MAM

Artists: Lenora de Barros, Marcelo Cidade, Cláudio Tozzi, Laura Lima, Alair Gomes, Márcia Xavier, Carlos Zílio, Marcius Galan, Cildo Meireles, Antonio Henrique Amaral, Rubens Gerchman, Marcello Nitsche, Anna Bella Geiger, Nazareth Pacheco, and Paulo Bruscky.

140 Caracteres
January 28 – March 16, 2014
Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo, Brazil

The political mobilization through virtual communication is shaking forms of constituted power. The language used for mobilization through social networks is also new: short phrases, addresses of manifestation, very synthetic themes. The slogans adapt to the shape of social networks, taking advantage of existing communication virtual platforms. The social network Twitter is more synthetic, which accepts a maximum of 140 characters per message. Thus, the scale of language on Twitter becomes the thread of this exhibition.

140 works from the collection of MAM were selected to develop the theme of political mobilization. In the Great Room of the museum, the works are organized as an urban landscape, indicating the circumstances of the events and placing recent events. On the other hand, in the Paul Figueiredo exhibition room, the show generates a contrast to previous forms of political protest in Brazil during the military dictatorship, which began with the coup of 64.

140 characters is the result of the first Laboratório de Curadoria conducted by the Educational sector of MAM. Curation is shared by twenty students of the course, which also shared the authorship of the 140 commented tags of the exhibition. The exhibition is the result of a year of discussions between people of different backgrounds, who identified as a common interest, the new forms of political action. Thus, the authorship of the exhibition also diluted in a collective, assuming the force of mobilization without leaders.