Artist Nelson Leirner (b. 1932) publicly questioned the criteria of the jury for the Salão de Arte Moderna del Distrito Federal (Brasilia) that accepted his Matéria e Forma works, which included a stuffed pig with a ham hanging from its neck within a wooden frame. Leirner was taunting the Happening da Crítica, which encompassed the various responses of art critics to his proposals and inquiries.
Journalist, writer, and art critic [Benedito] Geraldo Ferraz [Gonçalves] (1905–79) participated in the “Brazilian modernist” movement as editorial director for the Revista de Antropofagia. He suffered persecution during the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas’ Estado Novo (1937?45), and was married to journalist and activist Patricia Galvão (Pagu). Ferraz used his comments on the debate that was set off by the work of Nelson Leirner to attack the then-young critic Frederico Morais, with whom he had openly argued during the decision process of the IX São Paulo biennial jury because it objected to the experiments of the Brazilian vanguard. Morais’ response was published days later under the title “Porco e aposentadoria” [Pig and Retirement] in the Diário de Notícias, Rio de Janeiro, February 4, 1968 [see ICAA digital archive (doc. no. 1110447)].
[As a complementary reading on this controversial work, see the text by Morais “Como julgar uma obra de arte: o porco do Leirner” (doc. no. 1110441); and by Mário Pedrosa “Do porco empalhado ou os critérios da crítica” (doc. no. 1110442)].