Originally, “the part that doesn’t belong to you” (“a parte que não te pertence”) is a verse written by Joaquim Cardozo, poet and structural engineer who was responsible for the calculations of some of Oscar Niemeyer’s most daring projects, including the major public buildings in Brasília. This verse alludes to the desire of taking something from others, transforming it into part of common ground references and ideas. Just as in the shaping of Brazilian culture, the enunciation of this verse stands for the discrepancy between the notions of communion, mixing, exclusivity and difference.
When Cardozo wrote in his poem that he expects from others solely “the part that doesn’t belong to you”, he is referring to a common field, which simultaneously belongs to all and to no one. It is possible to interpret this collective territory simply as a metaphor for language and interpersonal relationships; or, to understand it as a principle of political action in which people go against the monopoly of controlling certain sets of symbols or power; or, still, to read it as a recurring motto throughout Brazilian art history, in which abound double appropriations between cosmopolitan systems and so-called native arguments, often used by artists whose own ethnical, social and economical identities are ambiguous.
Each of these possibilities reverberate some of Joaquim Cardozo’s characteristics – an author who wrote love poems and an undervalued contributor to a Brazilian modernism that became heroic in its creative overcoming of social and economical incongruities in the formation of the country.
Each of these interpretations will also be used as points of reference in outlining a showcase of Brazilian contemporary art upcoming production. In Madrid, the exhibition will gather artists whose works instigate possible realizations of the part that doesn’t belong to you, emphasizing the political dispute around the significance of the systems of symbols that form ideological images of present time.
With the possible connections between Brazilian and Spanish contexts in mind, the body of artworks is expected to outline a specific aspect of these disputes, gathering pieces that can collaborate with reflecting about the images that depict crisis and social disjunction that are constantly present in the large cities of both countries during the past few years.
