrevista, cedida a Carlos Alberto Messeder Pereira e Heloísa Buarque de Hollanda, Hélio Oiticica passa em revista toda sua trajetória desde a década de 1950. Fala da relação da arte com o “ativismo político” (o trabalho artístico é uma atuação política sem necessariamente ser um “ativismo político”); de seus trabalhos desde os Metaesquemas, o ingresso no grupo neoconcreto, da “paulatina desintegração da pintura no espaço”; de suas experiências em Londres e Nova York; da produção brasileira nos anos 70 no Exterior; das revistas “Navilouca” e “Pólem”; do jornal “Flor do Mal”; das publicações de cultura e de contracultura; das “patrulhas ideológicas”; da atuação da esquerda na cultura brasileira, do espaço público.
H.O. manifesta sua irritação com os teóricos universitários; afirma que o Brasil é um país “fascista” e faz alguns prognósticos para a arte dos anos 1980.
Um adendo à entrevista (datilografado em 14/02/1980) traz um depoimento de HO registrando a “frieza e a indiferença”, os “meios sorrisos” das pessoas em relação às experiências dele desde sua volta de Nova York.
Samuel
diz, samuel
que que cê pensou?
nem é longe de casa aqui
vim uma vez
acho que há um mês
eu e o deto da 16
o deto é doido pra caralho
zuou o guardinha daquele conjunto quadrado
depois roubou moeda do home estátua de lata
diz, samuel
que que cê pensou
nem é tão diferente assim
vim da outra vez
chamei vocês
e o nikimba do 23
mas o nikimba é cabuloso
desceu a augusta montado atrás do busão
com a coxinha do bar deu perdido
saiu sem pagar
diz, samuel como é que foi
porque cê nunca veio aqui
quem te prendeu, quem te impediu
qual o foi o muro que subiu
porque não atravessou
nunca pro lado de cá?
ó lá o metrô
já vai fechar
cildo meireles & antoni muntadas
salt & sugar … no sugar, no salt
curated by vicente todoli
march 10 to april 14, 2012
The Xerox Book, 1968
Cats think I’m delirious but I’m so damn serious.
Things to worry about
Things to worry about:
Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship
Things not to worry about:
Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions
Things to think about:
What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:
(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?
With dearest love,
Daddy
No.
Via Seth Godin
No.
No, we don’t take clients like that.
No, that’s not part of what we offer.
No, that market is too hard for us to service properly.
No, I won’t bend on this principle.
No, I’m sorry, I won’t be able to have lunch with you.
No, that’s not good enough. Will you please do it again?
No, I’m not willing to lose my focus, and no, I’m not willing to compromise.
Dear Andrew,
Let us explain the concept. As one of the themes, you mentioned “the culture of making”… which immediately made us think about “the culture of unmaking”, or better said, the relationship between creation and destruction (creation as destruction, destruction as creation). We have always been huge admirers of the work of the French “affichistes” (like Jacques Villeglé, Francois Dufrene, Raymond Hains, and the Italian Mimmo Rotella), artists who made collages using torn posters. To us, these layered collages perfectly encapsulate the whole idea of the “paper memory”, of graphic archeology. These torn fragments offer an almost psycho-analytical portrait of graphic design—as if the artists are digging through different layers of consciousness. Moreover, by focusing on the material quality of paper, they show graphic design as what it is—a physical, human-made construction. They pierce through the sphere of images, to reveal the material base. These layers of posters also refer to another idea we’re really interested in: the idea of printed matter as an actual environment, as an integral part of the city. In other words, we’ve always wanted to explore this notion, of “affichism,” a bit further—and your exhibition was a perfect occasion to finally dig into this subject.
Stupid and lazy
(Is it that you can’t do it or perhaps you don’t want to do the work?)
When I was in college, I took a ton of advanced math courses, three or four of them, until one day I hit the wall. Too many dimensions, transformations and toroids for me to keep in my head. I was too stupid to do really hard math so I stopped.
Was it that I was too stupid, or did I merely decide that with my priorities, it wasn’t worth the work?
Isn’t it amazing that we’d rather call ourselves stupid than lazy? At least laziness is easy to fix.
People say that they are not gifted/talented/smart enough to play the trumpet/learn to code/write a book. That’s crazy. Sure, it may be that they don’t possess world-class talent, the sort of stuff that is one in a million. But too stupid to do something that millions and millions of people can do?
I’m not buying it. Call it as it is and live with it (or not). I’m just not willing to believe we’re as stupid as we pretend to be.
