Artes magazine (directed by Carlos von Schmidt) presents what it calls its Ideário concreto (Concrete Ideology) as expressed in the 1979 urban intervention proposed to the municipal authority EMURB: a plan to paint the walls of the buildings surrounding the Monasterio de São Bento plaza and metro terminal. Nogueira Lima was a member of the Grupo Ruptura; he tells his interviewer (Cecília Pimenta) that he remained consistent throughout his graphic-visual arts career. It all began when, as a student at the IAC (Instituto de Arte Contemporânea), an affiliate of the MASP, he encountered Le Corbusier, Max Bill, and the formal research being done at the Bauhaus. He met Waldemar Cordeiro when the Concrete art theorist visited the IAC. The Manifesto ruptura (1952) was written nearby, at the Biblioteca Municipal, directed by Sérgio Milliet. The Efectos ópticos (Optical Effects) were an early stage in the process of reengaging with the “pictorial object,” which was no longer a “single artwork.” They were called Los malditos (The Accursed) because of their radical determination to break with the past, as mentioned in the conservative critical review written by Geraldo Ferraz (in the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo), who described Concrete art as a “Bauhaus Exercise.” The group’s critical and collective stance—including the rejection of individual invitations from the XXVII Biennale di Venezia (1954) to certain members—underscored the idea of a “non-elitist object” and challenged the institutionalization of the art being produced at that time, which made no claim to being reproducible. Objetividad visual (Visual Objectivity), according to Nogueira Lima, fluctuated (creating contradictions, for many) as it passed through figuration in the mid-1960s due to the influence of Pop. In his opinion, even there, he was mainly interested in chromatic relationships; he admits that he does not begin with a line and then create countless variations. He therefore classifies his work under Patrones comprometidos (Committed Patterns). Still basing his thoughts on a critical approach, Nogueira Lima notes a parallel (and a constant) in the idea of Evolución de la forma (Evolution of the Shape) inspired by the “constructive awareness” that was announced in the 1952 manifesto.
Maurício Nogueira Lima (b. 1930; d. 1999) was the youngest member of the Grupo Ruptura. His work was rooted in the principles of Geometric Abstraction, and he showed his early work at the III and VI Bienales de São Paulo, from 1955 to 1961. He studied visual communication and advertising at the IAC-MASP (1951–54), coproducing a few works with Alexandre Wollner and Antônio Maluf. He took part in the Konkrete Kunst that Max Bill organized in Zurich (1960). The 1964 military coup d’état created a crisis in art circles, and he started silkscreening figurative works; at that time he joined the following movements: Proposta 66 and Nova Objetividade Brasileira (1967). In 1974 he joined the teaching staff at the FAU-USP, working in the area of visual programming and design. Following the installation of the chromatic project at the Largo de São Bento (1979), he proposed similar ideas for the Praça Roosevelt and the facade of the MAC-USP building (1984). He painted murals at two São Paulo metro stations (São Bento and Santana, 1990–91). As an architect, he designed residences and public and commercial buildings; as a visual programmer, he designed posters, trademarks, and logos (FENIT, for the textile industry, the UD, Feria de Unidades Domésticas, and for the Salão da Criança). In 1984, the Centro Cultural São Paulo organized a retrospective exhibition of his work: A visão construtiva de Maurício Nogueira Lima.
