TheMountainSermonbyCildoMeireles

The vast majority of exhibitions that take place in a city like Rio de Janeiro are fleeting and, despite records, become a minor part of the city's visual arts history. Others, however, become events that mark a generation. This is the case of O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux, an installation that Cildo Meireles presented on April 25, 1978, at the newly created Galeria Cândido Mendes, located in Ipanema.

Image description: The image is a black and white photograph. In the center, an individual is standing, arms at their sides, looking at the camera. He is in front of a structure made of stacked boxes, each with an eye symbol and the word "OLHO" written on it. To the left, another person is partially visible, standing with their back turned, behind the boxes. In the background, more boxes are arranged in rows, forming a wall. The lighting is even, and the setting appears to be industrial or a storage space.

Born in Rio but having spent much of his youth between Goiânia, Belém, and Brasília, Cildo Meireles is one of the leading names to emerge in the second half of the 20th century. A resident of Rio de Janeiro since the late 1960s, he actively took part in the experimental scene that took shape in the city during the 1970s. With O Sermão da Montanha he established himself once and for all as an artist whose relationship between politics and aesthetics was ingenious — and dangerous.

The environment Meireles created in the gallery consisted of eight mirrors with phrases taken from the biblical text of Matthew 5:3-10, in which Christ's sermon proclaims the blessings for those who follow the word of God. At the center of this space, 126,000 Fiat Lux matchboxes formed a sculpture set on top of a floor of black sandpaper, which amplified the sound of the footsteps of those moving through the space. Around the hundreds of stacked boxes, five menacing-looking security guards (actually hired actors posing as plainclothes police officers) watched over the work. One of the most striking aspects of the exhibition is that, like a happening, it lasted only 24 hours.

Image description: This is a black-and-white photograph of a group of men in an indoor setting, possibly a shop or exhibition space. On the left side, there is a large mirror reflecting the men and the objects around them. On the right side, there is a stack of boxes piled up. The men are standing, some wearing dark sunglasses, and are arranged facing the camera. Behind them, there is a white wall with more objects hanging on it. The ceiling has hanging lights and metal structures.

The work, which had already been under consideration since 1973 and had been turned down by two galleries, brought together in its proposal a series of signs linked to the long period of violence and fear that artists and part of the population lived through during the civil-military regime. The imminence of fire, the plainclothes police officers, the ostensive warnings of danger and no-smoking signs, superimposed on Christ's sermon, gave the work an agonizing tone that struck those who saw it. The announcement of Cildo's piece circulated with anticipation among local critics due to the materials brought together and the ephemeral duration of the action. In the words of Roberto Pontual, published in the Jornal do Brasil, the work "plunges us into a reality that seems entirely absent from that place, withdrawn from our eyes: the contingency of a recent Brazil, the shapes and modes of conflict, the underground currents of pressures and repressions, the tensions like a bomb about to ignite and explode."