This document presents a debate promoted by the journal Módulo about the crisis in the cultural institutions of Rio de Janeiro. It took place just one decade after this city was replaced as the capital of Brazil. First, the debate addresses both the meaning and the viability of the newly created Ministry of Culture (1985); then, it offers some analyses of institutional life in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The debate raises problems and disruptions attendant upon Rio’s loss of capital status, especially with respect to the government policies of the period. Other matters discussed are whether or not working artists in Brazil have any capacity to organize, as well as the fundamental issue of what art has come to mean as “symbolic goods (or capital)” at that moment in Brazilian history.

Founded in the 1950s by the architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907?2012), the journal Módulo went beyond its scope as a professional journal to stimulate some debates regarding cultural institutions and the arts in the late 1970s and 1980s. When the long military dictatorship (1964?85) was coming apart, this journal became a good vehicle for information and thinking about art. It supported the artists known as the “Geração 80.”

Módulo encouraged numerous debates such as this one, which was specifically focused on cultural institutions. In other issues (with a range of other participants), the journal addressed matters such as “O artista e a criação” [doc. no. 1110950], and “O artista e a crítica” [doc. no 1110951]. The participants in this debate were the critics Marcus de Lontra Costa (b. 1954), Frederico Morais (b. 1936), and Paulo Herkenhoff (b. 1949); as well as the artists Adriano de Aquino (b. 1946), visual arts coordinator for the State of Rio de Janeiro, and Valério Rodrigues, president of the Associação Brasileira de Artistas Plásticos.

This text helps to create a context for examining Rio de Janeiro’s institutions and art world (in the 1980s), when some artists and critics were starting to evaluate “painting” done by young artists. Lontra Costa, critic and curator, was distinguished in the Brazilian cultural sphere of those years by being the main critical promoter of what was called “Geração 80.” Morais, in turn, had been active in Brazilian art circles since the 1960s as a critic and curator, starting off in Belo Horizonte. His influence would be significant in the following decades, as he stepped up to defend the avant-garde movements as they arose, through his involved, active criticism. At the time of this debate (the 1980s), Morais redefined positions he had taken in an earlier period, though he always offered his unconditional support to the Geração 80. Herkenhoff’s life as an artist was launched from the Experimental Room at MAM-Rio [doc. no. 1110602]. In the 1970s, Herkenhoff became a curator, art critic and arts administrator, serving as curator of the 24th São Paulo Biennial in 1998. The visual artist Aquino assumed the role of arts administrator for the State of Rio de Janeiro, while Rodrigues was one of the outstanding artists of the Geração 80.