Museu Paulista, São Paulo, May to September 2025
Curatorship
The exhibition showcases doors, furniture, work tools, construction elements, household utensils, graphic design pieces, and photographs that tell a bit of the history of German (beginning in 1824) and Italian (in 1875) immigration in Southern Brazil. The immigrants brought not only agricultural experience but also skills practiced during the off-season, throughout the long European winters, working as carpenters, joiners, blacksmiths, masons, potters, ceramists, textile workers, and shoemakers. In Brazil, they combined this knowledge with the conditions and materials they found.
The works have been collected over the past 50 years by the architect couple Calito and Tina de Azevedo Moura. These are durable, solid objects, with a technique and aesthetic that transcend time. We can call them “ordinary.” They weren’t made for the elite, but rather by and for common people, for use in their daily lives. And how extraordinary they can be in this condition! The collectors’ choice to explore the different facets that a single artifact typology can have reveals that form follows not only function, but also culture, time, place, and the desire and dreams of the human hands that shape the objects. Many of the exhibited objects share similarities or points of convergence with those from other cultures within the historical period covered, especially regarding the rural universe. Photographs, postcards, and graphic materials convey the social imaginary of the period and show the men and women “behind” the works. “Design and Everyday Life” occupies the temporary exhibition hall of the Museu do Ipiranga, spanning approximately 870 square meters.
Production: Expomus Exhibition
Design: LT Arquitetura and Ana Paula Gallarraga de Nogueira
Photos: Hélio Nobre and José Rosael
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