Invited curator |

Os Pioneiros (The Pioneers) was a retrospective exhibition featuring 35 works made between 1974 and 1980. Using heavy “portable” recorders, these forerunners of video production researched the new medium exhaustively, discovering video’s own language. They even used razors and duct tape to edit some of their pieces. These videos were scattered about in São Paulo and Rio, stored in very bad shape, and some of them were doomed to disappear. A group of electronic archaeologists, composed of João Clodomiro do Carmo (Livraria Neon bookstore), Lucila Meirelles, Tadeu Jungle, Tatiana Calvo Barbosa and Walter Silveira, with support from Sony Brazil – which supplied all of the necessary technical resources – and a small hair dryer, recovered and transcribed a significant portion of the tapes into 3/4” tapes, enabling their preservation and eventual screenings.

The exhibition was sponsored by the State Secretariat for Culture and the Museum of Image and Sound.

artists

Works

Curator's text

Imagine that the early alternative videomakers in this land even used razors and duct tape to edit their tapes.

Using heavy “portable” recorders, these video production pioneers operating outside the commercial circuit did exhaustive research on the new medium, discovering video’s own language.

Fine artists or practicioners who created video works between 1974 and 1980 did not make cinema with video. They made video.

However, the pioneers had no zeal whatsoever when it came to preserving their tapes, left scattered about in São Paulo and Rio, stored under horrible conditions, some irremediably doomed to destruction. In fact, a significant portion of the material collected by a group of electronic archaeologists had already deteriorated. Moldy or demagnetized tapes were found on dusty shelves, in moist studios.

But the group of electronic archaeologists did not give up. With help from Sony Brazil, which supplied all of the necessary technical resources, and from a small hair dryer, a sizeable portion of the tapes was recovered and transcribed into 3/4” tapes, enabling their preservation and eventual screenings. The tapes that were found were created by: Andrea Tonacci, Ângelo de Aquino, Anna Bella Geiger, Artur Matuck, Bill Martinez, Carmela Gross, Donato Ferrari, Flávio Pons, Fernando Cochiarale, Gabriel Borba, Gastão de Magalhães, Geraldo Anhaia Melo, Ivens Machado, Helena Bueno/Adelino S. Abreu, José Roberto Aguilar, Júlio Plaza, Liliane Sofler, Letícia Parente, Luís Gleiser, Marcelo Nietsche, Marco do Vale, Mário Espinosa, Miriam Danowski, Milon Lana, Norma Bahia, Otávio Donasci, Paulo Brusky, Paulo Herkenhoff, Regina Silveira, Rita Moreira, Regina Vater, Roberto Sandoval, Sonia Andrade, Sonia Fontanezi, Sonia Miranda, Tadeu Jungle, Walter Silveira, Wesley Duke Lee.

All of the cataloguing, prospecting and electronic archaeology work was carried out by: João Clodomiro do Carmo, Lucila Junqueira Meirelles, Tadeu Jungle, Tatiana Calvo Barbosa and Walter Silveira, with backing from Sony Brazil, and sponsorship from the State Secretariat for Culture and the Museum of Image and Sound, in a production from Livraria Neon bookstore.

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