Curated by Rui Moreira Leite

In 1931, the engineer, avant-garde artist, and playwright Flávio de Carvalho (1899–1973) walked counter to the flow of a religious procession in São Paulo, flirting with the female participants. The artist considered it a performance, or “experiência.” The media regarded him as loony and soon buried him beneath the myth. Curator Moreira Leite has dug through the layers of spectacle, reexamining the provocateur’s legacy in this retrospective of more than fifty works—from “romantic revolutionary” architectural projects (as Le Corbusier described them) to interventions such as parading through São Paulo modeling his interpretation of Dior’s New Look women’s wear. Associated with the Brazilian Anthropophagists, Carvalho will be presented here as a pioneer of performance who imbued brainy art gestures with a piquant psychological charge.

— María Gainza