Book from the ABC collection (Arte Brasiliera Contemporânea), edited by FUNARTE  (Fundação Nacional das Artes). The volume is dedicated to Rubens Gerchman, and it presents his work alongside a poem by Armando Freitas Filho, using passages that were inspired by works Gerchman produced in the 1960s and 1970s. There is also the text “Rostos na Multidão” by Sérgio Santeiro, which not only discusses the presence of the city and its multitudes in the artist’s work, but also recounts his first encounter with the work; [the book] also includes a critical essay and chronology by art critic Federico Morais, who examines [the artist’s] production from the beginning of the 1960s to the end of the 1970s. It mentions a “black period,” composed of socially conscious work within the Tropicalism movement; as well as sculpture-words; the film Triunfo Hermético and the Mona Lou and Strip Tease series. The final part of the book includes texts by Gerchman in which he comments on his proposals; among them, the Novas Caixas de Morar [Nuevas Cajas-Habitación], [New Habitation-Boxes], comparing them with elements of indigenous culture, it also describes a happening that took place in 1966 at the Galeria G-4 in Rio de Janeiro during the PARE exhibition. 

FUNARTE was launched in 1978, while the ABC Collection (Arte Brasileira Contemporânea) became a pioneering bibliographic reference on art in Brazil during the 1960 and 1970s. During its 16 years, the series included a group of subjects that were representative of that era: Anna Bella Geiger, Carlos Vergara, Rubens Gerchman, Artur Barrio, Antonio Dias, Wesley Duke Lee, Lygia Clark, Cildo Meireles, Waltércio Caldas, Lygia Pape and Antonio Manuel. Authors included Ronaldo Brito, Paulo Sérgio Duarte, Fernando Cocchiarale, Hélio Oiticica, Mário Pedrosa, Paulo Venâncio Filho, Frederico Morais, Ferreira Gullar, among others.

Rubens Gerchman became one of the principal actors within Brazilian art starting in the 1960s, having participated in paradigmatic exhibitions such as and Opinião 65, Opinião 66 and Nova Objetividade Brasiliera during the second part of the aforementioned decade. He served as an editor for Malasartes magazine, a key publication during the 1970s, and also as director of the Escola de Artes Visuais del Parque Lage (in Rio de Janeiro); he undoubtedly helped rethink how art would be taught in the country.

[As a complementary reading, see the other texts by the artista in the ICAA digital archive: (Untitled) [“A idéia da G-4 (…)”] (doc. no. 1110583); “Uma arte brasileiro/latino-americana” (doc. no. 1111052); (sin título) [“Este trabalho é (…)”] (doc. no. 1110626); “Gerchman, o artista que testemunha e se faz presente” (doc. no. 1111086); and the letter he wrote to Walter Zanini in 1968 from New York (doc. no. 1111051). Also see Zanini’s 1969 response to Gerchman (doc. no. 1111055)].