Imagens de Urgência (Urgency Images)

Images of Urgency


My commentary, 2018

 

These images are from 1968 to 1972, when many of us were busy denouncing muffled or little-publicized facts about the violence that astonished us. The news of newspapers, when prohibited, were replaced by excerpts from the Lusíadas de Camões or by cooking recipes and more. Images were published and often arose from listening to reports not necessarily true, but credible. The good way to reproduce them quickly to keep up with the events and make them recognizable, with a certain drama, was the current mode, Pop Art.

Many of the ones I did disappeared. They were painted with simple paint, synthetic enamel, on Eucatex (kind of fiber board) panel, always in the same format, sometimes an image in two panels. Somewhat uncomfortable for transportation, but effective to be seen. And, of course, occasionally the support material varied.

The principle was used, in some figures, in the installation Environment Confrontation, MAC 1972. With the student who helped set up a lecture on the subject, in 2012, Adriana Palma, came the title of the set: Images of Urgency.

Gabriel Borba

Conjunto da Obra

Imagens de Urgência (Urgency Images)

Imagem de Urgência, 1969

Esmalte sintético sobre aglomerado, 122.00 X 90.00 X 0.00

Works, Series and Collections: Imagens de Urgência (Urgency Images)

Imagem de Urgência

 

Urgency Image

My commentary

 

The figure which is repeated here, and in other paintings, framing their top or their bottom, is the portrait of Dr. Armando Marcondes Machado Junior, then president of the Association of State Attorneys of São Paulo, placed there, as watching my deeds, by the admiration of this man of coherent and courageous positions.

Together we went through a remarkable adventure, funny tonowaday, reported by Dr. Armando, fondly called Armandinho, in an interview he gave to the São Paulo State Prosecutors Union Newspaper in 1998, whose excerpt I reply here:

 

"JS - How did the Association, which had no resources, manage to carry out such an event? (Refers to the the Congress for Public Advocacy, 1969).

 

Armando - Professor Hely Lopes Meirelles, then Secretary of Justice, contributed to the viability of this first Congress. I got sponsorship for the posters and the cocktail. The poster, incredible as it may seem, was the one that gave me the most headache. It would be printed free of charge at the graphics office of the Secretary of Tourism, which rejected the first work of the graphic artist we hired, Gabriel Borba Filho, because they understood that the poster had communist connotations. Borba accepted it back and made another one, which was promptly accepted".

Gabriel Borba,2020