Brazil: Interactive exhibition at São Paulo’s Image and Sound Museum

Art exhibited as a great game. That is the proposal of the new exhibition at “Museu da Imagem e do Som” (Image and Sound Museum – MIS) in São Paulo, which allows the visitor to touch, experiment, and play with all the works.

The idea is that the public can interact with the art objects, instigating their creativity and giving new meanings to the works produced by renowned Brazilian artists such as Regina Silveira, Beatriz Milhazes, Denilson Baniwa, Ernesto Neto, Guto Lacaz, Hélio Oiticica, Lenora de Barros and Lygia Clark, among others.

“We believe in the power of transformation of art,” said Têra Queiroz, one of the curators of the show Art is Good, which began on October 6 and lasts until December 11.

“It’s an exhibition to be touched, moved, experienced; in short, it’s for people to relate to, just like children relate to everything,” added Daniela Thomas, the show’s curator.

The visit starts outside the MIS, where the works Multiple Childhoods, by Rommulo Vieira Conceição, and Cosmic Laughter, by artist Marcos Chaves, can be seen. The latter is represented by a giant meteorite, from which several laughs emerge.

The tour starts on the first floor with the amusing work Gyroscope by Artur Lescher, similar to the spinning wheel of a children’s playground.

The largest space in the show, a circular room, was dedicated to the work of Regina Silveira. There, the public will encounter giant insects projected on the floor and walls, which react to the movement of visitors.

“They are giant insects, projected by five cameras that react to the user’s movement inside the room. They disappear when stepped on and pop up on the walls.

“Popping up on the walls, they cause the soundtrack to multiply. And this is quite intolerable, but this is the idea,” said the artist in an interview with Agência Brasil.

Elevator, by artist Marcia Xavier, intends to lead the visitor to have his image reflected on the rivers of São Paulo.

“It is a cabin lined with mirrors on the floor and walls, and on the ceiling, we have an aerial image of São Paulo where we see the meeting of the waters of the Pinheiros River and the Tietê River.

“This place is called Cebolão (big eyebrow) because viaducts were created for us to travel between the rivers. I took this aerial image and transformed it into black and white, and then red, to transform rivers and streets into blood and veins,” the artist explained to the report.

The idea of the work, said Marcia Xavier, is to discuss how much we fail to take care of such a precious asset to life as the rivers and waters. “This work makes us think about these waters,” she said.

On the second floor, visitors can try to balance objects with magnets or even make their own paintings on the wall. Here is also the work 360, by Arnaldo Antunes, in which the visitor will be faced with a door attached to a central axis: whoever tries to open the door ends up going around the object without being able to go through it.

“It is important to have an entire exhibition open for manipulation because I think we can get more inside the children. We don’t just have a clash, art in one place and children in another. Here we merge. If the child incorporates that, it becomes a product of transformation,” said Marcia Xavier.

Besides the artworks, MIS will promote workshops, performances, and guided exhibition tours.

The complete program and details about the exhibition, schedules, and tickets can be found on the website. On Tuesdays, the museum has free admission.

With information from Exame