A MÃO DO POVO BRASILEIRO, 1969/2016

A Mão do Povo Brasileiro, 1969/2016 was the re-enactment of the historical exhibition inaugurated in 1969 at MASP, when the museum had just been installed in its new and current headquarters, designed by Lina Bo Bardi.

The exhibition A Mão do Povo Brasileiro, 1969/2016 marked a new institutional phase of MASP, dedicated to returning to practices and themes dear to the history of the Museum. The historical exhibition A Mão do Povo Brasileiro, inaugurated in 1969, was the museum’s first temporary exhibition at its current headquarters, on Avenida Paulista. In addition to constituting a clear defense for the dissolution of the categories of popular and erudite art by presenting pieces by artisans and autodidacts simultaneously with the exhibition of works by artists already consolidated in the history of art, the exhibition was proposed as a reaction to the country’s political and economic context.

The exhibition had been organized shortly after the promulgation of AI-5 and, as a result, the beginning of the so-called lead years. The valorization of popular culture as a mode of production constituted a response to the political situation that, through a civil-military dictatorship of a technocratic character, advocated anti-popular economic postulates and developmental rhetoric.

The exhibition, in its original setting, was organized in close partnership by Lina Bo and Pietro Maria Bardi and the values ​​contained and defended in this initiative were present throughout their professional careers.