Raul Mourão

Rio de Janeiro, 1967. Lives between Rio de Janeiro and New York

Active on the Rio art circuit since the early 90s, cultural agitator Raul Mourão’s diverse repertoire includes the creation of Item magazine and co-directorial credits on numerous music videos. He studied at the Visual Arts School at Parque Lage while simultaneously doing degrees in communication and architecture. At the Triennial, Mourão presents Passagem [Passage] (2010), an installation that relates two objects that are recurrent fixtures in his research: cages and swings (kinetic objects), in the most varied scales and forms. This work consists of a metal cage that visitors can enter in order to play with elaborate swing structures.

In addition to Passagem, Mourão also presents a showcase containing samples from a numerous photography series that documents the presence of railings in the urban space as a sort of “appendix” or afterthought to urban architecture. On the Sesc Sorocaba terrace, the artist installed the piece Playground, one of his kinetic works. These Corten steel sculptures (the material confers them a certain rusty rugosity) create intercalated, overlapping forms that acquire their meaning through handling by the viewer. This interactivity is intended to evoke the sensation of walking through the city streets, where there are none of the prohibitions imposed in a gallery/museum.

[D.M]