According to Ivo Mesquita, it is due to political-economic changes and social crises in Brazil—the results of a colonial project—that the country is influenced by the non-optimistic perspectives that have taken hold in the rest of the world with regard to the end of the millennium. In his argument, Mesquita mentions specifically the current transnational nature of technological advances, the excess of information, the globalization of urban culture, and the interdependence of capital and the (art) market. He sees a dreamed-of “modernity” as a promise never fulfilled. It is in this context that he ponders the position reserved for art. On the basis of a historical vision of the changes that have taken place since the nineteenth century, Mesquita asserts that the Pop movement which emerged at the core of mass society constituted “the great rupture” with the modern movement. The sacred nature of art was undermined by the aestheticization of life and of existence. The manipulation of images exercises control over everything: appropriation, and the quotation and distribution (of works of art), which meant a break in time. Pursuant to these processes, the artist must engage a temporal sensibility by means of operations, both creative and critical, regarding images as well as representation. In Mesquita’s view, in postmodernism there is no room for a privileged discourse of culture, but rather incessant oscillation between greater and lesser discursive density. A panoramic exhibition does not entail pointing out tendencies, but rather embracing diversity pursuant to a selection criterion based on a strategy of clustering productions with a contemporary spirit. Mesquita asserts that an exhibition should be a terrain of discovery and surprise, one that also affords the experience of looking. He believes in the need to delve into forms of expression that are no longer relevant, and in a radical act, to take languages to their limit, encompassing sociopolitical and anthropological contents. Lastly, in presenting the artists chosen for this exhibition, the curator of Panorama da arte brasileira privileges the objectivation of realities. He eschews an approach to curating based on “guidance” and instead encourages debate on institutionalized (curatorial) practices without losing sight of the fact that his own work as curator is based on arbitrary personal choices that in no way aspire to absolute truth.