The pavilion, which was the artist's home, will be opened as an exhibition space
Submitted at Oct 22, 2018, 12:50 PM
The Bispo do Rosário Museum of Contemporary Art will incorporate one of the pavilions of the former Juliano Moreira Colony into its exhibition space in Rio de Janeiro. The hospital was the home for many years of Arthur Bispo do Rosário, one of the leading figures in the art contemporary Brazilian art. The building, which will be restored with sponsorship from the Marcos Amaro Foundation (FMA), houses the cell occupied by Bispo, who viewed it as a kind of studio. Once restored, the cell will function as a permanent exhibition space for the works of artist from Sergipe. "The walls of the cell where Bispo do Rosário lived are completely covered in drawings that have been covered by layers of paint over the years. We will remove them little by little, in a process of restoring the original layer of paint, in an attempt to reveal the Bishop's entire creative universe printed on those walls", says Ricardo Resende, curator of the Museum and also of the FMA. 
Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, Bispo lived for almost 50 years, on and off, as an inmate in mental hospitals in Rio de Janeiro. He took advantage of the precarious materials that surrounded him to recreate the world, and recorded on cloaks and banners everything that his memory had capable of remembering and preserving. Despite his genius being recognized late, he is today considered one of the exponents of contemporary Brazilian art, forming the triad of the most important names of the period alongside Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica. In addition to the room where Bispo do Rosário slept, the entire Pavilion will be restored (recovery of the roof, floor, openings and hydraulic and electrical installations) to house the headquarters of the Museum, which currently operates in an administrative building of the Municipal Institute of Assistance to Health Juliano Moreira, a mental health complex installed in the Colony. The environments will undergo renovations and adaptations, always seeking ideal conditions for preserving their original architecture and preserving the work. 
"This procedure is the largest ever performed on contemporary works of art in Brazil. The method consists of removing the oxygen from a structure built precisely for this purpose, a hermetically sealed bubble, where half of Bispo do Rosario. From there, through a mechanism, all the oxygen was removed from its interior, leaving only the hydrogen. This process ensures the effective elimination of termites, fungi or any other microorganisms by asphyxiation. This is a technology that does not affect the work, which is extremely fragile and requires the utmost care", comments Ricardo Resende. Over the course of 50 years, Bispo produced more than 900 objects in a continuous process of creation. In this process, he used everything he had at hand to produce embroidery, objects and sculptures. In a meticulous work, he dismantled the uniforms of the internal, extracting from them the threads that would serve as raw material for the plot of his pieces. Cutlery, sneakers and bottles - everything was reused by the artist. Via A4&Spotlight
