With its 36th edition, the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Panorama of Brazilian Art, celebrating the vitality of that which is one of the major shows of the Brazilian circuit and reaffirming its mission to stage projects that celebrate the multiplicity of Brazilian culture at the institution.
In Sertão, the curator Júlia Rebouças proposes an investigation of current Brazilian output based on a profound concept of our tradition but understood independently of any specific geographic region. Thus, the sertão is presented as the unknown, as an experience of resisting and collaborating in the face of adverse living conditions. For this project, twenty-nine artists and collectives were gathered together to bear witness to the power of Brazilian art. By staging this show, MAM reaffirms its commitment to the mission of expanding the debate on art through reflection
on pressing themes of modern society.
MARIANA BERENGUER [President of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo]
"Diadorim is the emblematic character of João Guimarães Rosa, from the book Grande Sertão: Veredas (1956). The original book title refers to the veredas - small paths through wetlands usually located at higher altitudes characterized by the presence of grasses and buritizais, groups of the buriti tree that cross the Sertão region in northern Minas Gerais as a labyrinthine net where an outsider can easily get lost, and where there is no single way to a certain place, since all paths interconnect in such a way that any road can lead anywhere.
Diadorim is a warrior, and the symbol of a strong sacrifice. She is an ambiguous character constructed in the denial of the feminine to live a freedom from the beyond-sex realm. The analysis of the character allows evaluating the relationship between body and power as foundation of the known history of the gender domination.
In this series of paintings, I propose a feminist reading to investigate the double side of the sexuality that involves Diadorim: man and alive while dressed, woman and dead when undressed."
Regina Parra. On the occasion of the exhibition Sertão, Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo, 2019.