A Rua

Samenvatting

A Rua is a portrait of the Rio de Janeiro art scene looked at through the thematic prism of the street. Throughout the exhibition project documented in this publication, the street is considered as the space of the encounter between self and other, and between art and life - a space of lived experience in which a community continuously reinvents itself. Secondly, the street is viewed either as a natural extension of both the artist's studio and the gallery space or the museum, or as a fully developed alternative to the established institutional spaces of art - the actual site of artistic creation an cultural production, and of aesthetic experience as such. Thirdly, and most importantly perhaps, the street is conceived as both arena and agora: a highly specific manifestation of the idea of the public sphere - both a social space and a political space. This exhibition and its accompanying publication bring together the work of 28 artists and cultural producers and practitioners, some of them very well-known key figures from Brazil's celebrated post-war avant-garde, others emerging artists whose works are still largely unknown in Europe. And here too, the yeah 1968 signals a watershed in cultural politics, marking the beginning of an ongoing projes: the continuous interrogation, so central to A Rua of the porous borders between street and studio, public and private, us and them.