In this text, Lourival Gomes Machado (1917–1967) reviews the II Bienal del Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, held in 1953. Gomes Machado, artistic director of the first edition of the biennial held in 1951, was the director of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, the organization responsible for the biennial. One of the most interesting aspects of the review is the description of the Pavilhão das Nações, located in the Parque do Ibirapuera architectural complex designed by Oscar Niemeyer, and its use for the São Paulo Biennial.
In 1941, journalist, critic, and art historian Lourival Gomes Machado—along with intellectuals of the stature of Antonio Candido, Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes, and Décio de Almeida Prado—launched the São Paulo-based magazine Clima. The aim of the publication was to encourage innovation in the spheres of literary criticism, film, and theater in Brazil. During the forties, Gomes Machado was an art critic for the newspaper Folha da Manhã and the editor of the international section of O Estado de S, Paulo. After the resignation of Belgian curator Léon Degand, Gomes Machado became the director of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM/SP), a post he held from 1949 to 1951; he was also the chief curator of the first and fifth editions of the São Paulo Biennial. His most well known text is Barroco Mineiro (1969), a selection of articles on the baroque from the state of Minas Gerais, a topic that Gomes Machado began investigating in 1953 in his Teorias do Barroco.
Other articles on the second edition of the São Paulo Biennial discuss, for instance, the first Argentine participation in the event (see ICAA digital archive doc. no. 743249) and the structure of the biennial’s award system (doc. no. 742252).
