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| Cildo Meireles, "Quem Matou Herzog?" / "Who Killed Herzog?" (1975). From the series Insertions into Ideological Circuits 2: Banknote Project. Click here for image URL. |
During the time of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship media
was suppressed. Press, television, radios, education, museum exhibitions and
several other communication establishments were strictly controlled[1].
In 1964, the militaries took over “implementing an institutional act to
persecute anybody who posed a potential threat to the regime”[2],
giving rise to the 21 following years of restricted freedom.
Artists had to find “new ways of producing and displaying
their work”[3].
Guerrilla interventions were performed to bring art outside censored museums
and art institutions[4].
Cildo Meireles[5]
found means of expression through banknotes. Who Killed Herzog?[6],
fig. 1, consists of an anonymous
message stamped onto money[7].
By taking advantage of the monetary exchange, he subverted “their meanings with
incisive words and sentences”[8].
“Who killed Herzog?” was one of the few messages that
circulated in the banknotes. Herzog was a famous journalist for TV Cultura, who was arrested for being a
threat to the government in 1975[9].
A few months later he was found dead, declared as suicide. After forensic
analysis, it was understood that someone had tortured and killed him[10].
Until Today, nobody knows his murderer.
With the sense of mobility and change pervading the artistic
scenario in Brazil, artists were “interested in ways of rapidly exchanging
ideas rather than embalming the idea in an 'object’”[11].
Meireles encouraged freedom of speech, stating “the reproduction of this piece
is free and open to anyone and everyone”[12].
Circulation would not be stopped, given money is important for daily use. The
work is not officially sanctioned, possibly considered as a “graffiti that
could move around”[13].
Meireles questions art as a product, freedom of speech and defied the barriers
of censorship though the choice in medium, allowing the public to have an
alternative way of communication.
Though the regime in Brazil has changes, Insertions into Ideological Circuits is still as effective as it
was. Media is still controlled by certain groups of people. If one imagines
this work as a precursor to the power of the Internet, it is understood how
this works breaks the barriers of censorship in the media by giving everyone a
place to speak[14].
It was a bold move with simple
means, a physical manifestation without the need of the artist’s presence. It
is not a question of who produced it, but of the awareness of a greater
problem. Its anonymity emphasizes issues of private law, the market and elitism
of art[15].
Through questioning its nature, that object gains life. An aura is created
around the work. “Good art speaks for itself”[16],
independent of public appreciation. The best works in the end are the ones that
have the power of controversy.
[1] Fernando Rebouças, “Jornalismo Na Ditadura Militar,” InfoEscola,
accessed May 3, 2014,
http://www.infoescola.com/historia-do-brasil/jornalismo-na-ditadura-militar/.
[2] “Military Dictatorship (1964 – 1985),” SoulBrasileiro, accessed
May 3, 2014,
http://soulbrasileiro.com/main/brazil/brazilian-history/5-military-dictatorship-1964-1985/ditadura-militar-1964-1985/.
[3] Claudia Calirman, Brazilian Art Under Dictatorship, Kindle
(Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press Books, 2012), [Location 213 of
4931, 4%, Chapter “Introduction”].
[4] Ibid. [Location 226 of 4931, 5%,
Chapter “Introduction”].
[5] Born in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil.
[6] “Quem Matou
Herzog?” – translated from Portuguese into “Who Killed Herzog?”. Part of the
series Insertions into Ideological Circuits 2: Banknotes Project - asdasda.
Edition acquired by Tate.
[7] “Cildo
Meireles - Insertions into Ideological Circuits 2: Banknote Project,” Tate,
n.d.,
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/meireles-insertions-into-ideological-circuits-2-banknote-project-t12532.
[8] Cristina
Freire, “The Latent Discourse in Brazilian Art in the 1970’s” (Barcelona
Workshop, 2007),
http://www.vividradicalmemory.org/htm/workshop/bcn_Essays/artebrasil70_Freire_eng.pdf. p.2
[9] Redação Terra,
“Entenda o caso Vladimir Herzog,” Notícias Terra, Online edition,
accessed May 3, 2014,
http://noticias.terra.com.br/brasil/noticias/0,,OI407607-EI306,00-Entenda+o+caso+Vladimir+Herzog.html.
[10] Ibid.
[11] MoMA, “[Press
Release] Computer Print-Out Makes Nine Foot Column in Museum Show” (MoMA, July
30, 1970),
http://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/4484/releases/MOMA_1970_July-December_0004a_69D.pdf?2010.
[12] Aline, Camila,
Daniele, Karina e Tainá., “Quem Matou Herzog?,” Blogger, Vida e Obra de
Cildo Meireles, October 19, 2010,
http://cildomeireles.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/quem-matou-herzog.html.
[13] Freire, “The
Latent Discourse in Brazilian Art in the 1970’s.” p. 2
[14] Ibid. p. 7
[15] Aline, Camila,
Daniele, Karina e Tainá., “Quem Matou Herzog?”.
[16] Paul Arden, Whatever
You Think, Think Opposite (Penguin Books, 2006). pp. 84-85
