In this letter addressed to Professor Walter Zanini—the then director of the MAC-USP (Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo)—Gabriel Borba reveals his intention to work with phenomena that present themselves to an artist who reflects on architecture, the arts in general, as well as on society and ideology. He intends to create models describing relations as well as attitudes among people, including between persons and their possessions. Those types of behavior are more important as symbolic facts than as practical facts. According to Borba, “producing models of behavior” would mean rebuilding them in an expressive manner (with the critic’s role being to disseminate them) by way of a stimulating language created for the occasion. Thus, the reader-moderator (the archaeologist of the present) becomes the heir of artist and critic. Borba is convinced that all museum exhibitions are organizers of links, and he describes his plan to divide the space (exhibition) in two sections: on one hand, showcases exhibiting the idea of memory and heritage, and on the other hand, exhibition space to display the things made by the artists’ associates, both in their work and daily life.

The letter written by Brazilian artist Gabriel Borba (b. 1942) was published on the brochure of his exhibition held between April 25 and May 15, 1977 at Espaço B of the MAC-USP (Museu de Arte Contemporânea of the Universidade de São Paulo). Espaço B had been conceived that same year as a site intended for experimental exhibitions by contemporary artists. Borba was responsible for several activities that took place at the MAC-USP, both as an artist and as an organizer of events. His artistic work equally delves into performance, architecture, design and certain types of visual poetics. In 1978, it was he who first proposed the idea of establishing a Cooperativa dos Artistas Plásticos de São Paulo.

In addition to being one of the curators of the Primera Bienal de São Paulo (1951), Walter Zanini (1925−2013) was the first director at the MAC-USP (Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo), a position he held from 1963 to 1978, where he did a great deal to encourage the work of new artists and marginalized forms of artistic expression, from technological and conceptual approaches to multimedia works that made use of visual poetics. Zanini was also the director of the ECA-USP (Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo).

[For further reading, see in the ICAA digital archive the following texts by Zanini: “A arte de comunicação telemática, a interatividade no ciberespaço” (doc. no. 1111028); “A arte postal na busca de uma nova comunicação internacional” (doc. no. 1110591); “Bienal: renovação crítica e riscos” (doc. no. 1111346); “A colônia japonesa e as artes” (doc. no. 1111409); (untitled) [Em 1973 pensávamos numa JAC futura de etapas constantes ao longo dos meses...] (doc. no. 1110584); (untitled) [Entrevista – depoimento] (doc. no. 1111244); (untitled) [Incontáveis artistas cuja produção se inclui... ] (doc. no. 1110891); “Introdução” (doc. no. 1110588); “Mudar o intercambio cultural entre a Europa e o Brasil: uma necessidade” (doc. no. 805766); “As novas possibilidades = The new possibilities” (doc. no. 1110585); (untitled) [O MAC acolheu o público...] = [The MAC has welcomed the public...] (doc. no. 1110662); “Primeiros tempos da arte / tecnologia no Brasil” (doc. no. 1111029); and “Vídeo-arte: uma poética aberta” (doc. no. 1110892)].