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Insurgent Rhythms — Oiticica & Thereza
Navigate through the universe where a boy from Mangueira learned to drum, and where art also flourished.
Where the boy from Mangueira learned to play the drum, art also flourished. One of the greatest Samba Schools in Brazil was the open space for the thinking of Brazilian constructive rationalism to gain relevance and even more prominence by connecting low-income Black society to the plurality of art never seen by a large part of the residents of the favela. But ultimately, to what extent did his nonconformity allow such an undertaking?
When Hélio Oiticica’s critical and influential gaze meets the vibrant energy of Morro da Mangueira, an explosion of artistic thought overwhelms the reasoning of those who once sipped Bergson and Malevich, transforming them literally into community residents savoring their beer and snacks after a week’s work.
And all of this begins, thanks to friends: the visual artist Amílcar de Castro and Jackson Ribeiro, at that moment the Estação Primeira de Mangueira becomes an extension of his idealizations, there he materializes a set of actions that goes beyond the drumming of the Samba School’s percussion section.
The hill makes him break with the bourgeois reasoning and aspirations that Oiticica was still imbibing, and he begins a process of favela-ization of his constructive…
