O Sesc Vila Mariana receives the unprecedented exhibition MAM Garden at Sesc, a co-production of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo and Sesc São Paulo. The exhibition is curated by Cauê Alves and Gabriela Gotoda and re-enacts elements of the MAM Sculpture Garden at the entrance to Sesc Vila Mariana. In it, the public will be able to appreciate works from the MAM collection, including iconic sculptures by Alfredo Ceschiatti, Amilcar de Castro and Emanoel Araújo, and works that explore social criticism, such as works by Regina Silveira, Luiz 83 and Marepe.
For MAM president Elizabeth Machado, the partnership with Sesc reinforces the museum’s commitment to expanding access to art: “The MAM collection is a living heritage, and this exhibition at Sesc Vila Mariana allows an even wider audience to come into contact with fundamental works of our history, promoting encounter and reflection on Brazilian art. Sesc is a long-standing partner of MAM, and this collaboration reaffirms our joint mission to expand access to culture.”
The artists participating in the exhibition are Alfredo Ceschiatti, Amílcar de Castro, Bruno Giorgi, Eliane Prolik, Emanoel Araujo, Felicia Leirner, Haroldo Barroso, Hisao Ohara, Ivens Machado, Luiz83, Marepe, Mari Yoshimoto, Márcia Pastore, Mario Agostinelli, Nicolas Vlavianos, Regina Silveira, Roberto Moriconi, Rubens Mano and Ottone Zorlino.
The selection of works includes pieces that have already been part of the MAM Garden, as well as works from the museum's collection that discuss themes such as nature, the city and materiality. The installation at Sesc Vila Mariana recreates the dynamics of the Sculpture Garden, using scenographic elements that evoke the winding topography of Ibirapuera Park designed by the office of the iconic landscape architect Burle Marx, stimulating new interactions between body, space and art.
Opened in 1993, the MAM Sculpture Garden is an initiative that revived the museum’s collection in its own free space with a large circulation of people. “By proposing a kind of reenactment of the MAM Garden in the External Square of Sesc Vila Mariana, we sought to develop the idea that, just like the garden space in Ibirapuera Park, the Sesc space functions as a center for urban encounters,” says Cauê Alves. “The exhibition includes works from the MAM collection that relate, in different ways, to nature, the body, the city, materiality, and to languages that express some of the inescapable tensions in society,” adds the curator.
The proposal for the MAM Garden exhibition at Sesc Vila Mariana is to stimulate this relationship between bodies, works and space, transforming the unit's External Square into a territory for circulation, experimentation and discovery. Without intending to emulate the park's landscaping, the project's scenography recreates the curves and volumes that mark the original garden, proposing a spatial rhythm between the sculptures. For Gabriela Gotoda, curator of the exhibition alongside Cauê Alves: “If the most original and authentic principle of modern art is that it is close to life, a museum that is dedicated to collecting it and updating it in its present time must continually strive to offer its audiences possibilities of enjoyment that do not distance them from their realities, but rather meet them.”
Educational MAM
During the exhibition period, the public will be able to participate free of charge in educational activities promoted by MAM Educativo, which develops programs and projects in dialogue with its audiences, through accessible and free programming that seeks to equalize opportunities and reduce physical, sensory, intellectual, social or mental health barriers.
Inspired by the experiments carried out in the museum's Sculpture Garden in Ibirapuera Park, part of MAM Educativo's May activities will be adapted to the Sesc Vila Mariana space, proposing different forms of interaction between bodies, works and the exhibition environment. Aimed at audiences of all ages and profiles, the activities will seek to stimulate new ways of looking at, inhabiting and reflecting on urban space through art.
The activities will be divided into programs. “Contacts with art” promotes the cultural education of teachers, educators, researchers and university students, encouraging their role as multipliers of different artistic expressions and pedagogical approaches based on diverse creative processes. “MAM Family” promotes the encounter of the museum’s artistic universe with childhood cultures, through storytelling, games, artistic workshops, guided tours followed by poetry experiences, among other activities. “MAM Sunday” includes activities that invite the public to experience different artistic languages based on thematic axes that encompass dance, music, popular culture, street culture, debates and plastic arts workshops.
There is also the “Visiting Program”, which caters to all types of audiences and encourages access to art and culture through the exercise of critical thinking. The program includes guided tours, poetic experiences and a relationship program with partner schools. Guided tours with MAM Educativo are conversations in which critical reflection is encouraged through art and poetic experiences, which bring the museum’s public closer to artistic experiences and processes. Groups can schedule visits to the MAM Garden exhibition at Sesc by email at educativo@mam.org.br.
The program also includes activities that are part of the National Museum Week – an initiative of the Brazilian Institute of Museums (Ibram) in celebration of International Museum Day (May 18) and which, in 2025, will take place from May 12 to 18 under the theme “The Future of Museums in Rapidly Transforming Communities” – and the World Play Week – an action promoted by the Alliance for Childhood that invites society to value play and the importance of childhood and which, in 2025, will have the theme “Protecting the Enchantment of Childhood” and will take place from May 24 to June 1.
Service
Exhibition | MAM Garden at Sesc
From the 14th of May to the 31rd of August
Tuesday to Friday, from 7am to 21:30pm, Saturdays, from 10am to 20:30pm, and Sundays and holidays, from 10am to 18pm