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It was indeed an event in order to intervene in people’s lives at ascertain times.
I remember someone shouted: “Let’s go to Sachas” – a bar where could hear live music. But the personnel un-
derstood: “Let’s go to draw”. They began to steal all the works from the walls and some people carried works
of Antonio Dias and Roberto Magalhães through the streets and took my Caixas de Morar, the painters were
left without what to do.
Who are your friends of that time? With whom you discussed your art?
Mainly, Antonio Dias and Roberto Magalhães. Roberto was always present and was hugely bohemian, on the
other hand Antonio was the most controversial, most politicized, including precocious, because at the age of
18 he already had an extraordinary drawing. Roberto was perhaps the best draughtsman in our group. Pedro
Escosteguy was father-in-law of Dias, concretist poet who came from Porto Alegre, also highly politicized,
descended from Basques, was like a Basque anarchist and joined to our group. Later, we met in a Salão de Arte
Moderna Carlos Vergara, we just felt there was an affinity between our ideas and invite him to join our group.
You are also a poet, if we observe that your work is closely bound to the word. How does the poetry enters
into your life?
In New York, I started to deal with a foreigner language. Here, in 1967, I had already done my grammar, which I
called
Cartilha do Superlativo
. From Caixas de Morar I did
TERRA
,
LUTE
,
S.O.S
. and one
AR
, which is at the MASP.
I had a box with the word
ÁGUA
, sent to cut out letters in acrylic that floating, the water flowed from the word,
I said that the meaning of the words was worn, I wanted to invigorate them, restore their original meaning.
You messed with some truly innovative things at the time, the issue of significant and significance, the
construction of the word as an object. Were these the questions that poetry began to treat within the
Concretism?
We had no computer, we made maquettes in wood, built models and needed to arrange persons who knew
the techniques. When I got to New York I went to work in an acrylic factory. I made an
AR
of cotton and
acrylic, put the clouds. I began then to make a film about the elements, the words floated in the sea, caught
fire, were buried.
What was your relationship with the other arts? With cinema, for example...
Joaquim [Pedro de Andrade] invited me to do
Macunaíma
[film of 1969 with Grande Otelo and Paulo José,
both in the title role]. I would be the set designer and costume designer. But I won the travel abroad award, in
the
Salão de Arte Moderna
, in 1967, exactly in the month that began the production works, and I had to travel,
otherwise I would miss the opportunity. The Ministério da Educação e Cultura spent six months without pay
me and I was afraid to lose those precious 500 dollars. Thereby, I went to New York and could not make the
movie. Incidentally, in this salon, I won the painting award and Amílcar de Castro won the sculpture award.
We decided to travel to New York. He flew and I boarded in a cargo ship.
When I arrived, Almílcar was waiting for me on the pier. We hardly knew each other and from that day we