Primo Jim Tanya Huntington Hyde - Literal

L´ange, 1948
4 Pictures Courtesy
of the Sicardi Gallery,
GALLERY Geraldo de Barros: Throwing the Dice
Houston.
Fernando Castro
If we could only keep our happy or sad memories we
would go crazy. Fortunately, there are others.
GERALDO DE BARRO
UNBEKNOWNST EVEN TO HIMSELF, IN 1979, GERAL-
DO DE BARROS SUFFERED HIS fi RST ATTACK OF CE RE B RAL
ISCHEMIA. HE WAS fi FTY-SIX YE ARS OLD. UP UNTIL
THE SEVENTIES, IT HAD BEEN A GOOD DECADE FOR
GERALDO. IN 1972, Hobjeto, the furniture factory
of which he was co-owner had reached
its maximum expansion employing over seven
hundred people. His furniture designs had received
several awards thus fulfi lling his desire
to socialize art by allowing as many people as
possible to use it in their lives. The commercial
success of the Hobjeto chain made him a
wealthy man. He was able to build a lofty new
home with a studio and travel to Europe with
his family. In 1975 his daughter Fabiana had
found photographic prints he had done twenty-fi
ve years before; this discovery renewed
his enthusiasm for photography. He also reestablished
contact with the artistic circle of his
younger years. However, the economic crisis
in Brazil was beginning to affect his furniture
business and Geraldo found himself under increasing
stress.
It was his wife Electra who fi rst noticed
his impaired speech and motor coordination.
46 4 LITERAL. LATIN AMERICAN VOICES FALL, 2008
Self-Portrait, 1949. Tatuapé, São Paulo
“Speak normally, Geraldo. I cannot understand
what you are trying to say,” she told
him one morning. He asked for a pen but
when she gave it to him, his fi ngers could
not hold on to it. Only after being hospitalized
did the family fi nd out what had happened
to him. “Too much stress and too
much smoking,” the doctor said. He had to
slow down.
Although physically diminished, Geraldo
remained as lucid as ever and was determined
to continue to be the artist he had always
been. He was able to sketch geometric
patterns like those he had done during the
fi fties when he was one of Brazil’s most renowned
Concrete artists. With the help of
his assistant José Suares, who executed the
paintings from his sketches and instructions,
Geraldo produced an astounding new series
of abstract Concrete works. The Brazilian art
world re-discovered his works. In 1979 they
were selected to be shown at the XV Bienal
Internacional de Arte de São Paulo. His restless
creative mind overpowered his physical
vicissitudes and he radicalized his idea of socializing
art further by using industrial materials
instead of paint. Using Formica, Geraldo
produced the series Jogos de Dados, a name
that echoed Mallarmé’s seminal calligraphic
poem Throw of the Dice. His newly created