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Writer's pictureGlauco Gonçalves

Presentation of JÁTOMBEI!

A jatobá, or jatobã, jatobazeiro, Hymenaea courbaril, typically lives over a hundred years, with some reaching over a thousand. How long does a world (and a MUDDA) last while it falls? This tree, allied with the knowledge and beings of indigenous origins, is sacred, and its name “fruto duro” comes from Tupi, meaning “hard fruit.” Even as it falls, it doesn’t open. Those who were here and continue to be here, before those who topple worlds and trees arrived, would open the fruit and use it in meditative processes that generate mental balance. It is found from southern Mexico to the Caatinga, entering the Cerrado, and in the Amazon, it doubles in height and width. There are jatobá trees in the Pantanal, Singapore, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Taiwan, and Madagascar: jatobá is everywhere!


JÁTOMBEI! alludes to the jatobazeiro that has lived on since Ritter and his crew planted concrete there. Aware of the tree’s divinity, Gustav ensured that the building’s main entrance was situated beneath it, receiving its blessing. Some say that all the energy of CELG came from this tree. Attempts were made to preserve it so it might live, perhaps even longer than the world, but the malevolence of capital, which turns everything into death, poisoned the world and killed the jatobá, which fell without being officially preserved.


In this exhibition of over three hundred wheatpastes by more than one hundred and ten artists and collectives from over thirty-five cities across all regions of Brazil, we honor it: the Jatobá. A fitting tribute made of leaves, colors, shapes, and words. The diversity of materials in this collection is striking. We have poems, drawings, montages, analog and digital collages, photographs, messages, manifestos, eroticism, complete murals, prints, abstractions, posters, and hand-painted works. Digital artworks from the multifaceted Brazil adorn the walls of a world in decline, within MUDDA’s crumbling space. Almost as many leaves as in a dreamed tree.


We have chosen MUDDA’s exterior, without a roof, just the sky, to inaugurate an outdoor gallery: the Jardim Jurupiá, referencing the artist’s intervention with her work beyond the main building. Goiânia, a city already marked by wheatpaste walls and known for three editions of Lambisgóia, now features the muddeological collage within the ruins and peeling walls. There’s a heist on peripheral vision! The profusion of rooms, filled at varying distances, creates a mix of confusion and invitation. Once again, the rubble becomes an active curator: it selects the walls that best receive glue and paper, while rendering others unusable due to their living and rebellious textures. The absence of windows turns into a collection of frames; the most heavily pasted walls are always behind: the ones in front, which hardly stick, guard the works from obvious or lazy gazes.


We invite everyone: pasting is good, just stick it on!


Access to see the results of the action

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