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began a deep-seated friendship. But, speaking of my proximity to cinema, I coexist with Glauber Rocha, who
was my host once. Indeed, my apartment at 250 Bowery Street was a sort of home to all who passed by, we
used to do nice food and talked a lot.
I was in your apartment at Bowery Street in 1970. You had recently opened an exhibition at Lerner – Heller
Gallery, in Soho, and offered a dinner for a lot of people.
Have been also there: Lygia Clark, Sérgio Camargo, Antonio Dias, beyond Hélio Oiticica, who lived a year along
with me in that apartment. There were Argentine artists, Colombian, there were musicians, in brief, was a
momentous cauldron of excitement and exchange of ideas.
In New York you started to work with English words, creating a kind of poetry/object which you entitled as
pocket stuff
.
Pocket stuff
was a term coined by Hélio Oiticica
2
. I called it as poetry of the pocket, as object of the pocket and
he corrected it for pocket stuff, which means “
things of the pocket
”. It also made reference to
token
, a metal
chip, resembled like a coin. It served as a subway ticket and we all always had a
token
in our pocket.
The conceptual origin of this works lies in
Caixas de Morar
, where I portrait the asphyxia of small apartments
in Copacabana.
The word
ar
came from
morar
. I realized that the meaning of words was impoverished, in some cases had
lost their primary meaning, that is, were corrupted, pauperized. So I tried to do a new booklet, the
Cartilha no
Superlativo
and build giant words...
And which revitalized their contents.
Idealistically they return to the words their meanings. The first built word was
AR
, executed in blue Formica,
after
LUTE, S.O.S
. The word
TERRA
was performed in negative, with the letters buried themselves in the box. In
1967, I built
ÁGUA
– a transparent acrylic box, with large format, full of water. These works, produced prior to
my trip to New York, are the
pocket stuffs
’ embryos.
Only now you work with a new language.
In the United States I sought to explore the possibilities of the English language, is ambiguities. For instance, in
the work
MENWOMEN
the intention was tomake a relentless fence, endless –
MENWOMENWOMENWOMEN
...
– with hinges, as a kind of folding screen. The letters “wo” alsomean “rib”, rib, and give the biblical connotation
to theword. I even kneweither that in ancient English the same sound “wo”meant themelody of enchantment
of male birds to attract their females.
2
See the correspondence between Hélio Oiticica and Rubens Gerchman published this book, and OITICICA, Hélio.
Pocket stuff:
Rubens Gerchman
. July 24 / September 7, 1969. Available at:http://www.itaucultural.org.br/aplicexternas/enciclopedia/ho/index.
cfm?fuseaction=documentos&cd_verbete=4523&cod=587&tipo=2a. (N.O.).