In this review, the critic Ronaldo Brito discusses Atensão [Attention, there is tension], the exhibition of works by the visual artist Carlos Zílio. Brito explains that the exhibition space consists of an area in which the works create tensions in both space and time. Moreover, the artist’s manipulation of concepts such as pressure and balance is associated with the exploration of several strata of experience of both an aesthetic and social nature. But Zílio does not produce protest art, which prompts the critic to discuss how his works enter the realm of “what is real.” In Brito’s opinion, Zílio takes an ironic approach in his exploration of the flaw in rationalist works, proposing critical negativity and rejecting the myth of “the artist’s hand.”

This is an example of institutional criticism and review of the area of art that considered the museum in a new light, as an experimental space. The exhibition Atensão was held at the Sala Experimental del Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro in 1975. For the artist, Carlos Zílio (b. 1944), the exhibition meant a return to his professional career in Brazil after having spent years with the MR-8 revolutionary movement, engaged in urban guerilla activities. He lived in exile in France in the early 1970s. The work he presented at this exhibition was a long way from the optimistic universe of the 1967 Nova Objetividade Brasileira show, and from Pop Art, all of which had had a powerful influence on his work in the 1960s. When he returned to Brazil he took up painting and teaching again, and became involved in publishing the magazine Gávea.       

There is a text on the subject of the Nova Objetividade Brasileira, “NOB não se conforma com a forma” [digital archive ICAA (doc. no. 1110488) and the “Declaração de princípios básicos da vanguarda” by Antonio Dias (doc. no. 1110371). For more information on Zílio, see “O boom, o pós-boom e o dis-boom” (doc. no. 1110451) and the interview by Fernando Cocchiarale decades later (1996), after his exhibition at the MAM-Rio that was called Carlos Zílio - Arte e política, 1966-1976 (doc. no. 1110517).

Ronaldo [Correia de] Brito (b. 1951), from the State of Ceará, is one of the most important and influential art critics in Brazil. His essays have been published in books, magazines, and exhibition catalogues. He also writes for the newspaper Opinião and was one of the founders of the magazines Malasartes and Gávea. In the 1970s he was one of the main instigators of the initiative to re-examine the neo-concrete art movement and its legacy to contemporary Brazilian art.