august of fields
The poet Augusto de Campos. Photo: Fernando Lazslo/ Publicity

CA celebrated poet and visual artist – as well as an essayist, translator and literary critic – Augusto de Campos is about to turn 90 years old. Anticipating the date (on February 14th), the Mario de Andrade Library opened, at the end of 2020, Poem citycitycite by the city, shows that will remain on display at the institution until April 23 this year.

Curated by Daniel Rangel and assembled in partnership with N+1 Arte Cultura, the show's main highlight is the audiovisual version of the poem citycitycity, exposed on a 10 meter long LED panel and installed on the main facade of the library. The LED version was developed for the exhibition TO REVIEW, held in 2016 at Sesc Pompeia, and joins the show with different versions of the poem – made from 1963 to the present, printed on paper, on vinyl cut-out stickers or recorded in sound recordings.

According to Rangel, in a publicity text, “the installation in led of citycitycity is a multimedia intersemiotic translation designed for the public space that gains greater power here because it is exposed in the center of São Paulo, a city directly connected with the poem and with the very trajectory of the concrete poetry of Augusto de Campos and his companions.”

august of fields
“citycitycité” on the walls of Mário de Andrade. Photo: Disclosure

Creator in the 1950s, alongside Haroldo de Campos and Décio Pignatari, of what became known as concrete poetry – initially through the group “Noigandres” -, Augusto is the author of a vast work “verbovicovisual”, a term that refers to the semantic dimensions , sound and visual of the word. He has always had a strong political position, from the times of opposition to the dictatorship to the most recent political events in the country (as can be seen in this interview granted to arte!brasileiros in 2019).

In a previous conversation with the magazine, in 2016, Augusto de Campos complained about a certain lack of recognition of the type of poetry developed by him and his partners over the decades: “I think that concrete poetry is still on a frontier where it is not even recognized in the field of literature or in the field of visual arts. So she lives kind of on a frontier, in a kind of critical limbo”. At the same time, the poet affirmed that it was possible to perceive some change in recent years. New solo shows by the artist after the retrospective at Sesc Pompeia, such as the one held at the Luciana Brito gallery in 2019 and the current exhibition at Mário de Andrade, seem to confirm this movement. Still this year, another exhibition of the poet will be mounted in the São Paulo library, entitled transletras.      


Service -
"Poem citycitycity around the city”
Auntil April 23, 2021Withmonday to friday from 13pm to 16pm
It is not necessary to make an appointment (up to 4 people allowed at a time)
Mario de Andrade Library – Rua da Consolação, 94, Sao Paulo


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