Facta #2

Who passes through the facade of Matiz Arte Objeto
warehouse, discreetly located in a building in the central
region of Belo Horizonte, has no idea of the treasure
there is inside. Antônio Carlos Figueiredo, owner of the
space, has accumulated over 30 years a formidable array of
antiques, relics and rarities of our state culture, as well as of
Brazil and the world, which he would like to transform into
a Museum of Everyday Life. The collection, in addition
to venting the memories of old times, would be the envy
of any Hollywood art director, such are the variety and
quantity of its pieces: Antonio proudly claims he has over
one hundred thousand pieces, which are not only at this
location but also in three other warehouses, a house, four
rooms and a shop. All crowded.
Despite the appearance of chaos and even the claustrophobic
feeling at first - the objects are often stacked from floor
to ceiling - the space is surprisingly organized. "I count
on the help of Saint Expedite," says the host. Expedite is
actually the right arm "ambidextrous, northeastern and
patient" that helps him in his daily dealings, cleaning and
organizing his archive. The shed contains "departments"
of almost everything: TV's, radios, bottles, plates, taxi
meters, cans, opal, water filters, cutlery, refrigerators,
trains, toys, papers and also a private room where the most
valuable artworks are stored and which we were subtly not
invited to know.
The nearly four-hour tour of our Facta crew, following
what seemed to be a traditional scripted guided tour of the
space, is very, very little time to enter the secular world
which the pieces refer to. Therefore we chose, rather than
trying to map specific items, to assume the impact caused
by our journey through the piles of items randomly talking
about a bit of everything: antiques, Gambiologia, affective
value, TV shows, speculation, technology, rum, lobby, old
irons, lamps, psychoanalysis...
While preserving most of the original objects, our
character avoids treating them only as memorabilia or
static souvenirs of bygone days. Surprisingly, he rather
shows a quite gambiologic point of view: "I do not work
with decorative objects, the type that decorators look for.
I work with take-off objects. What I actually want is that
you, from the objects that I'm showing you, take off on
your own trip."
Even with the impressive size of the collection, "banal"
objects are discarded. Each item is carefully chosen for its
design, origin, history, and only acquired if they have some
special peculiarity. Such as a refrigerator that belonged to
the former president Juscelino Kubitschek and therefore "is
not any one, " or the typewriter in Greek, or a filter with a
pineapple shape, or even a scale for measuring eggs. When
he is excited about a piece, Antonio asks, " Is there a way to
live without it ?" More recently, he dug up in Brumadinho
a chest in which there was inscribed the surname Tim. It
is easy to deduce that it belonged a relative of Nhô Tim, if
not the English miner himself who inspired the name of
the Inhotim Centre for Contemporary Art.
Only after much insistence and almost at the end of the
visit - which, we must say, we got 99 % of the questions
and provocations delivered by Antonio wrong about the
most curious pieces - he accepts to give us some tips and
strategies to achieve a collection of rarities. The "tricks"
are few and valuable, but the conclusion about the most
efficient way to become a collector is simple: walk the
streets (" a snake that does not go around does not swallow
a frog "), talk to people, exchange. Again, the experience
of collecting seems to arise inevitably from the most simple
and everyday experience of the world.
When asked if he would be a compulsive accumulator,
Antonio Carlos denies it. Nor he is a collector. Nor
an artist. He prefers to be called an "Objecteer."
Professionally originated from the financial market, he
now holds up selling one or another piece and renting part
of his historical archive for movies and period soap-operas,
in addition to occasional exhibitions, fashion shoots, etc.
But it is easy to see what the Objecteer actually likes: to
acquire new items to add more and more and more and
more and more...
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