The best way to sum up Brasília is ‘WTF’ (if you don’t know what that means you are in the right frame of mind). A great introduction to feel of Brasília is the Hélio Holanda Melo exhibit. From the outside it is fairly simple half sphere with a Saturn like ring providing entrance. Inside lot of fancy words like Dialectic and neo-Hegelian philosophies on anti-art are written on the curing, square, suspended, or strangely lit walls. To save you the Google time what most of it seems to boil down to is that art is not something that should be hung on walls and looked at, at least not only. The viewer becomes ‘the participant’ and as art like beauty is in the eye of the beholder he challenges you to make art out of the crap he has put in this impressive building. There is art to feel with your feet, such as small tents with different rocks in them, and to smell (a small tent with leaves) to experience a blind rainforest. There is a room with drapes and branches and an incredibly out of (or non-standard) tune piano that people jump on and play. Anyone who has known me for a while knows my view on art... I hate it, but with such passion that it’s almost a love. I always find myself going to art galleries all over the world to find the bits I like and to laugh, sneer or cry at everything else. So I find it hard to make up my mind on this. It is clearly useless and therefore art (form without function) but somehow I can’t help being impressed (partly at how he convinced people to waste money on this) at the obvious challenging of traditional art and the appeal to a more basic inner voice. I suppressed the little voice that said, huh?, WTF?, why?, But that’s not logical captain, as I too joyously threw pieces of ripped mattress into the air like a 5 year old in a ball tank (in the name of avant-garde expressionism of course).
And that sort of duality sums up brazilia. Niemeyer was given a bucket of white paint, a shit-tin of concrete, some glass, and a bit of food colouring and created one of the marvels of the modern world out of it. Every structure had things that surprise amaze and inspire awe. Simple sweeping lines that combine to create complexity. Take the cathedral it contains a floor that curves up on the sides to form a bowl of marble and suspended from the ceiling, not against some wall, are the statues of angles as if floating down from heaven.The city is laid out logically but not efficiently. There is almost no information on how to get around (e.g. bus routs and timetables) and there is a long walk between the various attractions, restaurants, and the too few hotels. Rich government employees enjoy fine dining, and impoverished (usually black) lower class drinking in the streets. The metro dose not run far enough, though it is efficient where it does run. A city that is made to be looked at, but is not tourist friendly. Everything is either expensive or free. A city of contradictions. WTF?
Next I have to mention the Templo da Boa Vontade, the first fully ecumenical temple, a place of general and non specific worship. This was a structure so complex I decided to visit it twice. First with an open mind (so open my mind was in danger of falling out) and then with a scientific and analytic mind (one that would have made spock seem like a an emotionally charged pubescent teen with ADD). This second mind unapologetically notices more and so the description is longer:
Visit 1: As I enter the temple, the sounds and worries of the world seem to slip away softly. An ire calm takes over as I remove my shoes to be close to the ground and feel the cold marble. I silently in contemplation walk the long spiral of black marble on white, descending into the centre of the domed structure. The dark path seems to lengthen and slow as I slowly reach the centre. Standing on the small brass plaque and gazing into the largest crystal on earth directly overhead, bathed in its focused “cosmic energy”. The air all about seems still and silent as I stand alone amongst the people in the room. I relax and begin my outward journey the path of white marble brining me out of the depth of the temple to arrive refreshed before an alter of the 4 natural elements. A steel representation that seems to shift softly in colours, i walk on and sipping holy water that has been purified and absorbed holy energies from the crystal overhead. The next room I come to is the Egyptian room, a relaxing 
space filled with lush blue seats, gold drapes, ornate carvings and Egyptian motives lead up to a decretive ceiling depicting skies of blue and soft white clouds. I sink into the seats and relax in perfect silence and forget about the world outside - Relaxing body and mind. Though a little of my mind did make the leap from body to mind to spirit as I lay there contemplating weather a nice gin and tonic or a scotch on the rocks wouldn’t be just the thing to relax further. As I imagined the soft clink of ice surrounded by a smooth single malt I turned my attention back to the painted ceiling and my mind returns to its contemplation of oblivion. Feeling refreshed I exited the building, and am somewhat shocked at the loud hustle and bustle of life on even this quite street which induces a feeling of being torn from the quiet sanctuary of the temple.
Visit2: The temple is a heavyset concrete structure buried into the ground 6 narrow windows are thick double glaze and pearl-white opaic glass. As I descend into the structure via a thickly carpeted corridor (floor, walls and ceiling) around a bend into the main chamber. It is now I realise we are within the ground and sound is reduced by more than 90% from ambient, I would venture as much as -12dB which is quite impressive without the use of a door. The chamber I am now in contains a few barren benches and an equally barren alter on the far side. The flat white and black spiral clearly evident on the floor contains a brass centre no more than 6cm across. I remove my shoes to further reduce any noise made walking across the marble, even these humble hiking shoes would sound like SS boots reverberating in the small and quite space. I begin my walk along the black marble noting that the tiles decrease in size so at to keep a specific number of tiles in each circuit, this has a disorienting effect of slowing you down as you reach the centre. In the centre I gaze up at a large hunk of quartz, with an obvious flaw across it lengthwise, that makes the point of the roof. I consider that there is no way that any radiation (rays cosmic or 
otherwise) could be focused upon the centre of the room, given the oblique angle of the sun and the cut of the quartz, even assuming for a moment that such a property of quartz existed. Perhaps a more ubiquitous source is needed, stellar X-rays? I briefly consider bremstralung and secondary emission as I make my way out of the spiral along the white marble. As the tiles gain in size I note myself unthinkingly striding larger and faster out of the centre until I stand before the alter. Seven marble steps with a stainless steel plate atop that someone has, very artistically, attacked with an angle grinder – the use of coloured lights above it adds an attractive multi-colloured sheen as I move my head left and right it changes almost like a cheap hologram. I sip from the holy water hoping their ‘purification’ involves some very hefty filters as the rainwater is quite polluted here (evident from the dirt on the car windshield I noticed outside). As I sip from the small disposable plastic cup it strikes me that this is nether ecologically sound nor is there a recycling bin provided, I tuck the plastic cup in my pocket in hopes of finding one later. Next is the Egyptian room, a room which contains gaudy plastic imitations of Egyptian art painted gold and two quite squat looking sphinxes, that I think I would have no trouble of running past were these the guardians of the underworld. The room itself is lined on both sides by silent air purifiers and humidifiers making it a very comfortable change from the semi-tropical heat, and dusty air, outside. I sit on the plush seat and inspect the very androgynous Egyptian figure carved into the armrest, Is this an effeminate man or a flat chested woman i wonder? After again noting the lack of Egyptian bar staff I return my attention to the inscription I read. Written in 14 languages, including Esperanto (whatever happened to that? Too logical I suppose), it reads “The dead do not lie”. Ahh I think, a quote on the acceptance of our history that our past is filled with the experiences of those that went before us, whatever history says the cemetery is 
their final testament? No, as it turns out I miss read it for it says, 14 times, “The Dead do not Die” Hmm? Well not a second time I suppose, unless they reincarnate. Pondering this I returned to the rest of the exhibition. The next interesting room contained a fake marble sarcophagus in a blue glow that imitated water to the point that I wanted to jump in. Above was a picture of the 4 horseman of the apocalypse riding in with a Jesus at the centre looking who looked quite pleased with the destruction and suffering of man depicted below. Not terribly multi-faith but then I suppose it is a Christian temple after all. Before exiting you pass a purified water fountain which I hope is not the same as the water I was drinking as two turtles seem to be enjoying all that cosmic energy and obeying god’s command of “Go forth and multiply”. As I exit the building I insert my noise-cancelling headphones and again marvel at the sound reduction in this buried building.
No comments:
Post a Comment