The phrase spoken by Ferreira Gullar has poetics. Contains a thesis in a few words, light, beautiful and well chosen, probably the shortest and most complete thesis on how art involves the meaning of life.
To the poet who left us our homage, although we always have the sensation of being together him when we get involved with the rhymes of his poetry, with the contents of his texts and criticisms. This Ferreira Gullar will be everlasting, because the story he lived was told it in prose and verse.
Ferreira Gullar poet
“Poema Sujo”, the most famous, written in exile in 1975, long, nearly 100 pages was created compulsively from the need, at the time, to be “as a final testimony, before they silence him forever.”
In the arts he was critical without “tongue-tied” and without fear of saying what he thought. Of the many biennials he saw this year’s “Incerteza Viva” spoke in his column in Folha de São Paulo about the temporality of contemporary art. Ephemeral artworks, which he had difficulty accepting.
About art criticism he explained why it no longer exists. “An art that is not governed by any principle, and is not the result of a work elaborated from a language, can not be analyzed nor subjected to any judgment of value, that is to say, of any critical judgment. Maybe that’s why the militant critique does not exist anymore.
Among his latest Folha articles in August, he spoke again about art: “Art must be made to give people delight, not to shock them. He concluded: “And it is in this aspect that such a subject interests me. As I said, a painting, an engraving or a drawing can give us aesthetic pleasure – such as some engravings by Marcelo Grassmann or certain paintings by Iberê Camargo, even if what they show us is a cruel or suffered scene. All right, but the question is: would not be more gratifying, for those who see them, to enjoy them, together with formal beauty and artistic achievement, a full vision of life and happiness?”
Critical Look
Honoring him and acknowledging him as a great thinker does not mean that I agree with his positions regarding contemporary art and the need for art and beauty to be always together.
