Emiliano Augusto Cavalcanti de Albuquerque e Melobetter known as by Cavalcanti, is a hero of Brazilian pictorial modernism. In Paris he knew how to surround himself with Picasso, Braque, Matisse and Leger, among others. Returning to his country, he began to represent popular themes on canvas: workers, soldiers, favelas and, in particular, mulatto women. Although Di Cavalcanti did not title her works, one of them has always been known by the name of those women. mulattoes It is one of the works that the Bolsonaro mob destroyed in their assault on the headquarters of the three State powers. Six slashes above the surface -the specialists still do not agree if they were knives or stones- they remain as a mark of a barbarity that reminds of other destructions, from Byzantium to Nazi Germany.
The restorer Valéria Mendonça has warned: it will be difficult to recover the splendor of mulattoeswhich was in the presidential palace. The same points out other specialists regarding the tapestries, wooden furniture, paintings and metal sculptures that they were exposed to the same fury of the extreme right. The losses exceed five million euros, at least in the first estimate.
It is not known if some of these objects will be able to be exhibited again in the buildings of Brasilia. some were found Floating in the waterrecalled conservative Karen Barbosa. The sculpture Justice, by Alfredo Ceschiatti, was part of the assets of the Federal Supreme Court. The ultras painted it with a spray that has become entrenched in the porous granite. And, if you give those goods back some of their aura, they will never be the same. Always They will bear the mark of 8-E as wounds.
disaster inventory
Jair Bolsonaro will be investigated for his alleged incitement of the attempted coup. His followers, too. They fought one of their anti-communist combats against a chinese vase from the shang dynasty, whose antiquity, has been calculated, is about 3,500 years. They tore it to shreds and sang victory. Similarly it happened with the showcase coffee tablecreated in 1958 by the carioca designer Sergio Rodrigues. When Brasília began to rise, in the middle of the 20th century, he was summoned to help give it its touch of distinction. The table is 40 centimeters high, 1.5 meters wide and 59 centimeters deep. It was made with rosewooda typically Brazilian wood that, according to the magazine piaui, Rodrigues used in an attempt to “value national materials and think about pieces that were related to Brazilian history.” The top of the cabinet has been smashed. A baton was found at the top.
It is urgent that we assess the damage and begin the recovery and restoration of all the heritage that was brutally and absurdly destroyed. A painting by Di Cavalcanti destroyed by stabbing reveals such ignorance and violence of these abominable acts.
— Margareth Menezes (@MagaAfroPop) January 9, 2023
hatred of culture
“The cultural dimension of Bolsonarismo and its reactionary agenda They help to explain the destruction of works of art during the coup attacks on the three Powers last Sunday”, stated the essayist Francisco Bosco in a column published by the São Paulo newspaper Sheet. He recalled that the ideas that supported the agenda of the previous government were contained in texts by former Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo, who argued that the nation is above the state, and religion above legal forms and any claim to diversity.
Bolsonaro’s first Secretary of Culture, Roberto Alvim, had to leave his post after citing the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. She was replaced by a soap opera actress, Regina Duarte. Then came Hélio Ferraz from São Paulo, also known for his rudeness. The contempt for creation had signs of deliberate treachery. A month before leaving his position, the former captain appointed as head of that secretariat André Porciuncula, a former member of the Military Police and well-known defender of the free carrying of pistols in the streets. During his short and scandalous tenure, Porciuncula proposed using funds from the so-called “Rouanet Law”, the most important tool for promoting Brazilian culture, to produce films, podcasts and series that exalt “the importance of weapons” for “human freedom”.
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Brasilia tried to stage the best aspirations of the Brazilian elite in relation to its time. The city had to bear witness, through the architecture of Oscar Niemeyer, the dimension of those expectations. Paulo Niemeyer is the great-grandson of the creator of Brasilia. He is also an architect and custodian of the family legacy. “Who destroys his own house? This was completely absurd,” he said, after 8E. “The answer seems obvious to me: who does not consider the house in which he lives his own,” Bosco interpreted.
The attacks were related to the distance with the idea of ”degenerate art”of the Third Reich. This is how the new authorities of the Ministry of Culture, headed by the Afro-Brazilian singer, Margareth Menezes, have understood it. “Brasilia is Brazil’s tangible and intangible historical heritage and we will work together to rebuild everything that was violated,” she said. The scars, however, will always be visible.
