In this text, art critic Sônia Salzstein analyzes a sculpture in the collection of the Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP) produced by José Resende in 1975. On the basis of this sculpture, Salzstein formulates the way that Resende’s work as a whole should be read, mainly in relation to [art from] the second half of the sixties and to the problems of form and culture. Salzstein addresses the dialogue that the work establishes with the criticism of the paradigms of form manifested in Pop art, Minimalism, Conceptual art, and l’arte povera, as well as movements that emerged in Brazil after Neo-Concretism. She points out some recurring characteristics of the production of the São Paulo-born artist, among them the equivalency it establishes between processes of construction and processes of deconstruction in sculpture; the popular formulation of reality; the tendency toward “new materials,” that is, materials foreign to the realm of culture. In Salzstein’s view, Resende’s sculptures undermine the visual integrity of the form via improvisation by means of unstable balances and an undertone both organic and gestural although devoid of expressivity. Resende’s sculpture therefore pursues the empirical potential of experience, looking beyond material endowed with interiority and the premise of space as natural extension of the body.

This text was published in the catalogue to the 1999 edition of the periodic exhibition entitled Panorama da Arte Brasileira that has been organized by MAM-SP since 1969. Coordinated by art critic and curator Tadeu Chiarelli, “Panorama 99” revolved around a group of works that had become part of the museum collection pursuant to previous versions of the event, specifically drawings by Amilcar de Castro, a painting by Alfredo Volpi, the sculpture by José Resende discussed by Sônia Salzstein in this text, and works by Nelson Leirner, Paula Trope, and Nazareth Pacheco. In this analysis of Resende’s piece, Salzstein focuses on the series of diverse materials employed by the artist (stone, rubber, aluminum, and metal) in a dynamic that as Salzstein asserts, “outlines and envelops” the space to become essential to the environment.

Art critic and researcher Sônia Salzstein has done incisive work on the art world and in art history. From 1989 to 1992, she was the head of the visual arts division of the Centro Cultural São Paulo, where she devised a program geared to young and emerging artists. She is a professor in the Visual Arts Department of the Escola de Comunicações e Artes da Universidade de São Paulo (ECA-USP). She is a member of the curatorial board of the Fundação Iberê Camargo, which oversees the Mercosul Biennial. Books she has authored include the monographs: Volpi (Silvia Roesler/Campos Gerais, 2000), Franz Weissmann (CosacNaify, 2003), and Diálogos com Iberê Camargo (CosacNaify, 2004). 

José [de Moura] Resende (b. 1945) studied drawing with Wesley Duke Lee. In 1966, Resende, along with his mentor and artists Geraldo de Barros, Nelson Leirner, Frederico Nasser, and Carlos Fajardo, formed the Grupo Rex; Resende was one of the editors of the occasional publication Rex Time, produced by that group. In 1970, Resende cofounded the Escola Brasil in conjunction with Luiz Paulo Baravelli, Frederico Nasser, and Carlos Fajardo. In the seventies, he was a professor at the Universidade Mackenzie, where he had studied, and from 1976 to 1986, at the Faculdade de Arquitetura of the UNICamp (Campinas, São Paulo). Following his receipt of the J. Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, he lived in New York in 1984 and 1985. In dialogue with North American Post-Minimalism, his sculptural work investigates the expressive potential of the materials it employs.

While Salzstein’s writings have discussed the broader topics of the Grupo Rex and the workings of the Escola Brasil, the main focus of her work is Carlos Fajardo. This is evident in texts such as “Carlos Fajardo/um coeficiente mínimo de estilo” [doc. no. 1111284] and “Galeria Sérgio Milliet: Carlos Fajardo” [doc. no. 1111285].