In this article the writer and art critic Walmir Ayala reports on a “festive communication event” created by artists from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo who organized “an evening for the exposure and sale” of flags at the General Osório Square (Rio, February 1968). Ayala explains that the idea originated (in São Paulo) with the artists Flavio Motta and Nelson Leirner, whose “flags” had been confiscated by “police censorship” in São Paulo the previous December. The article includes a statement by Carlos Scliar, another artist who was involved in the demonstration organized in Rio, to the effect that the goal was to “expand the communication” of art by taking it to the streets and trying an “experimental approach” by using new techniques and production methods (such as silk screen printing). Scliar includes the prices and print runs of the flags that are a satirical attempt to make art “more accessible” and promote sales to the public.

In this column Walmir Ayala reports on the Rio de Janeiro version of the “bandeiras na praça” happening—an event originally conceived by Nelson Leirner and Flavio Motta—at the General Osório Square in February 1968. A demonstration had been organized the previous December in front of the Nossa Senhora do Brasil church (São Paulo), at which the flags that these two artists had printed were confiscated by the authorities. In Rio several artists took part in the “Bandeiras na praça” event, including Marcello Nitsche, Carmela Gross, Hélio Oiticica, Carlos Vergara, Cláudio Tozzi, Anna Maria Maiolino, Farnese de Andrade, Glauco Rodrigues, Pedro Escosteguy, and Rubens Gerchman. In this article, Ayala underscores the search for the “new style of communication” that the initiative suggests. This is reiterated by Carlos Scliar, who states the group’s goal of “encouraging a public swearing ceremony” in front of these works of art. Over and above the festive and irreverent nature of the event, it should be noted that it was also a public challenge to the tightening grip of the military dictatorship (1964–85) that would, later that same year, pass AI-5 [Institutional Act Number Five], a law that wiped out virtually all constitutional guarantees in Brazil.

[On the subject of this event, see in the ICAA digital archive “As brandeiras apreendidas” (anonymous) (doc. no. 1110639)].