SUNSET
Here the Sun is transformed into a São Paulo metaphor. In the city where, by virtue of not only poverty, but also the tortuous geography of the buildings, almost natural obstacles, the sun has definitively not risen for everyone. Hardly anyone realizes that the Praça do Pôr-do-Sol (Sunset Square), in Alto Pinheiros, is named so for the simple and tragic reason that there are very few squares in São Paulo where one can watch the sunset. We are not intimate with the Sun here. In more pleasant places, by the sea or in the countryside, sunshine is associated to beauty, life, joy; here, it recalls the hardship of breezeless heat, hot asphalt and the lack of a horizon to compensate for the stifling air. On weekends, the paulistanos perform a kind of fugitive exodus in an attempt to restore the balance of light with the horizon. The claustrophobic feeling with which so many people live in the city is caused precisely by their not seeing the horizon and perceiving in sunshine not the heat’s embrace, but rather something of a nuisance. In this essay, we have claustrophobia, the squeeze, the burned colours of the buildings, people crushing in search of rays, sneaking amidst the urban geography. They seek a way out in unlikely spaces, but, caught in a trap, encounter sunshine, collaborating with the reflexes. In this collaboration of the reflexes we find, in this concrete art, a breath, almost a sunrise.
Gilberto Dimenstein
2030
The motorcycle courier has fallen on the wet, potholed asphalt of the overpass; it looks like he’s badly injured. Instantly the silver suction tubes positioned along the whole road are robotically engaged and suck up another victim. Driven by the traffic control centre, this system has recently been implemented by the city with huge success. The bike had been stolen. Common accidents like these no longer disturb the flow of vehicles. Pablo (his fictitious name) once again follows what's going on down there. He's fifty-odd and lives at the top of a lighthouse mistakenly built by the Dutch admiral Witte Corneliszoon de With, in 1651, in the middle of Av. São João. They thought it would help channel the transport of herring southward.
The top of the lighthouse, crowned by a 10 metre-high glass dome, houses at its centre a huge and complex light source that has never been used. There are several pots holding medicinal plants scattered around the area, next to the old, threadbare couches. A porcelain Snow White stands in the penguin’s place on top of the Frigidaire refrigerator. A black picture frame containing dozens of silver, “second place” medals hangs from the steel framework that supports dome. The windows are a bit grubby. A gilt brass telescope that belonged to his grandmother points to the sky. Pablo rarely leaves the lighthouse.
By now the traffic is flowing steadily, 9 o' clock at night. He diverts his gaze to the apartment of the melancholic brunette who’s pounding steak. She’s crying, just like every other day. Her husband will arrive home any moment and rape her. She cries and hammers the steak. A few floors below, thousands of cars drive by on the overpass. Still raining. On the sixth floor of the grey building a beautiful and fat woman sings an aria superbly; Pablo knows the tune, it’s from Catalini’s La Wally. The night goes on. Pablo can’t pull himself away from the glass. Powerful, high up in the old lighthouse, he controls the city. He can’t just leave. He feels imprisoned, and happy for it. It has stopped raining. The Africans from the 8th floor of the art deco building are already on the terrace. They seem to live miserably. They are happy. There’s a party in the penthouse of the building on the street behind. Despite the lights being off they realize they are being watched and point at Pablo. Embarrassed, he delicately sidesteps to take hide behind one of his plants. He’ll see what’s happening on the other side. Sex in several apartments. It is Friday after all.
Around four, he falls asleep on the also threadbare red armchair. He wakes up at nine, the sun shines brightly in the dome. Before breakfast, he walks over to the glass. The number of buildings around the lighthouse is staggering. You can see dozens for miles. Pablo knows that 20 years ago you could see the mountains in the background. Pollution has hidden them forever. He doesn’t care about that. A fat grey-haired man in black underpants is lifting dumbbells on the seventh floor. Some bikini-clad women are sunbathing, cramped into the tiny neoclassical balconies made of terracotta tiles. A topless girl removes hair from her body aided by a small mirror. Pablo looks down and is appalled by what he sees: during the night and totally unnoticed, someone has painted dozens of large flowers on the surface of the overpass. Pablo gets really upset, he’s been mocked. He’s losing control. He smokes a cigarette to calm down. And drinks a coffee. He’s calmed down now; after all, he knows that come nightfall the melancholic brunette will be pounding steak and crying.
Marcio Kogan