This article reviews the works exhibited by carioca artists (from Rio de Janeiro) at the I Exposição Nacional de Arte Concreta. The poet and critic Ferreira Gullar, who lives in Rio and is the leader of the local concrete art group, discusses the works of the participating artists, as follows: Lygia Clark, Ivan Serpa, João José da Silva Costa, Décio Vieira, Aluísio Carvão, Hélio Oiticica, Rubem Ludolf, Lygia Pape, Franz Weissmann, and the São Paulo sculptor Kasmer Féjer—who was among those who signed the “Manifesto ruptura” in 1952. In Gullar’s opinion, the artists working in the carioca style address individual aesthetic questions, whereas concrete artists in São Paulo (paulistas) create different solutions to a common challenge.

In 1956 the I Exposição Nacional de Arte Concreta was held at the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo; the following year (1957), it was presented at the Ministério da Educação e da Saúde, in Rio de Janeiro. The event brought together, for the first time, “concrete” poets and visual artists from both cities. The critic Ferreira Gullar, and other critics such as Mário Pedrosa, Waldemar Cordeiro, and José Geraldo Vieira expressed their different points of view about the works exhibited by carioca artists (from Rio de Janeiro) and paulista artists (from São Paulo).

This is one of a series of essays written about this historic exhibition by the poet, playwright, essayist, and art critic [José Ribamar] Ferreira Gullar (b. 1930), who later became the leader of the “neo-concrete art” group. It is an important essay, mainly because it documents Gullar’s opinions concerning the works of the noted artists who were involved in the development of the constructive art movement in Brazil.

Some time later, Cordeiro roundly challenged Gullar’s views in his essay “Teoria e prática do concretismo carioca” [doc. no. 1087287]. The historic controversy that ensued between Concretismo (São Paulo) and Neoconcretismo (Rio de Janeiro) in the Brazilian press continued indefinitely, as in the following key articles: “Pintura concreta” [doc. no. 1087208]; ”O objeto” [doc. no. 1086891]; and “I Exposição Nacional de Arte Concreta: I - O Grupo de São Paulo” [doc. no. 1087166].