Located in Flamengo Park, near Santos Dumont Airport, the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) in Rio de Janeiro is preparing to receive the 19 member countries of the G20 (excluding Russia), their heads of State, as well as representatives of the African Union and the European Union. The modernist building was rehabilitated by the City for the occasion. The facades have been repainted and new exterior lighting installed around the museum. “It is the reappropriation of an icon of Brazilian architecture and an important cultural facility”declared Eduardo Paes, the mayor of Rio, for Veja Rio.
The Bloco escola, another building in the complex, designed as an arts center and closed since the 1970s, has been renovated to accommodate art workshops. The museum’s historic film library has also been modernized. The surrounding areas have been redeveloped to facilitate traffic: the main access street has been pedestrianized.
The choice of MAM for the G20 meeting allowed Rio City Hall to renovate Flamengo Park, a 1.2 hectare garden designed by Brazilian modernist landscaper Roberto Burle Marx. This redevelopment restored the garden to its geometric shapes and native plants, in accordance with the 1965 design.
The renovation was financed to the tune of 32 million Brazilian reals (around 5.2 million euros), according to the town hall.
The Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, founded in 1948, has undergone several renovations. In 1954 it moved to a modernist building designed by Affonso Eduardo Reidy, a disciple of Oscar Niemeyer. The museum is made up of two buildings: one dedicated to exhibitions, the other, the Bloco escola, intended for workshops for artists. In 1958, the Bloco escola was completed, followed by the exhibition building in 1963. The museum also has a specialized library and a historical film library from the 1950s, which today screens contemporary Brazilian experimental films.
The MAM has one of the most prestigious collections of modern and contemporary art in Latin America, exhibiting a broad panorama of Brazilian art and a collection of international artists. With 16,000 works spread over 4,670 m² of exhibition space, there are works by Anita Malfatti, Amilcar de Castro, Antonio Bandeira, Candido Portinari, and Tarsila do Amaral. In the international collections there are Four women on base (1950) by Alberto Giacometti, Pestisani Gorji (1957) by Constantin Brancusi, or even Campaign (1973) by Maria Martins. The museum also has a collection of 2,687 photographs and the archives of filmmaker Luiz Carlos Barreto, a figure of Cinema Novo in the 1950s and 1960s.
The museum announces the opening of the exhibition A History of Brazilian Modernism until the 1960s, organized during the G20. It will focus on modernism, concretism (1950-1960), a Brazilian movement close to neorealism, and women artists.
