I took part in Flip 2018 through two activities in its parallel program. As an artist, I was included in the exhibition Livros de artista: uma antologia with Perturbadoramente Familiar, at Casa Fedrigoni, and also participated in the launch discussion for the book Espaço em Obra, published by Edições Sesc.
I wrote the flap text for this book, Espaço em obra, the result of a partnership between FAU-USP professor Guilherme Wisnik and designer Julio Mariutti dating back to their work together at Bamboo. Guilherme wrote a column for the magazine from 2012 to 2016, bringing architecture, urbanism and art into dialogue with graphic design through his exchanges with Julio Mariutti, who created the opening image of this post.
A post shared by Giselle Beiguelman (@gbeiguelman) on July 30, 2018 at 9:10 a.m. PDT
Alongside the articles published in Bamboo, the book presents five previously unpublished texts. This collection is organized around three themes: the challenges of urbanism, the Global South, and the relationship between art and architecture.
Although produced separately and at different times, they form an entirely new whole. Analytical portraits of cities such as Tokyo, Shenzhen, Brasília and São Paulo sit alongside those of artists such as Hélio Oiticica, Cildo Meireles, Gordon Matta-Clark and Michael Wesely, to name a few, without creating false continuities. They are joined by vivid snapshots of architects and studios such as Sergio Bernardes, Vilanova Artigas, Lina Bo Bardi and Oscar Niemeyer, and internationally, Tadao Ando, Herzog & de Meuron, Diller Scofidio and SANAA. All are portrayed through their work.
Regarding Brazil, I would highlight the reflections on São Paulo’s municipal Master Plan, approved during Fernando Haddad’s administration in 2014, and the retrospective examination of the consequences, for contemporary urbanization, of the Lula government’s “spectacle of growth.”
Interwoven with these themes are discussions that prompt us to rethink the emergence of recent phenomena such as the 2013 demonstrations and movements such as Ocupe Estelita in Recife and Praia da Estação in Belo Horizonte, which marked ways of activating public space in Brazilian cities. These reflections on events that seem to have been lost around a bend in history give the book an interesting documentary dimension.
On the other hand, attention is drawn to continuities in our urban history, such as the paradoxical vitality—paradoxical because it is deadly—of the city organized as a “Carropolis.”
This type of city is structured around the illusion of freedom provided by the car, even as it traps us in traffic, pollutes the environment and consumes fossil fuels excessively. A symbol of an irresponsible lifestyle, Carropolis supports a thesis important to Wisnik: that “the concept of planned obsolescence is shifting dramatically from commodities to the planet’s territory itself.” Food for thought.
Transcript of Giselle Beiguelman’s Ouvir Imagens column, broadcast every Monday at 8 a.m. on Rádio USP (93.7 FM).
Access the playlist with all audio recordings of the Ouvir Imagens column on Rádio USP | Read all transcripts and posts.
More about Flip 2018 on my Instagram