HIGHWAY TO POA
It is not a Porto Alegre’s museum, the Cultural Center Santander serves as a reference point with regards to art and education in the city.
The Cultural Center Santander was a bank before Santander converted it into a sort of museum. The building still belongs to the bank which has decided to invest in the field of culture. A step appreciated by inhabitants as it enriched the cultural aspect of the city. While this step is an interesting one and extremely popular in all of Brazil. The fact is creating cultural centersis a means for big companies such as Santander to reduce their taxes. It is part of an initiative taken by the Brazilian government to promote art and education.
The Cultural Center Santander, promoting Art for everyone
Indeed all the museums, cultural centers and foundations in the city of Porto Alegre own educational programs aimed at younger people and others. So the Cultural Center welcomes at least one group fromschools by day, explains one of the educational program’s part-time lecturer. Pupils are shown around by a guide who explain the goal of the exhibition with the teacher’s consent as part of the school curriculum. Classrooms are available for pupils such as a bus that pick them up from their school. All this is payed by the Cultural Center, which will recover the money invested through tax breaks which act as incentives for the service given to the community. The system is apparently working as guides, pupils and teachers are all satisfied by this type of activity.
The Center is an imposing building that impresses by its size, architecture and decoration. It is divided in three levels. The first floor or "Grande Hall" dedicated to the most popular exhibitions is enhanced by a remarkable space and expertly chosen light. The basement holds a coffeeshop, a cinema and also classrooms. There is also a permanent exhibition telling the history of the bank, Santander.
This all represents a recipe that seems to work as around 1.000 vistors come everyday and 2.000 on busy days. The type of people that visits the Center is usually schoolchildren who come with their teacher to discover art in general and the art from their state. There are also a lot of frequent visitors who came once a week to redicover Cultural Center, its exhibitions, its art films and its coffeeshop.
The last exhibition attracted those frequent visitors once more. « O tamanho do mundo », the Size of the World is one of the last exhibition of Vik Muniz, a Brazilian artist who is from Sao Paulo and is now settled in NYC. His favourite field is reconstitution, with materials considered as non-noble to make landscapes, paintings, …All of this photographed And on the wall that faces the entrance of the Center sits a huge photography, divided in three parts, of the Earth’s continents which are represented by informatical trashes : keyboard, mouse, CPU. Maybe a way to express the ultra-connectivity of our world. A work that questions thedifferences between countries. Brazil is made with keyboards while United Sates with CPU.. A cryptic way to say that the first is the hands and the second the brain ?
So Vik Muniz’s art is passionate because of all the questions it raises such as this work very important too called «Cartoes-Postais de lugar nenhum », the postcards from nowhere. The artist, using postcards from different cities recreated famous cities such as Hong-Kong, New York, Paris on 180,3x240,3 ? A way to promote equality and assert the similarity between cultures ? Maybe..
The exhibition questions and amuses with work that is both funny and scaring at the same time with the explicit name « Came Fresao » the erected bed. It is a sculpture representing a bed covered by a white sheet erecting such as… A ghost ? Probably no. The exhibiton presents a richness and diversity particularly because of it’s compilation of Vik Muniz’ career’s most important works. An exhibition which will stay until August the 10th after more than 3 months.
The success of the exhibition is not hiding the architectural failures that the Center Cultural has to face such as every cultural establishement in the South of Brazil. The first problem and one of the most important is certainly the language barrier. When visitors come inside the Cultural Center there are no informative brochures available in languages besidesPortuguese. People have to ask at the reception desk to receive an English translation. The World Cup enabled this to change. With crowds of foreigners coming to Porto Alegre as a host city, the Cultural Center took measures to welcome everyone and hired an English speaker. Otherwise the center is accessible to foreign tourists, not even their Spanish speaking neighbours. Gunter confessed: « It is all new for us ! ». Indeed the Rio Grande Do Sul state is one of the less touristic states in Brazil if not the least. The Cultural Center, guides and visitors in Porto Alegre are slowly getting used to a more touristic presence in the city, partly due to thematches played in the Beria Rio stadium even if hearing people speaking English makes schoolchildren laugh …
The second floor is dedicated to local artists. An initiative that accomodates the gaúcho pride, the essence of which fills Porto Alegre. From June the 4th to July the 13th, the floor is used by the artist Daniel Escobar, who comes from Rio Grande Do Sul. « Seu lugar é aqui, seu momento agora » ("Your place is here, your moment is now") is a small exhibition about massive consumerism and its culture.
Gunter, one of the heads of the cultural center details the importance of this new space created in 2012. An ambitious initiative which « is meant to welcome local artists. » exhibiting Rio Grande Do sil’s artists is one of the reasons for the Center’s success. People are interested in those artists who don’t come « from the rest of Brazil » but from here. « We feel a lot of pride » he affirms.
Nina Raynaud
Porto Alegre. July 10th of 2014.
One more day in Porto Alegre and the city is waking up again. Ochre and carmine colors are invading the praça de Alfândega, the morning rush make workers filed hurrying to their offices. Not far from here, the Mercado Publico. Porto Alegre’s downtown displays some European features. The Cultural Center’s gates open at around 10am with schoolchildren waiting at the entrance.