Brazil: Ipiranga Museum inaugurates new room with exhibition about independence

The Paulista Museum, better known as Ipiranga Museum, inaugurates another exhibition space this Wednesday (25th), destined for temporary exhibitions.

To mark São Paulo’s anniversary, celebrated yesterday, and the new space’s inauguration, the museum is opening the exhibition Memories of Independence.

The new exhibit of the Ipiranga Museum intends to dialogue with the public about the processes that led Brazil to declare independence from Portugal, discussing the myth that the fact occurred in an isolated manner and on a single day, as it was engraved in the popular imagination and as it was portrayed in Pedro Américo’s painting “Independência ou Morte” [work that was recently restored and is displayed in the oldest part of the museum, called Monument Building].

Memories of Independence brings together about 130 items related to the process of rupture between Brazil and Portugal.

The exhibition discusses the protagonism of São Paulo and the cry of Ipiranga as the absolute mark of independence and emphasizes that the rupture between the two countries was a long process, involving several characters and episodes that occurred throughout Brazil.

Divided into two main themes, the exhibition presents sculptures, paintings, photographs, architectural and pictorial studies, decorative objects, stamps, drawings, postcards, records, movie posters, and cartoons to illustrate the imaginary of the date.

The first thematic axis addresses the efforts to maintain the memory of the Ipiranga as the place of the cry that established Independence.

The role of Rio de Janeiro as the political seat of the Empire and the new independent monarchy was represented in paintings, engravings, and the Dom Pedro I monument, the first great example of Brazilian sculpture.

In this axis, focused on the memories of Brazil’s independence, the different efforts made in the cities of São Paulo, Salvador, and Rio de Janeiro to dispute the primacy of being the referential and symbolic center of Brazil’s independence are observed, said historian Paulo Garcez Marins, one of the exhibition’s curators, in an interview to Agência Brasil.

There, it is shown how São Paulo, where independence was declared, Rio de Janeiro, where it was built, and Salvador, the place from where the Portuguese were expelled and defeated on July 2, 1823, dispute this memory about the break with Portugal.

“São Paulo will be the stage for the concentration of these efforts by the authorities to monumentalize the Ipiranga. During the centennial [of Brazil’s Independence] this will happen once again, and finally, during the bicentennial, too. The reopening and expansion of the Museu do Ipiranga are part of this collective action of public and private agents, and of society itself, to reinforce Ipiranga as a symbolic place for the nation”, said the curator.

The second thematic axis highlights the memories related to the separation movements, such as the Pernambuco Revolution of 1817, the Equator Confederation of 1824, and the Farroupilha Revolution, which lasted from 1835 to 1845.

Marins added that the Other Centenaries axis is also geared toward understanding how these movements were commemorated.

“We should imagine, therefore, that this understanding is of the independence processes and also how they were remembered, signaling a construction of national identity that was very difficult, very contradictory, very tense, and that somehow shows its fractures even today.”

According to Marins, the exhibition will help to learn more about these events, thereby bringing reflections about the future of the country.

“We need to understand Brazil as a multiple, plural country. It is still a challenge for us to understand that we are the result of a long process of accumulation of populations, cultural practices, and political tensions,” he said.

“Brazil is full of differences. Within society itself, the construction of our nationality is difficult. These tensions that [the exhibition] Memories of Independence signals have dragged on for two centuries in our national construction. Our human development index shows that Brazil is still a country not only full of differences but full of inequality. So, to reflect about these processes is to enable us to improve our country, to make it more socially and economically fair and, above all, to give visibility and recognize the different agents and protagonists of our country”, he emphasized.

Marins defended the involvement of everyone in the construction of a more egalitarian society, in the construction of a transformation perspective. “In this sense, I think that history museums signal not only the difficulties of this process but also of social engagement, to build fairer thresholds for our society.”

NEW SPACE

The new exhibition room, which did not exist before the museum’s renovation, is about 900 square meters and is installed below the Monument Building.

Since it is fully air-conditioned – which was not the case in other parts of the complex, which is protected by heritage – this will allow the Museu do Ipiranga to finally receive works borrowed from other museums.

“The room did not exist. It was built along with the entire garden floor. It is an area that was gained towards the north of the old building, an area that was built for the bicentennial of Brazil’s independence”, explained the curator.

For the new exhibition, pieces were borrowed from 12 important cultural institutions and private collections in the country.

Among them is the Car with Sculpture of the Cabocla, by Domingos Costa Baião, a work from 1846.

The “Cabocla’s car” is an object used in the July 2 procession, when independence is celebrated in Bahia.

“In the exhibition, we are honored to have here the Carro da Cabocla (Cabocla’s Car) and the Cabocla itself, which has made this route in downtown Salvador since 1840. It was a temporary cession from the Historical Geographic Institute of Bahia. She had only been in São Paulo once before, at the Afro Museum.”

“Works also came from the Júlio de Castilhos Museum, from Porto Alegre. We also had important loans from the Antônio Parreiras Museum, in Niterói, which is closed to the public for construction. We also have paintings that came from the National Museum of Fine Arts and the State Pinacoteca,” added Marins.

“From the Pinacoteca, it is a pleasure to have here in the museum, for a few months, a painting that represents the Ipiranga hill as it was before the great reforms for the centennial of 1822, with the monument up there and the representation of a ravine full of dirt roads in front, as the region effectively was [at the time],” said the curator.

Another highlight of the exhibit is the original drawings by painter Pedro Américo, with the sketches for the construction of the characters in the painting Independência ou Morte (Independence or Death).

Memories of Independence will be on display until March 26, and admission is free. Visits can be booked in advance on the museum’s website. Some tickets are also being distributed on-site, according to room capacity.

The use of masks is mandatory on-site.

With information from UOL